Abbot’s frames stick. He probably framed H’lim for the enzyme theft, too. “We’ve got to think. What would he expect you to do when you found the body? That’s what we must not do This is not at all like Abbot-not in a closed community where he can’t change identities and disappear. What’s driven him to this? What’s his objective?”

“That’s easy,” said H’lim and went to the disused kitchen cabinet where Titus had hidden the transmitter. He brought out the casserole and removed the lid, displaying its emptiness. “Yes I thought so. Somehow, he’s planning to send that damn message anyway!”

Titus blinked. He’d never heard H’lim swear before. “How did you know about Abbot’s probe transmitter being in there?”

“You left your spoor all through this room when you hid it. All I had to do was follow it to discover what you’d planted.”

I thought I was so clever. He lets me in all the time. How could he tell that one time from all the others? But he asked, “So how did Abbot know the transmitter was here?”

As soon as he asked the question, Titus knew. He buried his face in his hands. “It’s all my fault. He tricked me!” The memory, transparent as a ghost, floated through the periphery of his mind: Abbot asking with incisive Influence and Titus babbling out the whole story of his trip to the probe, and his hiding the transmitter. I never should have let him use Influence on me! Not even to fake autonomic responses for the new medical anti-hypnotic conditioning.

“No, it’s not all your fault. He tricked me, too. Not a flicker, not a twinge, but he knew all the time!”

Titus raised his head. “Knew what?”

“That humans dream.”

The whole long list of questions Titus had been concocting moments before came surging back to the forefront of his mind, but what he said made no sense even to him. “Dreaming tent volitional. So it must be genetic?”

“Titus,” said H’lim as if the question were not nonsense, “there’s no time to explain it all right now. Later, I promise. But right now everything’s changed.” He glanced at the closed bathroom door. “That message must not go out, not where Abbot’s going to send it with your targeting data!”

“Because humans dream? My targeting is wrong because humans dream, and that’s why all of a sudden you’re willing to be marooned here instead of getting rich, and of course, logically, Abbot had to kill Mirelle in your bathroom.” My God. My God in Heaven! Titus’s eyes were fixed on the bathroom door, a nightmarish feeling swelling up inside him as the image of body fragments clad in black lace and oozing blood floated before his eyes.

Some oddly detached corner of his mind told him glibly that now he knew how Inea felt all the time she was fighting off understanding of what he had become-had always been.

I must do something fast . . hurry. something. anything! Mirelle’s in there, dead because I couldn’t keep her out of Abbot’s clutches because humans dream. You see, I’m a scientist and all of this makes perfect sense! He was aware that his eyelids were peeled back too far and his mouth was open.

With forced human mannerisms, H’lim brought a flask out of the refrigerator and poured two glasses of a thin, orange liquid reeking of orl blood. “Drink this.”

“What is it? I can’t-”

“Stripped orl blood with a dozen enzymes, nutrients, and a stimulant. Taste it. It won’t hurt you. You need it. You’re hysterical.”

Hysterical? Hardly. But his hands curled around the glass. It was not as repellent as plain orl blood. It seemed to evaporate into his sinuses, exploding into his brain. He’d had nothing like it since he’d died. He drank down half of it and was surprised to find his mind clearing.

“Drink it slowly,” advised H’lim, “so it won’t make you hungry. I’ve no blood here.” He sat down opposite Titus, cradling his glass. “These are the immediate questions. What is Abbot planning to do with the transmitter? What did he expect me to do when I found the body? What can we do to stop Abbot?”

“He’s going to transmit the message, and he wants you tied UP here so you can’t stop him, which means you could stop him. How? And why?”

“Now I know where I am, I know Earth is interdicted.”

“You know where you are?”

“On the other side of the galaxy from where we were supposed to go!” he snapped. “If Abbot sends that message I wrote, the luren species may well be exterminated. And if the Teleod and the Metaji fight for possession of Earth’s dreamers Earth itself may have to be destroyed. Earth’s humans are as dangerous to galactic order as luren. Maybe worse. I think from what Abbot said-he plans to buy the Tourists a place in galactic affairs by selling Influenced humans as spies.”

“You’ve told Abbot more than you’ve told me.”

“No, just a chance remark about a planet way across the galaxy-I thought! I don’t know how I could be here, but I should have known just from the genetics. I should have guessed! But your genes are classified top secret, so of course I’ve never seen anything like them. No, I can’t go home. I wouldn’t dare communicate with anyone! With what I know now, they’d.”

As H’lim trailed off, Titus’s eyes swept back to the closed bathroom door. He’d been right all along to distrust H’lim, but H’lim had in fact been innocent of duplicity. “What chance remark? It’s important, H’lim. I have to know what Abbot knows-and doesn’t know-if you want me to figure his moves.” He glanced at the hall door. “We’ll have only one chance to get out of here. If we walk into one of Abbot’s booby traps-”

The luren twisted to gaze at the bathroom. “Discussing an old Genentech article on genetic engineering, I told him planetary scale bioengineering had been outlawed millennia ago, and only two such planets survive, both failures: our own and one on the edge of the galaxy that harbors a race of powerful telepaths who can’t tap their power alone. Asleep, they involuntarily recapitulate the day’s events, though in fragmented and broken symbols when not linked to the right receiver.

“Their planet is under interdict because, linked to the right receiver, the people they were engineered to link with, they make great spies. Everything experienced by the sleeper that day is uploaded into the receiver’s mind. And with a telepathic link on that level of consciousness, there’s no distance limit. We had been discussing the current galactic war and Earth’s achieving peace with its consequent loss of practical standing armies, and I mentioned that such a spy could be placed within the tactical planning councils of one side and be untraceably passing information to the tacticians of the opposing side.

“Abbot replied, That’s interesting. On Earth, reliable spies are valuable.” On Kylyd I finally understood what he’d meant; that Earth’s luren could sell humans as reliable spies. In retrospect, it seems obvious that he would think that way, knowing that humans “dream,” and knowing that there is only one planet where this occurs.“

Current galactic war! Telepaths! What else had H’lim discussed with Abbot that he’d never mentioned to Titus? The thousand questions clamored in the back of his mind, but there really was no time for that now. “Is there anything Abbot doesn’t know?”

“That it won’t work. This interdict is the strictest law on record, the only one obeyed everywhere,” said H’lim, then lost the facade of Earth culture as he added, “except for the laws controlling us.”

Titus pounced on that. “What controlling law!”

He refused to squirm under Titus’s challenge, but his Influence betrayed him. Yet he needed Titus’s help now, and when he spoke, it was pure truth. “That we may not, as you know, take sustenance from any but the orl, nor use Influence on any but orl, nor interbreed with any race on penalty of death for breeder and offspring alike.” He lunged across the table to grab Titus’s hand as if to stay a blow. “Listen! I know we could have gotten around the law, considering the immense value of this unique genepool! I had no idea where I was! Titus, Abbot’s message must not go out.”