"Not yet," replied Colby. "So I don"t want you stuck in sick bay, a high profile target. I"d rather have you moving around and working, not sleeping in your own apartment. I"m putting a decoy guard on your door, and another pair to follow you around, but that might not help."

Abbot turned to t.i.tus. "The two centrifuge attendants were knocked out. Expertly. The damage was done very crudely. The a.s.sa.s.sin doesn"t know computers or machinery."

"But he was strong," added Colby. "Very, very strong. Ripped out fail-safe boards by force. And clever. Not a clue to his ident.i.ty. We"ll not underestimate him again."

t.i.tus ignored the searing ache in his body. "I flatly refuse to be put under guard." Oh, s.h.i.t. Wrong approach.

"I"m afraid you have no choice-at least until we catch this "b.a.s.t.a.r.d," as you so aptly put it."

t.i.tus went to Colby, summoning all his patience, trying not to think about hunger. "Carol, look, I don"t want to resign over a matter of principle that has nothing to do with my work here. I"ll accept a guard on my door. But don"t put a tail on me. One of the guards could be the hitman."

"Brink"s? Not likely, but I"m rechecking everyone. t.i.tus, if I you get murdered-especially after this warning-it may as well be me in the coffin. Listen, we have professionals in these matters here and on Earth. You don"t have to worry. Your guards will be screened. You"re going to be safer than anyone else on the station."

Inea said, "I"ve an idea. Give t.i.tus another apartment for tonight-Abbot"s or yours, Dr. Colby, or any vacant one. He"ll drop out of sight until the reporters leave, then we can trap the a.s.sa.s.sin using a ringer for t.i.tus."

Colby ran a hand over her face. "The timing of this attack was no accident. The terrorists wanted to divert those reporters from anything good we have to show them. And without t.i.tus, the Project would really be crippled. They"d argue it"s hopeless to send the probe out at all. If that"s their game, they"ll attack again while the press is here."

"Good," said Inea. "Then we only have to live with this for a few hours. You can have extra plainclothes guards around during the demonstration in t.i.tus"s lab. But leave him alone in the meantime, and he can get lost. This is not a small place, and there"s probably only one a.s.sa.s.sin on the station. I mean, how could security have slipped up twice?"

"Well, if there was a vacant apartment. But we"re moving people out and tripling up in order to squeeze the reporters in for a night."

"t.i.tus can have my place for the duration," offered Abbot. "I"ll take his. n.o.body would mistake me for him."

Oh, no you don"t! He"d never find all the bugs Abbot would leave behind. How am I going to get out of this?

Inea was looking at him strangely. Suddenly, she said, "For that matter, who"d confuse me with t.i.tus? And it"s less remarkable for a woman to invade a man"s bedroom-than for another man to just. well, move in. I mean, neither of them has that sort of reputation. Here, switch with me." She dug her key out of a hip pocket and shoved it at t.i.tus. "After all, I owe you something for putting my copyright on my program."

Colby agreed to the plan, but the medics insisted on a battery of tests before letting him go. Colby"s parting remark proved she accepted t.i.tus"s claim to health. "I"ll expect a full report on my desk in four days-everything you noticed before and during the incident."

Abbot turned at the door and, cloaking his words, asked, "You"re sure you can handle the humans now?"

"Of course," he replied cheerfully. "They got the jump on me when I was unconscious. Thanks for the rescue. I"m in your debt."

"No." He shrugged. "Merely a parent"s duty." He left.

Glumly t.i.tus turned from the closing door. Abbot had only been obeying luren law, keeping humans from discovering too much. There was no affection in him.

t.i.tus couldn"t brood over his feelings about Abbot. He had to gather all his strength for the ensuing challenge. The medics weighed and measured him, scrutinized his private parts, poked and prodded and attached electrodes, and made him lie on cold tables while slow scanners floated around him.

All of this had been done countless times before, and if Connie"s agents" work on the computer records still stood, the results would be the same this time. But t.i.tus had to stay alert, misdirecting, twisting and averting suspicion. These doctors were no ordinary clinicians. They had worked on luren and orl corpses. The trained medical mind never forgot anything and continually integrated new data.

By now, both doctors were haunted by a nightmarish deja vu when they considered t.i.tus, Abbot, or the aliens. When the Influenced memories finally surfaced, they might well raise a hue and cry. But before then, Abbot will kill them. It was universal luren policy-Tourist and Resident alike. They had to protect their secret or be exterminated. But Residents tried to recruit the suspicious, not kill them-a risk the Tourists found unconscionable.

So t.i.tus labored to convince the doctors they"d found nothing unusual. Contusions and abrasions aside, he was very lucky. And that"s all it was-luck.

But their disturbed subconsciouses had to fasten on something, so when they suggested he see the Nutritionist about his Wood pressure and diet, he capitulated, letting them believe they"d done their medical duty. Then they handed him his package with the gold Thermos which he"d left in a gym locker, and escorted him to the Nutritionist.

He regretted it the moment he stepped into the woman"s domain. She was a portly, middle-aged expert with a dictatorial stance, and a face like a bull dog. "I"m Dr. Dorchester, and I"ve studied your data with great care. I think we can get you off medication in two months if you"ll follow my regimen-and stop missing meals."

She punched her orders into the kitchen computers so his meal card wouldn"t bring him any forbidden substances. "And you"ve got to increase your calcium intake to one and a half times normal. Do you understand that, t.i.tus?"

"Yes, of course. I will."

"You"re too young for such problems. There"s no excuse for it. You"re certainly not overweight. So you must eat properly, and get more exercise. Then, as soon as you"re off medication, I want you to get out in the solarium, not tanning, just a little sun. But you"ll have to be careful despite your complexion. You can get skin cancer."

"I know." He listened to her lecture on campus living being too sedentary while campus politics produced too much anxiety. Then he accepted her advice eagerly. When he finally escaped, he was exhausted. He wondered if even Carol Colby could stand up to Dorchester.

Free at last, he made his way to his apartment on rubbery legs. He nodded to the guard who wore the Brink"s uniform with the Project Hail patch. Then, hiding the shaking of his fingers, he tucked the Thermos package under one arm and triggered the door signal. Come on, Inea.

The guard said, "Pardon, Doctor, but I was told-"

"I know. But the object of the game is to be where I"m not expected to be, no?" He rapped on the door, harder than he"d intended. Inea!

"But Brink"s doesn"t make mistakes-"

"Yes, of course." His teeth were clenched together, but t.i.tus strove to sound pleasant. "The lady is home, isn"t she?" Her aura was so strong he could taste it.

"Perhaps she"s sleeping?" suggested the guard.

Inea opened the door. In her left hand she held the vial of his blood pressure medication which he"d left on the table. In her other hand were several tablets. "Rip the door off the hinges, why don"t you."

He squeezed past her. "It"s a hatch, not a door." She shut it and followed him to the kitchenette. "Why do you always do that? Just when I"m all consumed with sympathy for your plight, you make me crazy mad!"

He splashed water into his pitcher and shoved it into the microwave, then unwrapped the Thermos. "I"m sorry. I"m a little crazy myself right now."

As he turned toward her, she stifled an exclamation, then discarded the pills on the table and pulled out the chair. "Sit down! You"re not as well as you were pretending to be, are you? Why did they let you go then?"

He just looked at her.

"Oh," she said, eyes round. "Your whammy."

"I had to get out of there."

"Well, so I"d figured when I heard what had happened. That"s why I bullied my way in. to help you-you-"

"Go ahead, call me names if it will help." He rummaged in a cabinet for a packet of crystals, fighting off the idea that Abbot was right about the artificial blood. Luren biology demanded more.

She picked up the vial again and toyed with the pills. "No. I outgrew name-calling years ago. I"ve had a while to think about this-this ma.s.s of contradictions you"ve handed me. Maybe you haven"t lied to me, but you haven"t told me the whole truth, have you? You"re scared witless, aren"t you?"

She"s fishing. She doesn"t know about Abbot. "Witless? That"s not name-calling?"

Wearily, she answered, "You trying to pick a fight? Because you keep it up, you"re going to succeed. I"m only asking you to level with me. Are you afraid-so afraid of something that you"d rather offend me than face it?"

The microwave bleeped, and he fetched the Thermos and dumped in crystals and water. With his back to her, he answered, "Isn"t there any way to get through to you?"

He turned, aware that his face and stance revealed too much. "I"m not dealing with just ordinary hunger here. I went dormant-as if I"d died. But only for a very little while. Stilla" I"m starving."

Suddenly, there were tears in her eyes. "I"m such a sucker! You always do this to me. I"ve never met a man who could do this to me like you do. But as soon as my guard is down, you"re going to hit me where it hurts most-aren"t you? What will it be this time?"

"What do you mean?"

"You"re going to sleep with me, even marry me next year sometime, but you won"t live with me. You"re going to give my career a big boost by using my program on a media event-but you a.s.sign me to a hardware tech"s duties instead of writing programs with you. You"re unconscious, and I come running to save your precious secret ident.i.ty-and you call me the worst kind of materialist right in public. Now you plead dire starvation and I can"t stand the sight of you suffering, and I"ll do anything you ask-and what are you going to do to me next?"

She"s right. I"m as cruel as Abbot.

He poured some of the dead blood into the gold mug. His raging hunger refused to focus on the thick liquid. He carried it toward her, gathering her hands to it. "All right," he told her, "what I"m going to do to you next is tell you most of the whole truth."

Her precious ectoplasm was not flowing gloriously into the blood medium. She was barriered against him.

"You"re going to tell me what you"re so afraid of?"

He shut his eyes. He felt her ectoplasmic envelope reaching out toward him, but then it recoiled. Savagery boiled up in him, and he knew real fear-fear that he"d disgrace himself utterly. I should have gone to Abbot. A luren has to have luren blood on wakening from dormancy. But he had been able to hide his condition from Abbot-or Abbot would be here now. And Abbot had known he"d been dormant-he had to have known. But from such a short dormancy, surely he wasn"t in any danger of going feral?

Suppose Abbot suspects I"ll go to Inea, and he wants that because he wants a feral edge on me? It would be typical of Abbot. Perhaps he intends to show up when I"ve admitted neither the blood nor Inea will help this hunger?

But he wouldn"t take Abbot"s blood. He simply, flatly refused to give the Tourist any further power over him.

He opened his eyes, his mind suddenly feverishly clear. "This life forces me to contend with fears I"d never dreamed of before. I have the power to make you offer me what I need. And to make you enjoy it. I"ve sworn not to. but I"m tempted. And I"m afraid of that temptation. Worse, I"m afraid I"ll use ordinary words to get you to help me. And worse yet, I"m terrified if I don"t do either, you won"t help me. I believe you will but I"m afraid you won"t. Does that make sense?"

She raised the mug. "Here, drink." But there was no tendril of ectoplasm, no energy infusing the chemical.

Chapter eleven.

He cradled her hands in his. "No, that won"t help. I need your love, and your trust. I didn"t know how cruel I was. You"re right, I haven"t been regarding you as a person. I"ve been making decisions for you with information I kept from you. Trust me now, and I"ll give you that information."

"You"re shaking."

He closed his eyes, the bright light in the apartment making him see blood red. "Waiting for you is very hard." G.o.d! What happens if I break? What happens if I go for her throat? Oh, please, no! Petrified by that vision, he hardly noticed when her hardness dissolved and tendrils of ectoplasm grew toward the blood between her hands.

"Waiting for you is very hard, too, Darrell, t.i.tus, and whoever else you may become. Drink before it gets cold."

She pressed the mug against his lips and he felt the warmth that was more than temperature. Stooping, he accepted the gift, leashing back the clumsy greed that drove him.

Draining the mug, he enfolded her in his arms and kissed her. She didn"t even complain about the blood on his lips.

At last, dizzy with the enticing promise of repletion, but still hungering as never before, he drew back, aware to his very bone marrow how precious she was to him. "We can"t stay here. Come to your apartment with me."

She glanced at the Thermos still more than half full. "If you were all that hungry, you must need more."

"I do. I got the Thermos to take it to your place. We have time now. G.o.d knows what"s going to happen tomorrow."

She pulled a tissue out of the wall dispenser and scrubbed her lips, looking at the discarded tablets on the table. "Go brush your teeth."

She herded him toward the bathroom, but he saw the package he"d ordered delivered sitting on the table beside the refill of his prescription. Inea had opened the refill, not the old empty bottle. He took his package. "Got you something." With ritual protests, she accepted the lingerie and toiletries as the apology he meant it to be. Handing her the toothbrush, he said, "Here, join me."

"All right. But-oh-Carol left you a message."

Over the sink, he mumbled, "Message?"

She garbled back, "Listen. Just before I got Carol"s message, I saw that those pills of yours are labeled wrong. I know. My dad used to take those."

Spitting, t.i.tus charged back into the other room and picked up the bottle. She called around the door frame, "See? They don"t have the little lines quartering them. If you"ve been taking them, you could be very sick."

"I don"t take them! The prescription is just to get me exempted from the solarium. I can"t stand sun, remember?" But if someone was trying to poison him, they"d be wondering why he wasn"t dead. And if they found out why. Inea came out asking how he"d fooled the medics, and he answered, "I told you, we have some people who are clever with computer records."

She jiggled a handful of tablets. "Well, your first refill wasn"t right, either. Carol said they"d checked the pharmacy and found your pills were still there, and an equal amount of something innocuous was missing. So they and the a.s.sa.s.sin think you"d been off your medication for weeks before going into that centrifuge. They wonder why you"re not dead. They"re rushing your medication to my room."

He threw the bottle down. "We"d better get going." He grabbed another kiss as he closed the Thermos.

She pulled him up short. "Carol told me both attendants died, but they said the a.s.sa.s.sin was very slender and dressed in a ninja costume. If there"s a real ninja out there."

It gave him pause. He had minimal training in the use of his luren abilities in combat with humans. "Costumes are cheap. If the attendants interrupted a real ninja, they wouldn"t have survived five seconds. Besides, a real ninja wouldn"t have been discovered. In fact, I doubt if a real ninja would have plotted to poison me and then stage an "accident." That"s gangland stuff, not serious martial art."

"I hope you"re right."

He handed her the Thermos. "Here, it"ll help if you carry this." The gold plastic and foam insulation of the Thermos was as permeable to ectoplasm as its plastic mug.

Watching all around them, t.i.tus led her into a lift and directed it to the level where they could cross to her dome.

Alone with him in the lift, Inea asked, "It"s that Abbot Nandoha, isn"t it? He"s the one you"re so scared of. Every time he"s around, you do something peculiar. He"s certainly thin. Could he have been the ninja?"

In his shock, he laughed out loud.

"I thought you said you"d level with me."

t.i.tus sucked in his laughter, realizing it had more than a tinge of hysteria to it. But the image of Abbot dressed up as a ninja was just too much. "Abbot"s part of what I have to fill you in on," he confessed. "But not here."

His legs were still weak he noticed as the lift pulled to a halt. She led the way into an adjacent car bound for her level. It was full, so they couldn"t talk.

At her door, she had to remind him, "You have the key."

He fumbled it out of his pocket, and triggered the mechanism. The strong feel of her permeated the s.p.a.ce like a song. On her bed was a pharmacy package. As she closed the door, a sudden thought forced him to ask, "Did you ever invite Abbot here?"

"No, of course not-why. ?" She stopped in her tracks. "He"s a vampire? That"s why you"re so afraid of him? That doesn"t make sense."

"Think hard-have you ever said anything he might construe as an invitation?"

"No. He"s a genius in his field, but I loathe the man."

He shut his eyes over the draining relief.

"Here-sit down." She shoved the pharmacy package onto the floor. "You should be in the infirmary." He sat on the end of the bed, and she settled beside him, unscrewed the mug from the Thermos and filled it. Putting the Thermos on the floor, she held the mug and breathed on it. "So tell me about Abbot."