In H’lim’s lab, he found H’lim and Abbot tinkering with the temperature controls of an empty incubator on a workbench screened from the rest of the lab and from the one bug he’d planted, by a noise partition. H’lim was shoving a notepad under Abbot’s nose, the screen lit. “In the Teleod, both luren and human-stock people are legally enfranchised, and this is the genetic tag they look for to determine stock. You have it, so you should have no trouble with the courts.”
He’s lying. Why is he lying? Why do I think he’s lying? Titus had never been one to suspect others of prevarication, but he could not shake this conviction. Simultaneously, he filed away the datum that Teleod was a political alliance, not a chemical term, and in the Teleod legal enfranchisement was a matter of genetics, not loyalties. The lessons of Nazi Germany sprang to mind, but he put aside his suddenly dark suspicions and strode forward.
Without looking up, Abbot said, “You’re early, Titus.”
H’lim thrust his pad at Titus. “Look!”
H’lim’s pad screen was divided into five areas. In the center, four colorful molecular models were superimposed over each other in three dimensions. Around it, each of the four curled helices was displayed alone.
H’lim pointed as he explained with real enthusiasm, “This is you; here’s Abbot; here’s a textbook example of human, and here’s me. I have orls, too, but this pad is too small. I haven’t translated any galactic races into your coordinates yet, but just by inspection I can tell you that you and your humans have some peculiar anomalies. Other than being oddly suggestible, your humans might be the find of a lifetime for me.” He pointed at various parts of the screen. “I’ve never seen or read about anything like this-or this-or even this! Once I discover what traits are linked here, and there-and this one, too-I may actually have found the single most marketable commodity on Earth. And Titus, I assure you, I am the one who can best market it.”
Abbot turned, gesturing with the probe he’d been wielding. “Now do you see that I’ve been right all along?”
Triumph, and Mirelle’s blood, had glossed over Abbot’s hunger, but Titus saw an ashen tinge of exhaustion in him even before he noticed the way the probe vibrated with his hand’s uncontrollable shaking. He’s on the edge, and it’s partly my doing. His efforts to stop Abbot had only amounted to harassment and inconvenience, with his mistakes adding a modicum of busywork, but all together it had taken a toll on his father and Titus felt a luren’s guilt for that.
Absorbed in his models, H’lim mused aloud, “This may account for the suggestibility of humans, though why it should vary so much, I don’t know. Can you get me a specimen from Inea? And one from Mirelle? Comparing the strongest with the weakest, perhaps-”
“It’s Mirelle’s weakness I’ve come to discuss,” Titus interrupted. “Her exceptional weakness today.”
“She’ll recover,” declared Abbot.
“What?” asked H’lim, yanked out of his reasoning.
“I intend it should be so,” said Titus.
H’lim backed off a way, suddenly sensing the cold tension, advanced to set the net bag on the counter beside Abbot’s tools. It sagged open, partially revealing the contents, which he recognized. “Inea half carried Mirelle to my room. She fainted on the floor. What if someone else had found her and taken her to the infirmary? In the name of the Law of Blood, take what your son offers. Use it. Let her recover.”
Abbot’s fingers rested thoughtfully on the packets. “My son. Truly my son again, at last?”
He met Abbot’s eyes and yearned with all his soul to say yes. The moment stretched unendurably as his lips almost formed the word. He felt the first tentative stirring of Abbot’s power, offering the enfolding warmth of a parental welcome, stirring the depths of his being. The tentative joy dancing in his father’s eyes, the scream of hope poised at the edge of his Influence, and the ache in Abbot’s soul at the loss of his son-an ache Titus, only recently a parent himself, could now understand-all combined to show Titus that Abbot had two distinct objectives in coming to the Project: to save Earth’s luren by getting their message out, and to win Titus back from the darkness, to do his parental duty by his son whom he loved as any luren would.
Yes! The word pushed up from his heart, threatening to explode from his throat. But there was the vision of Mirelle sagging helplessly in Inea’s grip.
With a wordless cry of anguish, Titus broke away from Abbot’s seductive gaze and fled, running into the corridor and not stopping until he got to the lift where he fetched up against the closed doors and pounded his fists against them. It was only sheer dumb luck that nobody saw, and that he recovered before the security camera swept across him.
Facing his own apartment door, he straightened his clothes and smoothed his expression, suddenly realizing that for all the pain still surging through him, he felt uncommonly good about himself for the first time in a very long time. He had done his filial duty. I feel good about starving so Abbot can feed? God, I must be insane. But there it was, a tremendous release of tension he hadn’t felt until it was gone. I can’t fight him. I can’t win against this because it’s inside me.
But he also knew that he couldn’t win as long as his own son opposed him-and had won Abbot over with lies. Yet if he had been in H’lim’s place, he would have done the same. He couldn’t blame the luren.
Squaring his shoulders, he went in to confront Inea. She was spooning soup into Mirelle, who was propped up in bed, eyes drooping half shut. She was wearing one of Titus’s pullovers now, cuffs rolled into massive donuts around her wrists. Inea looked up. “I went and got my ration. And I’ve given her two of the pills. I’ll take her home in a while-if you think I should.”
The implication was, If it’s safe. Titus answered her unvoiced question. “I don’t know, Inea. But there’s no choice. She doesn’t belong here.”
He didn’t feel awkward discussing Mirelle like this because there seemed to be a dull film over her awareness, the cumulative effect of heavy Influence. How Abbot had avoided detection so long, Titus didn’t know. But both he and Abbot knew it was too dangerous a game to play now. Or if Abbot didn’t know it, H’lim would convince him of it.
In a heavy silence, he helped Inea prepare Mirelle and then take her to her own room, which was a tumbled mess, tangible evidence of depression and enervation. There wasn’t even a threshold barrier, so diffuse was her presence. But Titus could sense the dregs of Abbot’s presence-bitter, savage dregs summoning images of what had occurred here. That almost turned his self-satisfaction to self-hatred. While Mirelle fell into a heavy sleep, they straightened up the place as best they could, then left her alone.
Back in Titus’s apartment, Inea stripped the bed and remade it while Titus went to the refectory to get his own rations. They worked together with only casual comments on what they were doing, as if the deeper subject was a glowing coal, too hot to touch. But while Inea was nibbling on the last crusts of the inadequate meal, she asked point blank, “How long until you’ll have to take my blood?”
Startled, Titus recoiled, “What?”
“You heard me.” Her expression shifted. “You weren’t thinking-of taking from someone else without telling me? Titus, I won’t permit it.”
He laughed out loud. He couldn’t help it. After all the grave, grim tension of the last few hours, the image of a human woman sitting over his kitchen table, eating his rations, wearing his Mark, and dictating terms to him in a “be reasonable” tone was just too much.
Catching the edge of hysteria in his laughter, she frowned. “What’s the matter with you?”
“I wouldn’t think of disobeying you,” he said through a veil of chuckles, and suddenly, she understood the irony and together they laughed uproariously.