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.”
I was right and Abbot was flat wrong. They’ll come to Earth and exterminate us like vermin, and never tell us why.
Titus doubted Earth really was this mysterious planet of telepathic spies. Dreaming couldn’t be that exotic a talent. But as long as H’lim believed it was, he wouldn’t risk the anti-luren laws of the galaxy. He put his other hand over H’lim’s. “Abbot doesn’t care about the Taurus window or my targeting program now. He knows that to cross the galaxy, your ship had to use a spaeewarp, not a straight line, which means he doesn’t need the Taurus window, so never mind the window closing for the Eighth—gone to the Eighth!”
“Across the surface? In sunlight?”
“Abbot can do anything he sets his mind to.” The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed. “He’s been planning this for days. He Influenced the hiding place of the transmitter out of me the morning after we lost the landline to the Eighth. He must have found out I got his observatory transmitter, though how he’d know his message never went out.” He shrugged.
“He’s your First Father. You understand him. Go on.”
“If we’re across the galaxy, it’ll take a long time for an answer, so he’s decided the secessionists have to win the war, which is the reason he framed you. He killed Mirelle so he’d have the strength to cross the surface, but he framed you for it, so the W.S. would lose the war.”
H’lim nodded. “If I’m really a monster, then my backers are discredited and the W.S. falls. But why? Why would he want that?”
“If the W.S. wins, order will be restored because it can run the world. But if the handful of small countries that have seceded win, they’ll lose control. Economic and political chaos will break up the giant databases that interfere with Tourist activities.”
“I see. He’s playing for very high stakes. He must feel he’s sacrificing minor game pieces-Mirelle-and me.”
“And me!” He’d have planned another trap to keep Titus busy, which meant using Inea as bait somehow.
Titus remembered the look on her face that morning when H’lim had shown them the booster. “Mirelle! That’s what Inea had in mind!” Titus slewed his chair about to face H’lims vidcom. “Did you show her how to use the booster?”
“A few days ago. How did you know?”
“Oh, I know that woman’s face! I should have realized. Not that it would have done any good. She never does what I tell her to! Why’s this taking so long!”
“Calm down. The tonic has speeded up your synapses. We’ve only been speaking for a few minutes.”
Checking the time, he saw it was so. The gym records came onscreen, showing Inea and Mirelle had been in the centrifuge, but had quit early. Mirelle had been in bad shape. He hit EXIT. “She was in Mirelle’s room when Abbot arrived. She’d given Mirelle the booster. Abbot would have been livid at her transgressing his Mark.” He turned haunted eyes on his luren son. “H’lim, would he have killed her, too?”