"Inea," he interrupted. "I was in my coffin. I crashed the car. I was sitting right next to you. And I died."
Clearly, she thought him insane. "Look, I don"t recall a thing from that night until I woke up in the hospital and they told me I had a concussion but could go home for your funeral. But now you"re alive. And you"re no Jesus Christ! Obviously, it wasn"t you in the car with-"
"I was in the car. I died. I"m a vampire."
There was sympathy under her dismay now, the kind of sympathy reserved for the hopelessly deluded.
"Do you want me to prove it? Or would you prefer to nurse your doubt until the evidence mounts and you can"t deny it anymore?"
"How could you possibly prove you"re a vampire? Turn into a bat and flutter about the room?"
He laughed. He hadn"t expected such a challenge, yet he should have. He had thought of himself as a vampire so long, that he had forgotten the myths surrounding his kind.
"What"s so funny?"
"The conservation laws! Basic biology! Shape change is impossible. And I ma.s.s nearly ninety kilos. Have you ever seen a bat that big? Inea, idiot-love, it couldn"t fly!"
"Idiot-love?!"
It was his oldest endearment for her. But she was a scientist now. "Inea, I didn"t mean-I"m sorry."
"No-it was kind of a stupid thing to say. You really believe you"re a vampire? There"s a disease-"
"But victims of it don"t get it by rising from the dead. And that"s what happened to me."
"So you walk at night and suck young maidens" blood?"
Facetiously, he corrected her. "They don"t have to be so young, and maidenhood isn"t a requisite."
She shifted tactics. "Listen, if it"s kinky s.e.x you want, you"d better find yourself another-"
"Oh, shut up!" he snapped.
She folded into herself, shocked.
Contrite, he offered, "I"m sorry. I shouldn"t have-I mean, I guess I"m just sensitive because-how I live-" Miserably, he finished, "Maybe I just haven"t made my own peace with it yet. They say it takes more than a century."
"Century! G.o.d! You really believe it. But you look normal-a little pale, a bit underweight maybe, but normal."
"I am normal. For me."
"And you expect me to believe you"re a vampire? I can see you reflected in the vidcom screen."
"Of course I reflect. I"m solid flesh and blood." It would be easier just to Influence her to believe. But he couldn"t. He had to convince her completely and honestly, and get her free will promise of silence.
"The legends are wrong, but you"re a vampire? Darrell, what kind of a game is this? Are you into espionage?"
"My name is t.i.tus Shiddehara. I had to change it because Darrell Raaj died-legally, anyway. So please call me t.i.tus. It could be dangerous for me if you don"t."
"But you really are the famous astrophysicist? You"re not subst.i.tuting for him?"
"Yes, I"m really t.i.tus Shiddehara. After I. awakened . . and was on my feet again, I went on to college just like I"d planned. Only my name and. lifestyle. has changed."
"All the proof I have is your a.s.sertion. Vampires are supposed to wither at the sight of crucifixes. Maybe I could find a Catholic and-"
"I don"t wither before crucifixes or any religious object. I"m not evil. I told you, I don"t kill humans, virgins or otherwise. And I wasn"t created by the devil."
"Then why do you call yourself a vampire?" "Because my body can regenerate after injuries that would kill a man. Because I can"t live on food, but have to have blood. I have other powers."
"Powers? What powers?"
He considered carefully. If there ever could be anything real between them again, he had to be honest now. "I can make you think I can turn into a bat, or smoke, or anything. I can control animals, even wolves." He searched her eyes, watching for rejection. "I can control you."
"Now we"re getting somewhere!" She leaped to her feet and opened the bathroom door to reveal a full-length mirror. "Remember how I could never let myself be hypnotized? W.S. had a tough time with my security clearance because of it. You go ahead and make me think you"ve turned into a bat that doesn"t reflect in this mirror, and I"ll believe you."
It"s not the same as using Influence to make her believe me. Still, he felt wrong about it.
"I"m waiting."
She had to believe or her promise of silence would be only a joke to her, not a solemn vow. Or worse yet, she"d consider it her duty to him to have him committed. "Okay."
He exerted Influence, testing her resistance. She was strong, but not remarkably so. In a puff of smoke, he became for her a medium-sized bat that fluttered at her head, squeaking, but not reflecting in the mirror.
She flung up her arms and ducked, then peeked up at the mirror. Stunned, she gaped at the empty desk chair.
Getting into the drama of it, t.i.tus went to the middle of the room, summoned a memory of an old Dracula film, then had the bat fly over to his new location, whirl into smoke, and coalesce into a black-caped figure in evening dress. Swirling the cape magnificently to show off its ruby lining, he gave her a courtly bow.
When he rose, she slumped into a faint, floating downwards in the meager gravity.
He dropped the illusion, and knelt beside her, taking her head in his lap. He straightened her body, wanting to chafe her hands and pat her cheeks to wake her up, but knowing that he only wanted to alleviate his own anxiety. She"d come out of it when her blood pressure normalized. The longer it took, the more time her mind would have had to adjust, the better it would be for her. So he cradled her in his arms with a terrible tenderness, surrendering to curious shudders of pleasure.
He didn"t notice when her eyes fluttered open, but then she sighed deeply and murmured, "Darrell." Her memory surged back, and she shrank from him, starting to twist free of his grasp.
"Inea, it was just an illusion! Think! How could I have turned into a bat! That"s silly! It can"t be done."
"I saw what I saw." Influence always carried a sharp conviction that the senses gave absolute truth. Many humans, when finally convinced otherwise, went completely insane.
"Yes, you saw it. I"m not sure how this power works, but I do know that for you, it really happened." t.i.tus flinched away from the inherent contradictions between his physicist"s knowledge of how things worked, and the pragmatic facts of what he could do to people"s nervous systems.
"Do it again," she challenged, face hardened.
Astonished, he replied, "No. You"re not a toy, or even a laboratory animal, that I can play with your perceptions at my own whim or for my convenience. I"m never going to use that power on you again. I want you to know beyond any doubt that whatever you see, know, or feel is real."
He was lying by omission. No human on Project Station could trust any physical sense while Abbot was around. And Abbot would declare t.i.tus unLawful if he ever discovered what t.i.tus had done here or what he had yet to do. t.i.tus would have to keep Abbot ignorant of Inea. He couldn"t let Inea be stolen from him and marked like Mirelle and then used as a hostage. That"s what Abbot would do if he ever realized what Inea meant to t.i.tus.
At length, she announced, "You must be using some power to make me believe that promise."
"The power of love. The power of honesty. Nothing any human couldn"t use."
She studied him again. "Human. You"re not, are you?"
"Never was. Though my mother was human, my fathera" n my mother"s husband, but the man who begot me-wasn"t. And I"m not. I didn"t know that until I awakened. It was a terrible shock."
"I can imagine." She sat up, folding her legs into a full lotus and holding her head. "Why do I believe you?"
"I"m glad you do."
"Because you need someone to believe you?"
"No, because I need to convince you so you won"t ever mention this to anyone-not here, and not on Earth. Not anywhere, not ever. As I offer my promise, I need yours."
Her eyes opened wide. "Or you"ll throw a whammy on me so I can"t tell?"
Her reason almost obliterated by shock, she was still capable of that insight. His heart threatened to spill over with love. "That"s what I"m supposed to do," he choked out. "You can imagine why. If-humans-discovered us."
"How many of you are there?" He shrugged. "A couple thousand, no more."
"How many humans do they kill each year?"
"I don"t know. Not many. Since about 1850, killing humans has been a crime. It leads to pogroms against us. So the law is vigorously enforced."
This too was a half truth. Deaths of human stringers were investigated by the Death Committee, composed of both Tourists and Residents, but the Tourists usually claimed their stringers died naturally simply from being fed upon. Even if the stringers had been mildly abused, the Tourists usually got away with it if they didn"t leave a mess to attract human attention. Marked stringers were possessions. "Inea, now we live mostly on manufactured blood. Our numbers are not increasing. We"re not a burden on humanity, and we"re not a threat. Your silence would not harm humanity."
"Why do I always believe you? I"m not a credulous person."
"No, but you"ve always known truth when you hear it. Look, pledge me your silence just until you discover that what I"ve told you is flatly untrue." What will I do when she discovers what I haven"t told her?
"You"ll take my naked word?"
"If you"ll take mine. Have I ever betrayed you?"
"You were alive. But you didn"t come back to marry me. You let me think you were dead. You let me go on as if you"d died. But you were alive! How could you-"
"They wouldn"t let me! It"s against our laws. I"d given my word to uphold that law. I had to. I needed the help of others of my. kind."
She melted. "It must have been awful for you."
"There were some bad moments." He got to his feet. "You haven"t promised."
"What will you do if I don"t?"
"I"ll walk out of here and never speak to you again in any personal way. I"ll be nothing but t.i.tus Shiddehara to you. And I"ll probably have to do my best to have you cashiered off the Project, just because I couldn"t stand being so near you and unable to touch you. I love you."
"And you"d use your power to make me forget who you really are?"
Slowly, deliberately, he shook his head. "I couldn"t. I just couldn"t bring myself to do that."
He knew it was true, and he also knew what stakes he was putting on the table. Earth"s whole luren community could be wiped out within a few years because of his scruples.
"What would keep me from blowing the whistle on you? Supposing, of course, that I could find proof?"
"Oh, I suppose you could find proof. You"re awfully clever. But what sense is there in releasing a b.l.o.o.d.y frenzy of fear and terror, a witch hunt that would burn thousands of humans along with most of us, when we aren"t a real threat, and there is a real problem demanding all our attention, the problem from out there?"
"What do you know about the aliens?"
"Not as much as I want to know. What do you know about them? You"re evading my question."
"I"ve given my pledge; I"m waiting for your promise."
"If you feel so sure my own common sense would keep me quiet, why do you insist I give you a promise?"
"To salve my conscience. I told you, I"m not supposed to let you walk around knowing what you now know and not, uh, gagged by a whammy." He avoided using luren terms because any accidental reference could betray her to Abbot. "Besides, knowing how hard it is to get promises to roll off your tongue, I think I trust your word more than my whammy." He had only exacted one other promise from her: marriage. And then he"d died two days before the actual ceremony.
She smiled nostalgically. "I haven"t forgotten all the times you proposed."
"I haven"t forgotten the one time you accepted."
"Are you going to hold me to it?"
Her expression became so neutral that if he hadn"t been listening with all his other senses, he wouldn"t have known she was throbbing with hope as well as dread.
"Inea, I think we have to renegotiate the contract. After all, even the wedding vows are only until death do us part-and it did. Surely that breaks an engagement, too. But we can start all over again."
"And this gag promise is only until I discover you"ve lied and your people are indeed a threat?"
"That"s all I"m asking."
Grimly, she replied, "That"s all you"re getting. But that much you do have. Agreed?"
"Agreed."
"Now what about the question you evaded? The aliens?"
"I"m going to continue to evade."
"Why?"
"Basically, to protect you."
"From?"
"I"ve already told you. I"ve broken a law for you. You"re walking around with a head full of knowledge you shouldn"t have, and no gag-whammy to keep you silent. One slip and we"re both in an awful lot of trouble."
"How much trouble?"
"Life or death for me. Being gagged for you."
"They wouldn"t kill me? For knowing?"