As they drew closer to the disabled pod, she became aware of the passenger’s consciousness. He didn’t know they were coming, and he alternated between fear and despair. She knew when he started to consider suicide. As soon as they came within range for spectral equipment, she began sending a recorded voice message. His receivers might be working even if his transmitters weren’t.
And she knew when he heard it.
Her growing sensitivity to the passenger was eclipsed only by her awareness of Zuchmul’s hunger. After his third refusal, she stopped pressing him to try the rations, and pointed out that the medical stores held various sorts of blood. He evaded until she pinned him down, then, checking that Idom was in the pilot’s seat, he drew her into the rear chamber of the pod, closing the hatch for privacy.
“Kyllikki, I admit that human blood is tempting, but most kinds would make me so ill they’d hardly be worth the bother. Legend has it that there are some kinds that are compatible, but if they exist, I don’t want to know about them.” He squirmed uncomfortably. “You know I have my—disagreements—with parts of the law governing luren. But there’s a good reason for the law forbidding us human blood.”
“But you’re starving.” It was her turn to be uncomfortable. “They say...I’ve heard....”
He moved closer, bracing one hand on the wall behind her. His powerful field of Influence flowed around him like a cloak, barely caressing her body, conveying a kind of sensuous relaxation rather than any sort of intrusion. He wasn’t using it on her. It was simply there, part of him, and intensely arousing. “My hunger is no danger to you or Idom or anyone. You have my word on that.”
Did her acceptance of that come from some insidious effect of his Influence? “Zuchmul, I’ve heard there have been times when luren have had to be hunted down by other luren—because they killed for human blood, and the human blood wasn’t poisoning them fast enough to stop them.”
He inspected his feet, then pushed back and folded his arms as he leaned on the wall next to her. “That could happen only if I died and you ignored the law and let me revive spontaneously. There is a rage to the hunger that comes then. I could kill you, then hunt humans and never know why I was starving. That’s the reason for the strict laws governing luren corpses.”
“I—I didn’t know.” Even in the Teleod, near the luren homeworld, this wasn’t common knowledge.
“It’s not something we’re proud of, or wish to advertise. If someone were tempted to gain control of a luren to use as a weapon...well...we don’t advertise how to go about it.”
His eyes, shielded by the filtering inserts, seemed unfocused, as if he were considering other frightening vulnerabilities of his kind that he wasn’t ready to reveal to her. “Kyllikki, it wasn’t too many generations ago that the galaxy was all set to destroy the Dreamers, the Eight Families, and us, so no one would be tempted to gain control of us and use us as weapons.
“But in the end, they let luren live under a law that is cruel and stupid in spots, but wise in others. And they interdicted the Dreamers, to make sure no member of the Families who carried the Bonding gene could ever get power over both a Dreamer and a luren, or a luren over a Bonder, or a Dreamer over us all, and there would never be another Triumvirate, never another galactic holocaust. Even this war is nothing compared to that.” He turned his face to her.
She felt him lose interest in history, his Influence becoming a caress that transmuted hunger to passion. He murmured, “At least you and I are free in the galaxy. If the price is that I must never taste human blood, then I shall not. And the truth is, I don’t want to. There are other, more pleasant and less dangerous, ways to taste you.”
The need to kiss him burned in her chest. Oddly, something about the raw-edged intensity of that need was actually repellent. She lunged away from the corner, breaking the spell, then turned with a shrug. “I promised Idom I’d go check the instruments. You’re supposed to be studying the gravitic manuals.”
And how am I supposed to concentrate on that!
It wasn’t her thought. It was his. Jolted, she reinforced her mental barriers on all levels, and went to do the superfluous checking.
Some hours later, Zuchmul apologized. “What I said—about tasting you—was inappropriate. Consider it unsaid.”
“Without further thought,” she replied automatically, but his apology raised all kinds of questions she had no time to consider. They had arrived at the target area.
Without a beacon to home on, they had come only to the approximate position. Now they began searching.
After a time, she began to doubt her reconstruction of the data. Several times she was on the verge of telling them that she must have been wrong, that they’d have to give up, and each time the sense of the passenger’s mind stopped her. After long, back straining hours over the display screens, Idom jabbed a finger at a blip. “There! That’s it!”
He ran in the data directing the computer to dock them. The other pod lay inert, showing no emissions, apparently unable to link to their guidance computer for easy docking.
“Let’s just hope he doesn’t discover his maneuvering jets while you’re out there doing it manually!” said Zuchmul as he climbed into his vacuum suit to take the pilot’s place.
Idom and Kyllikki suited up and went to the rear chamber, where they’d found the oversize air lock with the docking-tube apparatus. The tube was a fabric cylinder reinforced with the same kind of fine mesh particle and magnetic insulation that made up Zuchmul’s protective gear. He might even be able to tolerate going outside into the tube, but they’d decided he’d do them the most good at the pilot’s station.
The control panel beside the air lock showed ready lights, and Zuchmul’s voice came over their suit phones: “Standing by for the grapples?”
“Go!” answered Idom.
“That should do it,” said Zuchmul. “Did it?”
They felt a faint thump as some mechanism outside the air lock functioned. Kyllikki said, “This panel now shows grapples deployed, for whatever that’s worth.” They were all well aware that this particular mechanism may have answered its self-test program for them, but it had never been used.
“That’s it, then,” said Zuchmul. “Docking complete. Go ahead and deploy the tube.”
Kyllikki flipped the protector off the proper control panel and entered the command on the brightly glowing touchpads. Nothing happened. She tried it several times, checking to be sure she had the command right, and let Idom try. Nothing. With Zuchmul reading them directions, they opened the very stiff safety door and deployed the manual control. It took both of them using all their strength to ram the lever down into its receptor socket, but they were rewarded with a very definite thump-whump-bang.
But then the pressure reading in the tube did not come onto scale. “Something’s wrong.”
“Didn’t I tell you?” said Zuchmul. “That pod is not designed to mate with this one. Otroub was new, carrying life pods according to the regulations made since ships began disappearing. Prosperity was ancient, built before we stopped putting life pods on ships that never needed them. Two different sets of specs. Just be glad both ships had pods at all. Most ships in space these days don’t.”
“So we’ll have to go out and attach the cowling to the other pod manually.” Kyllikki sighed.
“Yes. And there should be caulking for that stored inside panel number six right over the air lock.”
They found it, cycled the air lock, watched the pressure gauges on