“No… he’s not exactly a predator, Raash. And James, please don’t break his arm or anything.”

  “Sorry,” I said, letting go. “Is this your friend? You should teach him some manners.”

  “The density of my bones is too great for human strength,” the alien bragged. “Breaking any of them would prove impossible.”

  “You want me to prove you wrong?” I demanded.

  “Gentlemen,” Floramel interrupted again. “You’ve got to stop. Come inside, both of you.”

  We both eyed each other, and then we tried to walk into her apartment at the same time. The doorway was nowhere near wide enough for the two of us, and we almost got into it again.

  “James, you first,” Floramel directed.

  “Why this one? Why not me first?” the lizard demanded.

  “He’s my guest, Raash. You’re just a neighbor.”

  “I’m your guardian. I am indebted for the gift of this device.”

  Raash touched the translator, and I began catching on. Apparently, Floramel had given him a compact translator. It was only about the size of a hundred-credit piece. They were usually much larger and harder to use. She’d probably helped develop these things at Central, where she worked in the labs.

  How had she brought it home? It was hard to say. Her people were geniuses, but they didn’t totally get the idea of secret projects—or government property.

  I sat warily on her only couch. The lizard hulked in the doorway, malingering.

  “This male is aggressive,” he complained. “He’ll abuse you.”

  “Raash…” Floramel said. “He’s not that bad. I’ve known him for years. This is James McGill. He’s an officer in the legions.”

  Raash looked at me with sudden intensity. “A legionnaire? A paid killer? How can you trust such an individual? If he had a tail, I’d cut it off.”

  “Your tail is looking kind of limp to me, dino,” I said. “Maybe I should take it off your hands.”

  Raash took two steps into the apartment, and he loomed over us. His kind were big, as tall as I was and heavier built. They generally weren’t as fast as humans, but their musculature was denser.

  “What legion do you serve?” he demanded, looking down at me.

  Before I could answer, Floramel shut him down. “Raash, you’re being rude. By human rules of conduct, you haven’t been invited into my home. You must retreat.”

  Raash stood there, his tail floating behind him. It was as thick and rough as an alligator’s, but it moved more like a cat’s tail. I could tell he was using it to balance on two feet, which his kind often did.

  After a pause, Raash’s translator flashed again. “I will withdraw. If you are found dead in the morning, I will mourn.”

  “See you then, Raash,” Floramel said.

  The lizard retreated with poor grace. Floramel had to get up and close the door herself, as he’d left it hanging open.

  “You’ve got a dino for a boyfriend?” I asked.

  “Hardly,” she laughed. “He’s more like a house pet. He thinks he’s caring for me.”

  “That’s odd…”

  “He’s the only saurian in this building. He hasn’t adjusted well. By showing kindness, I suppose I’ve gotten him to imprint on me.”

  “Strange…” I said. “The saurians of Steel World living among us here in Central City. Imagine that… I didn’t know there were any of them on the planet! Except for a few stuffed heads mounted on walls, that is.”

  Floramel wrinkled her nose at me in disgust. “Don’t talk like that.”

  I shut up, but I could have told her I wasn’t joking. I knew a few officers who had such trophies on their walls.

  “Okay,” she said. “You can tell me now.”

  “Tell you what?”

  “Why you’ve come here tonight. The real reason—if you’re not still hoping for a sexual encounter.”

  She was right, of course, about my secondary motives. What man didn’t hope for the favors of a lovely lady in the evening?

  But that wasn’t the whole story. I dug out the torn up brown paper package I’d brought with me. I made sure there were no cameras watching, even covering my tapper with my sleeve, before I showed her the book.

  At first, she wasn’t impressed.

  “This is an antique,” she said. “How do you adjust the font?”

  “You don’t,” I admitted.

  “How disappointing… The Eaters of Lotus. What’s to be gained by reading this?”

  “I’m not sure,” I admitted, then I provided her with the long list of people who’d sought this book with deadly intensity.

  “The Cephalopods wanted it? So badly, that they sent a commando to Central?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It might even have kicked-off the invasion of Earth. Their first move was to attempt to capture this artifact. That was all years ago, and I thought it was lost, but it’s been found.”

  “By who?”

  I shrugged, and she frowned at me.

  “You’re not going to answer? All right… You’ve intrigued me—was that your intent?”

  “Not really,” I said, “I just want to know what this is about—why people would want a copy so badly.”

  She began to examine the book closely.

  “It’s not a copy,” she pronounced. “You see here? These markings indicate it’s a first edition. I’ve only read of such things on your grid—I’ve never seen one. But this is definitely one of the original printings. How old did you say it was?”

  “It was written and published about two hundred years ago.”

  “Interesting… very well, I will read it. Be quiet, please.”

  “Uh… have you got anything to eat?”

  Floramel pointed vaguely toward the kitchen. I raided her small supply of edibles, and the results were even worse than usual. Thin women rarely had good food around the house.

  Chewing carrots and slurping yogurts, I made the best of it. There was no alcohol of any kind that I could detect.

  After a while, I got bored and started watching vids on my tapper. I was laughing at an old serial when she walked up to me with a strange look on her face. She touched my shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, sitting up. “Was I being too loud?”

  “You’re lying on my bed.”

  “Yeah… you don’t have a lot of furniture.”

  “I told you, I’m not—”

  “Look, maybe I should go,” I said. “I’ll come back later, when you’ve finished the book.”

  “I have read it,” she said, tossing the paperback onto my lap. “And I’ve made notes, trying to detect a code or pattern. I’ve found nothing.”

  “What’s it about?” I asked.

  “It’s about a tidally-locked planet, where one side is warm but sunless. A dark place, full of intelligent plants. There are many beings—some deadly. The title creatures are highly intelligent, but have virtually no survival instincts. They allow others to consume them without concern.”

  “That’s weird… Those plant creatures sound kind of like the Wur.”

  “Indeed.”

  She went on to explain several elements of the story, all of which seemed vaguely familiar. I’d tried to read the book when I’d first discovered it, but it had put me to sleep. Most books did that.

  Floramel touched my tapper with her fingers, looking to see what I was watching.

  “You like old shows?” I asked her. “Some of them are still funny a hundred years later.”

  “No,” she said. “I’m marveling at the smoothness of your skin. The warriors from Blood World are always scarred if they last through early adulthood.”

  “That’s one of the miracles of revival machines. A new bod to go with an old mind.”

  Floramel’s fingers lingered on my arm. That wasn’t a good thing for a woman to do to a man like me—it gave me ideas.

  “Uh…” I said.

  “Do you have a place to stay in the city?” she asked.

  “A hotel room.”

  “Would you rather stay here?”

  There it was. She was propositioning me. It honestly came as a surprise—but not entirely. Floramel and I had been serious lovers long ago. I suspected that by ignoring her, and making no moves at all, then getting her to read a boring book—well, she’d changed her mind about me.

  I thought about playing hard-to-get for a few more minutes, but I couldn’t do it. I pulled her down onto the bed, and she offered little resistance.

  Hours later, I woke up. It was dark and quiet in the apartment. At first, I thought maybe I’d been snoring and awakened that way—but no. There was something else.

  About then I noted a hulking figure in the bedroom with us. Rolling off the bed with a grunt, I saw the figure stoop once, striking at the bed—could he have…?

  “No!” I shouted.

  Floramel moaned in pain and went limp on the bed.

  I tackled the big alien—because it was Raash. I recognized him by his bulk, his swampy odor, and the way his silhouette moved. It wasn’t the way a man would move. His shoulders and hips kind of rolled when he walked. All saurians moved like that.

  Saurians are hard to deal with in hand-to-hand. They have scales, heavy muscles and bone, not much in the way of pain receptors, and lots of teeth.

  Still, there are sensitive spots, and I’d been trained to find them. I rammed a finger into each of his crusty nostrils and did a little ripping in there. The sensation was disgusting, but a gout of blood poured out a moment later.

  Roaring, Raash backhanded me and I went ass-over-teakettle into the wall. I bounced back up, and he walked close, shaking his head and snorting. Blood flew everywhere.

  I flicked on the overhead lights. Raash stood in all his glory, bloody and full of glinting-eyed fury. If anything, he looked more dangerous with the lights on. I could tell by his stance he’d had some training in physical combat.

  Punching him wasn’t going to do the trick. The only way to kill a saurian without a gun was to get him to bleed out. Hammering on him with my fists would probably break more knuckles than it did scales.

  Accordingly, I grabbed a ceramic lamp with a bottle-thick base and smashed it on the dresser. Jagged blades of glass and a few wires stuck up from my fist, forming a makeshift weapon.

  Raash charged me again, as I knew he would, and I sidestepped.

  His thick arms closed on nothing. I jabbed him in the back as he went by. Before he could turn around, I ran the glass down the inside of one thigh, where the scales were thin. Like humans, saurians were evolving past scales, just as we were evolving past fur.

  More blood ran.

  Raash stood up again and wheeled to face me.

  “You will not grapple with me?” he demanded, his translator flashing in the dim room. “You dishonor yourself.”

  “It’s you who has dishonored yourself!” I shouted back. “You struck a sleeping woman! Your friend, the one who made you that translator! Why’d you do that?”

  “I plotted your death from the moment I saw you… but her… she forfeited her life when I caught your scent upon her.”

  “So this is an honor-killing? You’re not even human.”

  “She is female. I would do the same on my home world.”

  Part of the reason I was trying to get him to talk was to weaken him. Blood was running out of his snout as he spoke and pouring down his leg, making a puddle. Saurians had a weakness in their nasal cavities. The vessels there didn’t seal themselves easily, and if the bleeding didn’t stop…

  Raash didn’t charge me again immediately, so I checked on Floramel. I was surprised and dismayed to see Raash had killed her.

  “You murdered her,” I said, shocked.

  “Does that upset you?”

  “Of course it does!”

  “Good, because you have upset me. You have changed my direction in life. Tell me why you really came here tonight? Not just for the mating, I’m sure.”

  I looked up at him. My eyes narrowed.

  Raash might not be what he seemed. Perhaps he was more than an alien who’d gotten lost on Earth and caught a case of puppy-love for Floramel.

  “You’re a spy,” I said with sudden certainty. “You’ve been spying on Floramel, because she works at Central.”

  Raash snorted, and a fresh squirt of blood hit the floor with an audible slap.

  “I am from Cancri-9,” he said. “No member of my race would ever seek to live among humans permanently. I was exiled until I performed a great service for my prince. She—” here, he pointed at Floramel’s sprawling body, “she was to be my route back home.”

  “But you killed her, you fool!”

  “She is no longer useful. I have researched you, and learned you are the McGill. I have been told you are important. Now, you will tell me why you are here, McGill.”

  I’m not a person who can control my emotions at moments like this. Sure, I could have tried to make peace. I could have asked him all about his aunties and uncles back on Steel World—but I didn’t feel like it.

  “I’ll show you why I’m here,” I said, and I took a step forward. I took the book off the bed and held it up to him. “The Cephalopods invaded Earth just to get this book.”

  “The book…” he said.

  He squinted at it, and he reached out to take it.

  That’s when I struck. He was leaning toward me, and he wasn’t expecting a sucker-punch. What really helped out were his slow reflexes, they just weren’t as good as a human’s.

  My broken lamp rammed into his snout. The jagged glass split open his thumb-sized nostrils and cut him up good.

  For a second he recoiled in pain, but then he lunged at me, roaring again.

  This time, he caught me. I didn’t have much room to run—the apartment was a small one.

  Arms as thick as a strong man’s legs wrapped around my chest and squeezed.

  I felt ribs crackle, and the air wheezed out of my lungs. Raash’s hot, bubbling breath and blood ran all down my neck and back. His teeth sought my neck as well.

  Right about then, I realized I was going to die—then everything went black.

  -6-

  Coming back to life was never pleasant. I suspected that when baby James had been born the first time, I hadn’t enjoyed the process then, either.

  “What’s his score?” asked a harsh-sounding woman.

  “A solid nine.”

  “Good. Get him into recovery.”

  People prodded at me, and I let them get it out of their system for a while.

  “What about Floramel?” I croaked when I was able.

  “Who?” the woman asked me.

  “Floramel. Scientist—one of the Rogue-Worlder researchers.”

  “I don’t know about aliens, Adjunct. We only do military personnel here.”

  Eventually, I was released from Blue Deck and issued fresh clothing. A team of hogs was waiting for me at the door.

  I was disappointed to recognize the leader of the team—it was none other than the hog MP I’d killed in Turov’s office. His name was Blaine. I hadn’t bothered to look at his nametag when I’d first met him.

  “Hello Veteran Blaine,” I said. “Damn, it seems like just yesterday when you were arresting—”

  “That was yesterday, McGill,” Blaine snapped.

  “Well, damnation… You look great, you know that? You must have lost fifty pounds!”

  The men behind him exchanged amused glances. This fat hog had died and lost years of paunch. A good-natured fellow might have been grateful for such a fast improvement in his personal appearance—but not this guy. Blaine’s face got angrier and redder with every word I spoke.

  “James McGill, you’re under arrest—again.”

  “What for this time?”

  “The murders of two civilians. First Floramel… um, I don’t see her last name, here.”

  “That’s because she doesn’t have one.”

  Blaine glanced at me, then back down at his tapper. “And secondly… Raash?”

  “Did you say you’ve got a rash?” I asked him loudly. “That could be a serious problem. Don’t ignore it! Maybe you caught a bad grow. You ought to go back down to the doctors on Blue Deck and ask for a shot or something.”

  As, I spoke, I jabbed a thumb over my shoulder toward the doors I’d just exited.

  Veteran Blaine’s only response was to glare at me.

  “But,” I told him in a low tone. “I’d have a care. If you can live with this rash, you might want to keep your mouth shut. They like to recycle bad grows.”

  The regulars behind him snickered.

  “Are you coming with us quietly, McGill? Or do we have to put you in cuffs?”

  “You know, I’d advise you to do that regardless.”

  Looking confused and annoyed, they shrugged and cuffed me. I walked with them back down to the brig again.

  They questioned me, and I told them everything—except about the book, of course. At the same time, I pumped them for what little information they had.

  “So Raash died, did he? Hot damn!”

  “No regrets? No remorse?”

  “No, sir! That lizard broke in and killed the girl I was spending the night with. Then, he tried to kill me. Looks like it was a tie in that case.”

  The hog frowned. “Are you claiming that this Raash person instigated the attack?”

  “Uh… of course. Basic forensics, the home cameras, they should back that up.”

  “Normally, we could check your story that way. But there was some kind of failure in the passive security systems on that floor of the building.”

  “All night?”

  “All night.”

  “Huh… So it was a setup. Maybe Raash was smarter than I thought. He came in with a plan, and he waited until he figured we’d be sound asleep to strike. He did say something about being an agent here on Earth, you know.”

  Veteran Blaine set his jaw and looked at me suspiciously. I didn’t think he believed me. That was a funny thing—hogs like this guy tended to buy my lies, but then scoff at the truth, finding it unbelievable.

  “McGill, I’ve looked at your records. There are way too many incidences of unexplained violence circulating around you.”