Something about it made my heart race faster.

  I let go and started backing away, eyes anxiously darting across the night. Maybe I should close, lock, and barricade the balcony doors. After all, by day I would have many options. I could even drop messages to the street below. Attract attention to my high-elevation prison. Whatever faults the authorities might have, at least they were Standard humanoids…

  I stopped, frozen in my tracks by…

  …by a slight variation in the blackness out there. In the same direction as that narrow strand. Staring hard only made it go away, so I averted my gaze slightly, favoring the more light-sensitive retinal rods – an old astronomer’s trick.

  It returned. An inky fluttering, like a raven flapping against a sable curtain or the dark wall of an unlit cave. The tenebrous shape grew larger, closer with a suddenness that left me stunned, unable to react…

  …until – quite suddenly – it arrived, impending over the balcony’s stone railing with a final leap.

  Landing in a graceful crouch, the manlike figure, dressed all in black, stood up slowly now, lowering both arms to gather-in the winglike folds of a large cape, before rising, straightening.

  I managed to retreat a step, another. Put my hand upon the edge of the door. Preparing to slam it shut…

  …when something transfixed me, preventing further motion as the dark figure finally turned to face me. The emotion of surprise.

  “L-lieutenant? Lieutenant Morell?”

  The face was certainly that of our security officer, the intellectually curious one who had pestered me all the way from Nebula Base Twelve – then accompanied the captain and me, along with the rest of the landing party, when we slurried to the planet’s surface. Now dressed in local costume – nicely cut for her generous figure – she appeared to recognize me and started to smile with those charmingly dainty-pointy demmie teeth…

  …only no longer quite so charming. Two of them, canines at the corners of her mouth, now seemed larger and more intimidating. In what little light reached them from the candelabra inside, from the city, and from the stars, they gleamed.

  Also gleaming, almost with a light of its own, the twin-lobed décolletage of her black, low-cut attire, enhanced by a tight, push-up effect. Apparently, becoming a Nomort did not alter one aspect of demmie nature. If you got it, flaunt it.

  “Hello Dr. Montessori.” Her voice was familiar, even friendly, though now with a mellifluous tone, far more confident. In fact, one that I could only interpret as somehow smugly superior. Like a student who had become teacher. A long-respectful apprentice, now become a master.

  “Are you surprised to see me?”

  We humans who work close to demmies like to encourage some of their myths about the Ancient Ones, especially the widespread notion that Earthlings do not lie. Of course it isn’t true. Some of our less honest ancestors used to do it monthly, even weekly, I hear.

  “Surprised, Lieutenant? Not for an instant. In fact, I was expecting you. I see the transformation was effective. How do you like it?”

  “I…” She blinked and seemed briefly nonplused. “It takes some getting used to. But how did you…”

  Morell’s expression narrowed, taking on a look of fierce calculation – in my view a less-savory substitution for the fetchingly innocent intelligence of the young demmie officer I knew before. A feral light seemed to glow in her eyes.

  “Perhaps it is time for you to find out for yourself, Professor,” she murmured smoothly, taking a step forward. And I realized that the “glow” in her eyes had become something more than metaphorical.

  “That is, if you are one of the lucky ones.”

  “L-lucky ones?” I could no longer put up a pretense of confidence. The shine had taken on a hypnotic quality, twin glints of painful sharpness that stabbed from her eyes to mine, slowing time to such a degree that my muscles felt kilometers away. Frantically ordering them to move, to slam the door between us, felt like sending messages through molasses. Her languid, poised approach would reach me long before they obeyed.

  “About one in a hundred. That’s the ratio among the local humanoids, professor. The fraction of victims who then rise up all the way to become Nomorts, instead of entering some lesser afterlife. Of course we don’t yet know the ratio among demmies… or humans… But I hope you do make it. I always liked you, Dr. Montessori.”

  It did little good struggling to avoid her captivating gaze. The sharp, hypnotic glare hurt. Worse… it itched, tickling and scraping my sinuses. And yet, at the same time, something compelling and attractive about it, felt… terribly familiar. Though I could not close them, my own eyes squinted.

  “The Captain…” I managed to blurt. “The others…”

  “Everybody has a destiny, as you’ll soon discover doctor,” her voice was smoother now, almost soothing. “It’s time to feed your legendary curiosity… while you feed me…”

  Leaning forward and spreading her cape again, she opened her mouth. Those pointy canines shone. I could not move or speak.

  But I did remember, all of a sudden, what was familiar about the sensation. That tickling itch. And with realization, I abruptly stopped trying to look away from her eyes. Instead, I focused all of my attention upon them, letting the force of those rays enter completely.

  I gasped inward, sharply, squinted even more at the tingling glare…

  …and released an explosive sneeze.

  There have been many attempts to divide the natural Terran species of Homo sapiens into subgroups. Into races. Blood types. Two (or more) sexes. All sorts of oversimplifications and outright bigotries abounded, during our crude and simpleminded climb toward civilization. Especially during stages fourteen to twenty.

  And yet, one stark division was seldom mentioned, though it pervaded all times and cultures.

  There had always been those who – when they felt a sneeze impending – would look for a sharp light, to help trigger it.

  And then there were all the others, the rest of humanity, who thought that the first group were liars.

  It wasn’t till we finally arrived at level twenty, that some grasped the reason for it all.

  The vampire recoiled with a backward leap, her look of shocked surprise mixed with disgust.

  Well, after all, her mouth had been open, taking the full brunt. Expressing some vestige of her former, mortal fastidiousness, Lieutenant Morell’s expression was one of offended revulsion, even though she had been preparing to suck out my life’s blood.

  That countenance shifted rapidly as I blinked hard, shaking off her predatory trance. The demmie Nomort coughed, gagged, then spat… and finally snarled.

  “Very… clever, Professor. But that only bought you a few seconds to—”

  Gala stopped. A growing look of puzzlement spread across her aristocratic Nomort features, even as I felt sensation returning to my limbs.

  She took a step toward me, hands reaching out…

  A startled expression suddenly took over, as she stopped again. Then, the former demmie officer screamed.

  She did more than scream. Gala clawed at her throat, at her shoulders and chest. Thrashing and shrieking, she plunged about the balcony, striking a wall, caroming off my shoulder, shattering one of the glass doors, then colliding with the nearby stone railing. Teetering dangerously, she clutched at a leering gargoyle, that first took her weight… then betrayed it, crumbling to dust and toppling with her over the precipice.

  Too late, my reflexes kicked in. I managed to shoot an arm out, grabbing to save her, managing to grip the cloak – which tore away from her as she let out a final screech, plummeting into empty space.

  Still sluggish, I couldn’t reach the edge in time to follow Gala’s plunge, though her wail reverberated through the urban canyonscape. By the time I could look, she had vanished into the gloom below – whether caught by some net, splatted on pavement, or else grabbing some last-moment escape, I had no way to tell.

  Damn, I really wanted to ask her about the others… about Guts and Nuts and Captain Ohm.

  About a strange life cycle that includes the parasitic undead.

  Or if she knew anything about the fate of Clever Gamble… or what any of this has to do with Crewman Wems.

  Now? I would have to start investigating for myself. Only this time, I was determined not to be sidetracked by anything!

  There only seemed to be one way out of here, a desperate and dangerous path, retracing the Nomort’s route in getting here. Cautiously, I reached out and tested the slender cable that the former Lieutenant Morell had used as a highway through the sky to reach my balcony.

  Plucking it just once released a sudden throbbing pulse. A palpable wave of sound in the form of a clear harmonic chord!

  I understood, at last, why it had seemed to be musically vibrating earlier!

  Acoustically-oriented active fiber. It absorbs energy if you ride it along a downward slant, turning most of your falling energy into stored sound waves. Cached energy that you can later recover, sending you back uphill the way you came.

  No wonder the Standard population feared flying predators. In a way, this sonic dive-in was more impressive than any mythology of vampires transforming into bats. Though… now that I thought about it, there could be easy technological countermeasures, if only the Standards knew about them.

  Hurrying into the shabby room, I grabbed the candelabra and brought it outside, then stripped to the waist, removing my Alliance uniform tunic. Some of the woven-in circuits were torn and ruined, but many individual thread assemblies were intact. I removed one of the communications strips and chewed on the end to create a frayed contact-antenna that I then applied to the cable. With a little tinkering, I was able to create a probe that measured and tapped the stored sound… and I rocked back from a veritable cacophony! A powerful and complex mélange of waveforms swarmed and enveloped me till I felt wrapped in sound, like some kind of pod person. It took real effort to rip away.

  Back inside, I worked on the Squidish leather jacket and protective “dog collar” I had bought earlier, creating a harness of sorts. One that could let me ride along the cable, if only I found the trigger codes. My guess was that it would take some combination of tone and rhythm to activate a traveling wave, something with the right phase and group velocity combinations to propel me up-and-out, along the slight incline… toward wherever Gala came from…

  I avoided thinking about that while making final preparations. The important thing was that I was being dynamic again. Assertive. Whoever or whatever I found at the other side, they might be taken by surprise. And if they were Nomorts? Well, maybe, with any luck, I might have another special sneeze or two inside me.

  Soon the contraption was finished. I fastened it to the cable, slid my arms inside and made sure several of the leather garment’s buttons were secure. Ready to go.

  Indeed. I whispered that very word, urgently. “Go!”

  But the tether only vibrated a little.

  Well that wasn’t much of a trigger. Probably needed more tonality.

  Making sure of the electro-sonic connection and pressing my throat mike close, I tried to hum an even note.

  The cable shuddered in response. I hummed louder… then much louder, but that made no difference… So, volume wasn’t the key…

  …nor was simply changing pitch. I had to stimulate self-amplifying waveforms. That would take complexity.

  So I started to sing.

  “When I was a lad and went to Yale, I knew right then that I would never fail…”

  Something by the human musician most popular among alien cultures across the Federated Alliance of Worlds – Allan Sherman. Heck, it was the first thing that came to mind.

  This didn’t work when you tried it with the Lik’ems, Lorg and Besh, I pondered glumly. What makes you think…

  But as I sang, the strand started throbbing, then oscillating with chaotic ripples. Hm. I must be on the right track.

  I commenced a sample-medley, starting with opera – the cable seemed unimpressed – then working my way to bawdy ballads, to jazz riffs, to Orc-n-Roll, all of them eliciting various shakes and chaotic shudders that I took as rejection. Even displeasure. Once, the cable jerked so violently that I found myself suddenly cast out, ten meters or so beyond the balcony, grimacing with a sharp pain in one shin from striking the stone railing along the way. Looking back, I saw the gargoyles grinning at me. Beyond them, through the open doors, one of those old, painted figures seemed to chide:

  See? I told you so.

  But I was learning. Evidently, the cord wanted something gentler, more melodic… maybe even nostalgic.

  A little classic Streisand? I cleared my throat and tried belting some Babs.

  That seemed almost to do the trick. Memories triggered a clear response! A throbbing pulse that carried me forward at least a dozen meters before dying out. But for Pete’s sake, the cable seemed still unsatisfied.

  Hanging there in midair, vocalizing olde standards to charm a persnickety sonic serpent while my feet dangled above the squalid streets of Squid, I felt foolish as never before… (and you get plenty of opportunities when you work with demmies.) Was it a last vestige of dignity that made me taper off and go silent, at last?

  Foolish, yes. And yet, my situation also felt somewhat poignant and… well… hilarious. I had to chuckle at the absurdity of this predicament. In fact, it reminded me of the sort of thing you might see in some old-time comedic movie, from the days of flat-screen classics. Laurel and Hardy? The Stooges? No, a bit drier than that. Maybe something out of Hiroshi and Chang. Or Hope and Crosby.

  I could tell my subconscious was busy. Dashing about, connecting dots, more or less. At times like this, I knew better than to interfere.

  Unleash. Let it flow.

  Bob Hope, Bing Crosby… and Dorothy Lamour. They did all those “Road” Pictures together. The Road to Hong Kong, The Road to Morocco… and what was that unfinished film they hid away? It never got released till a hundred years had passed.

  A weird thing. Ahead of its time. Oh yeah.

  The Road To Transylvania.

  No wonder it came to mind. All about darkly funny – but risqué – adventures with Count Dracula and Wolfman and Duchess Succubus…

  I had to laugh, recalling that old treat. And yet, at the same time, I flashed on the more terrifying image of Lieutenant rll, “vamping” me with her cleavage while preparing to drain me with those garish, deadly teeth.

  Suddenly, I remembered. The theme song from that movie, a variation on their regular ballad – Thanks for the Memories. The variant on that old stand-by was one of the reasons that Road To Transylvania got banned, left unfinished, and hidden away, never to be seen till humanity reached another stage.

  I cleared my throat… then started humming—

  —and the sonic cord responded! First rippling nearby and then vibrating along its length, reacting to this particular melody by resonating evermore in sync, in rhythm, gradually unleashing its pent-up energy. It took some concentration not to let all this shake my singing off-beat. But I managed to keep up the tempo.

  “Taaaa ta-dee ta-dee dum…”

  Wave-fringes criss-crossed, interfering and reinforcing… until a stable bulge formed, right behind me…

  …a bulge that began pushing me forward, almost as if it were alive, like some compliant sea creature.

  Gradually, but smoothly and without a hiccup, I began a long, steady glide into the night.

  All right!

  Only the pace stayed much too slow, no matter how loudly or forcefully I hummed or la-de-dah’d the old melody. Evidently, the greedy cable wanted more.

  So I added words, the ones that Crosby and Hope sang to the lovely and well-favored Lamour, on the parapet of that gloomy, Carpathian castle. A crooning lament of fond – if kinky – recollection.

  “Fangs… for the mammaries…”

  I cannot say for sure that I remembered them all correctly. The lyrics. It was, after all, an off-color and low-brow little ditty about three bosom buddies, trying to transcend dental jeopardies. But if I faked some stanzas, the finicky cable didn’t seem to mind. Thrumming like a happy banjo string, it responded by launching me ever-faster across a dark cityscape, accelerating over the rooftops of a frightened populace who must have heard my poor ululation and doubtless thought me yet another terrifying predator. Another singing monster who they hoped would pass them by.

  Sleep tight, I thought, while crooning and zooming under the stars, toward where I knew not. It’s only me, an Ancient One, but as mortal as you are.

  And yet, I knew better. For history teaches a lesson, known by every other species on Old Earth, and then beyond.

  Beware angering humans. Even those who are patient and grown up.

  Especially that kind.

  My destination loomed ahead. Something dark that squatted, big and formidable on the horizon, in front of a bright nebula. It would almost certainly be someplace desperately dangerous, and perhaps this just proved what a sucker I was, heading straight toward it.

  Only, for a moment, whatever lay in the foreground did not seem to matter much to me. Instead, while belting out a starlight serenade, I felt my attention plunge ahead, far beyond, to that milky, galactic vista, a vast nursing-ground of stars that – I knew – sang melodies far more imposing, yet more subtle and sustaining, than could ever be grasped by the unweaned planet-bound.

  7.

  Again and again, during my years of service, I have reflected upon the high likelihood that I must be insane.

  Perhaps it is a job requirement – or the result of repeated head injuries. For, among the inhabitants of Earth and all her colonies, only completely out-there optimists are qualified to be assigned as Human Advisors, dispatched to live in full-time contact with our beloved allies, rubbing elbows and other close-packed parts amid the mostly-demmie crew of some mighty Alliance starship.