For Talina, it wasn’t academic. She was full of the stuff. Some of it—from what they called Whitey’s lineage—wanted her dead. That was the Demon identity who lived in her gut. The TriNA Rocket had infected her with actually had a soft spot for humans. The Rork quetzal lineage was mostly just curious, and she had her own infection of Flute’s Briggs lineage.

Factions among intelligent molecules? Who would have thought?

Using transferRNA, the various “identities” of TriNA had learned to communicate with the language centers of her brain, talked to her, and often times interacted with her limbic system. In the years since her first infection, she had developed defenses that allowed her to maintain her sanity and personality while she waited for Raya—or someone—to figure out a way to scrub her blood and body of the alien genetic material.

“And you want to fall in love with me?” she asked the somnolent Dek. “Typical male. All you see is the packaging. Not what a fucked-up mess I am on the inside.”

Talina chuckled at herself. Told Dek, “While you may not have a clue about who I am, you’re an open book, and I can read you page by page.”

Especially with her augmented sense of smell. She couldn’t have missed the sexual musk that poured out of him when he told her she was fantastic. Not that a sexually excited man without pants was a tough call in the first place.

Looking back at the history of the species, maybe it was adaptive for humans to have methylated most of their genes for olfaction. People gave off too many pheromones. It would have led to murders in closely packed cities. She could always smell when a man or woman was interested in or had had sex. Some were worse than others. She had seriously considered nose plugs when she was working with Step Allenovich; the guy was in a constant state of rut.

Raya had warned her when she gave Talina the drug. “This stuff numbs the inhibition centers of the brain. Don’t be offended by anything he says.”

But the last thing Tal had expected to come out of his mouth was a protestation of love.

“Hard to think I’m more desirable than a courtesan.” She was cosmopolitan enough to realize that in Transluna’s rarified corridors of power, the courtesans were a special caste. Each belonged to a specific guild, was highly educated, trained in the arts of music, poetry, sex, history, geography, culture, and etiquette. Training began in childhood, and but a handful of the men and women managed to qualify for the registry by the time they reached their late teens. Of them, only a few would survive the cutthroat world of Board politics to make it to the top of their profession. The kind who would appeal to a Taglioni like Dek.