Then, picture their luck turning for the better, finding a risky but rewarding path back to normal space and the original temporality, returning to this planet just in the nick of time to answer the call from our landing party’s Finder apparatus, finally sending down a slurry tube just when we needed it most.

Yep, that is the way things sometimes go. You get used to this sort of thing, in the Advisor Service. I was looking forward to immersing myself in the full report and recordings, back on-ship…

Oh, hell no! I take that back. You never get used to it. Not ever. Don’t you believe anyone who says otherwise.

Still, I did look forward to the full-immersion report, and I used that anticipation for distraction while standing nervously in the transporter chamber, trying to think about faraway things until a familiar, tingling sensation told me that liquescing had begun. Scanners read the positions of all the cells in my body. Then universal solvent poured in through wall vents, rising rapidly… and you can’t help hyperventilating, instinctively preparing to hold your breath, even though you know from experience that it won’t do the slightest good.

Laser tagged and registered for later re-assembly, our clothes began dissolving, even before the fluid reached my chin. Which meant the excited demmies were even deeper. I saw their uniforms shred and float away along with outer layers of skin.

Directly across from me, the thick cloak of the Ya-Tze priest took an instant longer, so my mouth and nose were flooding by the time the clerical garb fell apart, and I found myself looking at a naked – and stunning – demmie female, who smiled back at me, knowingly.

And I knew her too.

Gala Morell. The demmie vampire Gala Morell, whom I had last seen plummeting twenty stories toward a Cal’mari street. As ravishing as ever – more so, in her brief nudity – but with her native charisma amplified many fold by flashes of light. Gleaming off twin predatory fangs. And shining with soul-piercing intensity from her penetrating eyes.

“Hello Doctor,” her mouth shaped the words, but I had no need to hear them amid the gurgle of solvent filling my ears. Her greeting was conveyed by that gaze, its hypnotic glint.

“I was so looking forward to our meeting again.”

Though surrounded by security guards, I could not cry for help. For a moment I was able to cut off the mesmerizing sheen by closing my own eyelids. Alas, those protective flaps soon dissolved away, leaving me exposed again.

So I decided to see if the channel went both ways.

“Hello lieutenant… or is it Countess, now? Are you so eager for a rematch?”

Apparently it was bidirectional, indeed. And I knew that she knew my confident riposte was all bluff.

“Just Gala. And the captain ensured that this time we’d both be unarmed. No biting… and no sneezing!”