By that point my eyes collapsed like sugar in hot water and vision scattered into a swirl of speckles, vaguely reminiscent of dreaming. I felt the rest of my body dissolving away… and yet, the fey link between me and the Nomort demmie stayed open.

Captain Ohm… knows about this?

Oh yes. He agreed, partly in exchange for my help breaking the landing party out of a dungeon…

I felt betrayed – a sadly pure sensation, like any emotion that surges over you, when you’re in a slurry.

…but also because I am the first demmie vampire… though surely not the last…

So this is an experiment?

One with much hinging on the outcome.

Okay. There was a logical reason behind this. Though I still felt used and deceived. No wonder Ohm looked so guilty, before he hurried back to the ship, leaving me in charge down below. And I had walked right into this, by delaying my own departure till the very end.

Although I lacked any true hearing, I could still somehow feel a churning rush as the transporter tube gathered a dense paste of all our bio stuff, finished chewing – and then swallowed, sending a gulp-packet of disassembled demmie, human and other cells hurtling upward, toward outer space.

Usually, long before this point, conscious thought fades away – as well it should, if the universe obeyed logic all the time. Which it doesn’t. And didn’t on this occasion, as our conversation continued. While our constituent materials swirled and intermixed, I felt Gala Morell’s hypnotic power inveigle through my inner mind.

So this is what it’s like to be human.

Hey, cut that out!

But my objections were half-hearted as she rifled through memories. And not just randomly. Sifting with feral sensitivity for some of my more sensitive moments, even embarrassing ones from adolescence.

I always viewed Earthlings as such logical beings. But it’s all a front, isn’t it?

Of course it is! Ohm knows it. So do Guts and the wisest demmie –

Hm. Well I wasn’t one of the wisest. Not before. But I’ve lately decided… with these powers… maybe I should try to be.

Hey! Leave that memory alone. It hurts.

Yes, I feel it. Let me drink –

Vampire!

There came a pause. Her mind touch retracted a bit. Then returned.

You’re right. This should be reciprocal.

Which was when she opened herself to me.

And right then, as our cells and souls swirled physically around each other, I felt some of what it means to be a demmie.

How passionate. How mercurial and frantic to make the most of their brief lives.

How eager to love and to be loved-back by a cold universe.

How insecure they are, beneath their overcompensating bravado. Terrified that others will discover how terrified they are.

And I understood why Captain Ohm deemed this experiment to be important – so much so that he was willing wreck the trust we had between us. A trust that would never be the same, even when I fully understood his motive.