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.

A demmie vampire… isn’t ‘undead,’ but a new phase of life, I realized, sharing with her the same, swirling thought. It’s a possible way for some of you –

And she completed my thought as if it were shared, in unison

—for some of us to finally grow up. At least, maybe, a little.

Maybe. A little.

At which point the incongruity of it all made me do something that I till-then did not realize you could do, when in a slurry.

I laughed.

And then I sang for her.

“If growing up means it would be

Beneath my dignity to climb a tree,

I’ll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up!

Not me!”

And I felt her laughter too.

16.

What happened after that?

Well, the simple answer is that it’s none of your damned business what happened after that! And don’t pretend you just came down here to buy an old retiree some drinks and squeeze some fun out of him. You and I both know this is part of the advanced, command-track seminar. A way to keep me teaching, even after I told them to take their tenure and shove it up their –

Oh, but here comes proof. Look who just slipped into this spaceport dive, gliding down the steps like a wraith. None other than the one who generations of students nicknamed Professor Bloodsucker!