Talon ordered up a holo display that filled the center of the conference table, again rocking the locals back in amazement – a map of the nearby region, overlain with vast waves of honeyed dunes – as Guts and Talon conferred, then the healer nodded agreement.

“Mechanisms could be constructed to cruise the Great Sugarfrosted Desert, harvesting megatonnes of carbs, without hardly putting a dent in the supply.”

Of powdered and granulated worm poop, I pondered, which made my nose itch and mind twitch with ill-recollections. I tried not to show outward discomfort, though.

“I know where some of the old harvesters were put away, long ago,” Professor Ping agreed. With Talon’s help, he caused to scene to zoom past the dessert’s edge, onto a vast storage yard where mighty, tracked machines lay abandoned in long rows.

Nuts peered close, her nimble fingers waggling, causing data and algorithms to dance. “Primitive things… but robustly built. Yes. They could be refurbished and set onto their old task. Or we can fab new ones…”

“…whereupon the raw sugar could be conveyed either directly to new processing units next to nearby cities,” Frieder added. “Or else sent by tube up to orbit and converted there for slurry delivery and reconstitution as steaks or shakes, blood or…”

At a slobbery murmur from Sully and Moulder, Talon finished for him “…or brains.”

The sheer scale of the described undertaking set some of the locals aback. Coalshack stared at Talon, Nuts, Guts, and then at me.

“Truly? This could be done as they say? No undead would need any longer to feed on the flesh of the living?”

I had to shrug. “We’ve overcome more difficult challenges than this, right Captain?”

“Huh?” Ohm had been whispering in the ear of his pretty yeoman. “Oh, right advisor. Lots harder. This’d be as easy as…” and he snapped his fingers, making the yeoman jump back with a delighted squeal – a human trick that had taken me years to teach him, and that had saved his life on three separate occasions, out there among the wild stars.

Earl Dragonlord shook his head, slipping deeper into his aristocratic-Nomort accent.

“Although I do not doubt your technical skills, I am not certain this offer of free blood will suffice to persuade the clans. What you’ll rob from us is the thrill of the hunt! The excitement of overcoming resistance with power and will.” And at that moment I do believe he meant the word us, in the sense of identifying deeply with the vampire clan. Well, like every other living human, he was a descendant of Johnny Depp.