Throat (39 page)

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. So if I don’t win her over …?”

“You’ll be on the menu.”

“Oh boy.”

“It’ll be fine.”
Please let it be
, I thought.
Please
. “They’re really nice, I swear. Besides, I told them you have a plan.”

“I do?”

“Yeah. Ways of helping them out. Even if it’s just to find them a new home that’s not so … dirty. Just remember this is every bit as weird for them as it is for you. Maybe more.”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

He kept looking up.

“They’re not going to fly in,” I said, almost giggling.

“What do I know?”

At last we saw them. Three small dark figures moving slowly up the drive. I had asked them to take it easy on the speed once they got close to the observatory for Sagan’s sake.

“Showtime,” I said.

Sagan was holding my hand, but now he pulled free. I’m not sure why. I think maybe he just didn’t want to look weak.
Afraid. He’s afraid of looking afraid
.

“Hi,” I said to the vampires, trying to sound cheerful and pleased. “Well, here he is, just like I promised.” I took Sagan’s hand again. He looked at me and looked at my hand as if comparing it to theirs. I gestured to the three of them in turn. “Sagan, this is Lena, Donne, and Anton. Guys, this is Sagan Bishop. My … my friend.”

I had known this would be a little awkward, but this was off the scale. I could see Donne’s nostrils flaring as if her vampire senses couldn’t help but sniff the wind for the scent of Sagan’s warm
human blood. Anton was breathing through his mouth instead of his nose. I couldn’t tell anything from Lena’s expression.

“Hi,” Sagan said, giving a little wave. “Nice to meet you.”

I noticed he swallowed as he said it, but I gave him points for the steadiness of his voice.

Lena started to say something, stopped, then started again. “Um … hello … Sagan,” she said. “I want to … thank you for inviting us. For demonstrating so much … courage.”

“No problem,” Sagan said, which sounded instead like there were actually a lot of problems he had with being here, only he was willing to look past them.

“This place is very … large,” Anton said, staring this way and that. “I can’t believe it.… NASA.”

“Yeah,” Sagan said. “Would you like to go inside?”

They were still about ten feet away from us. I thought about vampires shaking hands with a human and almost started to laugh. Would it be like a human being shaking hands with a shark?

Sagan let us in with his badge and we walked down the long hall to the observatory.

“I need to turn on the lights,” he said, sounding apologetic.

He turned the round dial on the wall, slowly bringing up the illumination. Each of the
Sonnen
lifted a hand to their faces to blunt the brightness until their eyes could adjust.

The vampires were keeping their distance.
They’re afraid of him
, I realized with a shock. What could Sagan possibly do to them? But it was true; they were scared. I could see it in the way they stood, legs apart, hands ready, prepared to flee. It had taken a good bit of courage for them too.

I tried to think of some way to loosen everyone up. “Um … maybe it would be better if we all just sat around a table?” I almost said,
Just like … people
.

“All right,” Lena said. “But first …”

She crossed the room carefully but also gracefully to where Sagan was standing. He must have weighed twice what she did. I sometimes forgot how slightly built the
Sonnen
were without anyone else around for comparison purposes.

She held out her hand.

“I am so happy to make your acquaintance,” she said. “Emma has told us so much about you. Thank you for having us.”

Sagan hesitated just slightly, looking at her hand, then her eyes.
He reached out and touched her fingers, then shook her hand warmly. He had a surprised look on his face.

“You thought my skin would feel … cold, didn’t you?” Lena said, smiling.

“I … I didn’t really know,” Sagan said, blushing.

All of the vampires tensed a little; I could almost read their minds, the way they became unnaturally observant, noticing the blood rising to his face.

Anton stepped forward. He and Sagan shook without any trouble.

“You are very … tall, eh?” Anton said, grinning shyly.

I looked at Donne. She came over reluctantly, but then just stood there, nostrils wide.

Say something
, I mentally beamed at her. I wondered for a crazy moment if she looked prettier than I did to Sagan.

“Nice … to meet you,” Sagan said, taking her small hand.

Donne ran her tongue over her bottom lip, making me wonder if human blood gave off a kind of overpowering fragrance to a vampire’s nose.

Shut up
.

They let go of each other’s hands and stood there watching. It almost felt as if I were intruding, witnessing something that was meant to be private.

The room wasn’t hot, but beads of sweat had formed on Sagan’s brow. I could tell without even touching him that his pulse rate was way up and his skin temperature was rising.

As if to break the tension, Anton waved his arm at all the computers, marveling at the technology. “This is a very interesting place.” I noticed his accent seemed self-consciously heavier. “So many machines. I enjoy so much thinking about … scientific things.”

Lena was still standing in front of Sagan with Donne and Anton
at either side. He was a head taller than all three of them, but he suddenly seemed … surrounded.

“Please forgive me for staring,” Lena said. “You see … it has been a great many years since I have … spoken … with someone like you.”

“Wow,” Sagan said, exhaling nervously as he said it. “This is … kind of surreal.”

“All right, you may stop circling the prey,” Lena said, and we all laughed a little bit. She tugged at Donne’s arm and the three of them sat at the huge conference table. Sagan and I took seats on the opposite side.

“Now that we’re all here …,” I said.

“What do we have to talk about?” Donne said.

I was surprised she had spoken, and it took me a moment to collect myself.

“Um … about … friendship,” I said. “You know, new possibilities. Why can’t … people like you … be friends with humans, that kind of thing.”

“Well … how about because they’re our source of food, or have you forgotten?” Donne said. She didn’t even glance at Sagan.

“Donne!” Lena said.

“No problem,” Sagan said, blushing again.

“Would you please stop doing that,” Donne said.

“What?” Sagan said.

“You’re blushing,” I said, then turned toward Donne a little angrily. “He can’t help it. You just called him food.”

“I told you, it’s no big deal; I’m cool,” Sagan said, taking my hand and then looking at Donne. “Sorry about the … autonomic reflex.”

“Donne?” Lena said.

Donne put her lips together, looking down at the table. “I … 
I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just … I don’t see how we can ever make this work; I’m sorry.”

“Nobody said it would be easy,” I said. “But … what if … we could maybe form some kind of pact? We could call it … mutual assured …”

“Destruction?” Donne said. She wasn’t smiling.

“Like … an agreement. You know. Working together. This is a really small start, but … who knows … it could take off and really grow. Maybe someday both types of … humans … could join forces and work together against their common enemy.”

“And you believe … under a scenario like that … humans would … just provide us with what we need?” Donne said.

“I think so … yeah … I think as long as—”

“It would never work,” Donne said. “Somebody would foul it up. Surely you can’t be that thick.”

I glared at her. “I didn’t say it would be perfect. That’s why I said start small, work our way up from there.”

Sagan raised his hand. “Hey, as the resident snack, I’d like to say something.”

Everybody turned to stare at him.

“I hate to say it, but I agree with Donne. It would never work,” he said. “Just imagine how … other humans … would react. There would be protests. All kinds of cults—for and against—would spring up. There would be a whole bunch of new government regulations … assuming the government ever got done trading blood for experiments. Religious leaders would go completely nuts. One thing we … humans … generally don’t do well is large-scale stuff. Every once in a while we pull off a miracle, like landing on the moon.” He winked at me. “But so much of that was an engineering problem. We are great at engineering problems. But something like this? We can’t even get people in neighboring countries to like each other.”

“You are correct, I am afraid,” Lena said. “It would not be practical, Emma. I am sorry to spoil your grand plans.”

“But … what if we started right here?” I said. “Just see where it goes? We could help, couldn’t we, Sagan? With the
Sonneneruption
?”

“Help like how?” Donne said.

“We could … act as a kind of advance-warning system, you know?” I said. “I know you spend as much time as possible outdoors, but what if the
Sonneneruption
came during the day? You’d be dug in somewhere, completely oblivious to what was going on. You could miss it entirely … then be stuck for another few hundred years.”

“Most of the eruptions last more than a day,” Lena said. “I’d have to agree, Emma,” Sagan said. “The really powerful ones can wash over the earth for hours.”

“Still …”

“Forgive me for saying,” Anton said, “you’re young, Mr. Sagan, but you’re not going to live two or three hundred more years, are you? So it’s likely you may be … gone … before the next
Sonneneruption
. It’s not possible for you to live that long, is it? So how could this help us?”

Sagan grinned. “My great-grandfather is almost a hundred.”

“Isn’t it better than what you have now?” I said. “Maybe … when the time comes … Sagan could turn it over to someone else, someone younger?”

“Got me in the retirement village already, huh?” he said.

“Anton is correct,” Lena said. “And besides, it is not fair to expect a lifetime commitment from anyone, no matter how well intentioned.”

“But we could do it while we can,” I said, feeling the meeting slipping away, not going at all how I had imagined it would. “So
you could live a better life in the meantime. And we could band together to fight the
Verloren.
”

“So that’s why you got us out here,” Donne said. “You’re still looking for us to help, huh? Help spark a new war, worse than the last.”

I bristled at her tone. “So you’d rather hide like rats in a hole?”

“I’d rather live, thanks,” Donne said.

“Hey, time-out,” Sagan said, raising his hand. “Why don’t we just do what we can do? And let the other stuff sort itself out? Nobody has to save the world tonight. But we could make things better for you, right? Emma has told me about your situation. I’m sure I could find something a lot better for you out here—there are plenty of empty spaces where you could—”

Donne pounded her small fist on the table. “How do we know we can trust you?”

“I don’t know,” Sagan said. “You’ve trusted me this far. Well, Emma, actually. I can only give you my word.”

“That you won’t give us up?” Donne said.

“Even if I wanted to, what would I say?” Sagan said. “Um, excuse me, Officer, but there are three vampires living up at the state park and—ouch!” I pinched his leg under the table.

Donne got up from her chair, staring at me hotly. “You told him that too?”

“Okay … yeah … Well, actually, I took him there and—”

“Now what are we supposed to do? Move again?”

“No, really! You don’t have to move. Sagan would never tell anybody.” I looked at Lena. “I’m sorry. I guess I screwed up. I should have asked first. It’s nothing sinister, it’s just—I have a tendency to jump the gun. And I didn’t show him exactly where you live. Nobody is going to storm your place or anything. Please trust me.”

“Try living like this, dealing with the
Verloren
, for a hundred
years … we’ll see how trusting you are,” Donne said. But at least she sat down again.

“That’s the whole problem,” I said. “The
Verloren
are wrecking things for everybody. Somebody needs to get their attention.”

I noticed Anton had been holding his hand up.

“What?” I said.

“Emma, I appreciate your feelings, okay?” he said. “But there’s nothing that can be done about the
Verloren
. They’re just too strong.”

“I am afraid I must agree with Anton on this point,” Lena said. “There truly is no means of standing up to them at this time, not before the next
Sonneneruption
. The risk of provocation is too great.” She turned to Sagan. “And I understand if you do not want to help us in light of this decision.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, desperate to swing the mood in a different direction. “Sagan, maybe this is a good time to show off the observatory?”

“Um … sure,” Sagan said.

Everything felt a little somber as Sagan got set up, but things warmed a bit as he went into his routine. He gave the
Sonnen
the same basic tour he had given me. It was interesting to watch their faces and hear their gasps of astonishment. Some of their ideas about science and astronomy were pretty antiquated, and they seemed in awe of the technology, almost to the point of disbelief.