“No. Not the way you mean it. But it would not matter if you had. Humans are very easily cleansed of most ailments. As for danger to myself, there are very few diseases which can cross between our kinds, and all are borne by the blood or…other such fluids.”

For some reason, his expression darkened as he said this last, and he glared at his eggs for a long, tense moment before stabbing at and eating one.

Silence again. She tried to think of a way to fill it.

“The room looks nice.”

“It is very comfortable. Thank you.”

There was a clock in here somewhere. She could hear it ticking.

“Tagen,” she said timidly. “Are you all right? Listen, if I said something…Okay, there’s not really a whole lot of ‘if’ in that. I know I said things and I’m sorry…I’m really sorry I hit you. I never should have hit you.”

“I provoked you and I knew it.” He ate another egg without looking at her.

“Yeah, well, of the two of us, I think I’m still holding the title of Head Provoker and we both know it. Listen…I’m coping with this the best way I can, and I know I’m being a bitch, but I can’t help it. I’m sorry.”

“It is going to be hot today,” he muttered, and his scowl deepened.

Daria pushed a neat square of battered bread through a lake of maple syrup.

“You have said nothing I cannot endure,” Tagen stated at last.

“I don’t want you to endure me,” she blurted, and felt herself blush when he looked strangely at her. “I want to be your friend.”

Tagen frowned, his eyes narrow with silent suspicion, and she had a feeling he was having trouble with his translation. She couldn’t blame him. She knew she’d been anything but friendly.

“I know you didn’t even want a partner,” Daria admitted. “And if you’d had a choice, you wouldn’t have picked me anyway.”

He did not interrupt with hurried objections. He was still and silent.

Daria sat staring at her French toast, blinking her eyes dry. She was afraid to speak and betray herself with tears, afraid to remain silent and leave him with just that said. She picked at a miniscule chunk of sausage, forced it down her dry throat, and set her plate aside.

“But I’m what you’ve got,” she said, staring at her knees. “And I’d rather be your friend than just your human host. I’m not very nice and I’m not much to look at, but…having you here has made me realize that…that I’m lonely, Tagen. I haven’t had a friend in a long time…and…” She risked an upward glance.

Tagen had turned away from her, his jaw clenched and eyes glowering, unblinking, at the back cushions of his fold-out bed.

Daria dropped her eyes back to her lap and concentrated on keeping her breathing slow and even. She heard him sigh and saw his huge, three-fingered hand drop over her knee and squeeze lightly. She looked up into his falcon’s eyes; they were distant, troubled.

“I doubt,” he said gravely, “that you would have chosen me to be here with you, but I think that you are good for me. I am becoming…accustomed to you.” His jaw clenched several times as he stared at her. “I do not know the bad thing that happened to you,” he said, and his grip on her tightened slightly when she tried to pull back, startled. “But it is plain that it did happen. And yes, you are coping with this the best way that you can, and in the best way I could expect. I understand what it must mean to you, that you offer yourself to be my friend.”

He stopped there, his hand still heavy on her knee, and looked darkly at the window, all blue sky and bright sunlight. “But it is hot. I am not at my best, and you must endure that. If you cannot, tell me now.”

She tried to laugh for him a little, taken dramatically aback by the seriousness in his voice. “You sound so…grim about it. I only want to be friends, I’m not going to bed with you.”

Tagen’s eyes almost closed in an expression that was very nearly a wince, and his claws pricked slightly at her thigh in a quick, involuntary-seeming squeeze. One side of his mouth turned up in a tired smile, and he patted her once and then drew back and addressed himself to the remains of his breakfast.

That was too abrupt. She’d insulted him. He was doing his best with the language, why did she have to jump all over him every time he got lost in translation? She wanted to apologize, but you could only do that so many times in one sitting. She picked up her plate instead, and pretended to have regained her appetite.

“So…now that we’re friends…” Daria applied more syrup to her last bite of egg. “What’s the plan for today?”

He growled quietly. “There must be a way to track unnatural death over a great distance, or to separate out the count of death in which the cause is known. Perhaps, if this is done, I will see some pattern.”

Oh sure. As simple as that. Maybe if she were the county medical examiner or an F.B.I. agent.

“Okay,” Daria said doubtfully, and looked over her shoulder as if she could see her computer floating in the air behind her. “I’ll see what I can find on the Web. It’s a good place to start, if we’re looking for gory details. What am I looking for exactly?”

“Severe injury.” Tagen frowned. “To the head alone, I should think. Sudden, violent death.”

Daria looked down at her empty plate, her breakfast swimming unpleasantly in her stomach. “Oh.”

“Likely, the skull will be entirely split or removed.”

“Thank you, Tagen, that’ll do me.” She gathered his plate and stacked it over hers, rising to go. “You can keep watching the news. There’s always a chance you’ll recognize your guy’s handiwork if it gets reported.”

“Hm.” Tagen immediately looked exhausted. “I…I ask your patience, Daria. I must…lie down during the worst hours of the day.”

“Sure. The news is on 24/7. Do you need anything?” Daria asked, pausing at the door.

He looked mildly alarmed for an instant before his features smoothed again into a mask of calm. “How do you mean?” he asked cautiously.

“You look…like you hurt,” she answered, and Tagen’s brow furrowed in something that may have been selfconscious shame. “Is there anything I can get you? Aspirin or…I don’t know, Chapstick or lotion or anything?”

“I know none of those words.”

“Aspirin is a pill you take to—”

“No.”

“Okay. Well, Chapstick is for your lips.” She mimed application. “It helps in dry weather.”

Tagen touched his own broad mouth with the pads of his fingers. “I don’t think so.”

“Or lotion? It helps dry skin. It’s a moisturizer.”

Tagen froze with his hand still brushing at his lips and an echo of that disquiet, shame-faced expression recurred. “Yes,” he said, and looked away. “Please.”

When Daria returned from her medicine cabinet downstairs with her half-full bottle of Johnsons & Johnsons, Tagen had already taken the dishes down to the kitchen sink and was again in his room. His back was to her; he did not turn when she set the plastic pump bottle on the desk, but he did bow his head slightly.

His voice, low and oddly guilty, drifted after her as she backed into the hall and closed the door. “I am sorry. Thank you.”

*

Tagen sank down into the soft support of his borrowed bed, exhausted by the effort of removing the last of his clothing. All his senses were burned away except for the searing ache of his loins, throbbing, hot as lava, swelling up with renewed heat when he spread his thighs. He could feel the weight of his hand rubbing in agony at the slight swell of his tsesac, absent of any pleasure or relief. He could feel sweat rolling off his body, pooling beneath him, soaking into the tussled bedding, already damp and soiled from the night previous.

Gradually, he became aware also of sound, of movement downstairs, of the human, Lindaria.

Daria.

Her face had no sooner suggested itself to his mind then it was ripped away by cruel, desperate desire to have her naked before him. He knew it was biologically possible for their two races to couple. The Kevrian did a thriving trade in sex-houses filled with human slaves, and the So-Quaal had made no secret of their on-going attempts to hybridize their race with the natives of Earth despite their declarations of neutrality. And the tee-vee, when the hour grew late, had shown him that humans mated in much the same fashion as Jotan. It was possible, and with Heat burning down into his bones, it was the only expedient solution.