A werewolf among us

changed little in a thousand years. He buckled the holster on, put the gun in the smooth sleeve of it, slipped into his coat again.
    "Still holding, sir."
    "On my way right now," St. Cyr said, wondering what Dane Alderban had to say on the sly, away from the rest of the family. He stepped out of the bedroom, pulled the door shut, crossed the sitting room as he called for Dane's admittance.
    The door slid up, and the young man entered the room fast, stopped beyond St. Cyr, and looked quickly around as if he expected to find someone else there.
    "You'll have to excuse the delay," St. Cyr said. "I was dressing for bed when you called."
    Dane raised a long-fingered hand and impatiently waved away the suggestion of an apology. He sat down in the largest easy chair in the room, by the patio doors, barely able to contain the nervous energy that normally kept him on his feet, pacing, moving. He said, "I've come here to make a suggestion that could put an early end to this whole affair—if you'll have the good grace
to listen to me and to think about what I have to say."
    St. Cyr went to the bar, folded it open, looked at the contents and said, "A drink?"
    "No, thank you."
    St. Cyr poured Scotch, put the bottle back, popped two cubes into the glass and to hell with bruising the liquor, sat down in the chair that faced Dane's from the other end of the closed patio doors, putting a long swath of darkness on one side of them. "My job is to listen to people, consider what they tell me—and put a swift end to the case."
    Dane sat on the edge of the chair, his elbows on his knees, his head bent down, looking up at
St. Cyr over the ridge of his brow, just as he had done in the drawing room earlier. It almost seemed that he affected the position to conceal most of the expression on his face.
    He said, "St. Cyr, I am thoroughly convinced that the native legends are the only answer to the murders."
    "The
du-aga-klava
, a werewolf among us?"
    "Yes."
    St. Cyr did not reply.
    "That thing you wear, the other half of you…"
    "The bio-computer?"
    "Yes. It rejects the notion of werewolves, doesn't it, discards the consideration right off?"
    St. Cyr took a sip of Scotch, found it smooth and hot, a good brand. "It doesn't, strictly speaking, discard any probability. It assigns degrees of possibility to every theory that comes up, that's all."
    "To werewolves—a very low degree of possibility."
    "Most likely."
    Dane drew even more to the edge of his chair, increased the odd angle from which he carried on the conversation. "So low a degree, in fact, that it doesn't give serious consideration to the idea at all."
    "It doesn't reason in absolutes," St. Cyr corrected, "neither negative nor positive absolutes."
    Suddenly the young man sighed and slid back in the easy chair, as if someone had tapped his skull and released the energy in one puff. He said, "At least, give me a chance to show you a few things. Come with me tomorrow when I go up into the mountains."
    "What will we find there?" St. Cyr asked.
    "Gypsies," Dane said.
    "Native Darmanians?"
    "Yes. But there is one old woman, especially, who may be able to convince even your bio-computer. Her name is Norya, and she knows all there is to know about these mountains."
    "To convince both halves of me, of the symbiote, she'll have to have facts, not tales, evidence and not superstition."
    "She has all of that, facts
and
tales, evidence
and
superstition." He slid forward on the chair again, his charge of energy having apparently built up to full strength. "Will you come along with me?"
    St. Cyr was about to reply when the bio-computer insinuated a command, unvoiced, into the conversation:
Go easy on the liquor; you need to think clearly; you may have to react suddenly
. He looked at the glass in his hand and saw that he had finished all but half an ounce of Scotch in the last couple of minutes, though he had not realized that he was even sipping at it.
    "Will you?" Dane asked again.
    "What time?"
    "After lunch; meet me in the garage on the first level."
    "Fine," St. Cyr said.
    'You won't regret giving me your time."
    Dane got to his feet as if something had sneaked up behind him and gouged him in the ribs; he laced his fingers and stretched his arms, cracking his large knuckles.
    St. Cyr stood too, trying to think if there were something he should ask the boy, some new angle of questioning warranted by the circumstances, and his train of thought was derailed by a curious, abrupt bark that