Starblood

as he was in this hideous shell of his. Still, though there was no desire there was—at times, rare and easily forgotten—a deep-seated yearning for something he could not name, a yearning that made him feel cold and hollow. He had that feeling now. He only got it around especially sensual women, exceptionally stunning in all aspects. He felt hollow and unfulfilled. His skin grew clammy, and his throat was so dry that it ached.
    She motioned him to the chair across from her. "This is an honor. I usually get interviewed by your reporters." She was charming, with a light and airy quality that did not give evidence of the uneasiness she felt, of the slight disgust that his appearance had aroused in her.
    As he settled into a mushroom chair and turned off his grav-plates, he assured her it was his pleasure, not hers. She showed him how to order a drink from the console beside the chair, and in a minute he had a screwdriver. He sipped his drink and was thankful for the taste of vodka and orange juice.
    "I'm more than a little curious," she said, leaning toward him. She spoke almost musically. "I can't understand what sort of special article you want to do that would require your own participation."
    "I lied to you," he said quite bluntly. He knew he must speak faster and more directly than he had planned, for he would find himself liking her too much too soon. There was that childlike directness that transcended sexuality, and she could use that alone to wrap men around her long, well-manicured fingers.
    "Lied?" she asked, not comprehending, as if no one had ever done such a thing with her before. And perhaps this was so. Lying to this woman would require the same sort of bully villainism that motivated a selfish teenager to tell a younger brother that Santa Claus was a hoax.
    "I'm not here to do an article for the paper," he said. "It was the only excuse that would get me in here to see you."
    She frowned, still not able to grasp the purpose of sneaking in to her house under false pretenses.
    "I don't wish you harm. I need a favor of you."
    She started to rise, but he motioned her down. She looked a bit agitated, and her reaction was almost childish—though he felt that she was incapable of anything more than childlike anger. It was not that she was mentally immature—just that she had never experienced the nastiness of the world as he had, had never needed to build up a thick skin and a nastiness of her own. "This is my house," she said. "Are you trying to tell me what I can and can't do in my own house?"
    "I'm sorry," he said. "But if you rise, I'll have to turn on my grav-plates and rise as well to be sure you don't try to call for help—which would be foolish since I don't wish to harm you. And since I would merely tell the police I was here for an interview and show them the notes I've made. I'd pretend you were a headline hunter."
    "Notes? But—"
    "I made them beforehand. Just for such an eventuality as this."
    She smiled again. "You are clever, aren't you?"
    "I like to think so, yes."
    "Well, what is this favor?" She leaned back, sipped her own drink, her anger totally abated.
    He hoped she would never meet someone who would be too sharp and cold to be won over by her charm and innocence. The proper sort of sadist could bring her world down in a day, could break and ruin her without half trying. It might have been nice to have been raised in a world where evil had not existed—but it could also be deadly never to have formed the proper methods to cope with enemies.
    "You dated the late Klaus Margle, didn't you?" he asked.
    He thought he saw her
eyes
get a little glassy, as if she were holding back tears. When she spoke, there was a tremble in her voice. This amazed him when he considered the Klaus Margle he knew, a man without scruples or morals, willing to kill when the need arose. He supposed that it was possible that there was a totally different side to the man, though such a realization surprised him. He was relieved that the papers had not reported how Margle had died, and that the actual shootout was implied to be the doing of the police. "I did," she said. "I went with him for a good while. He was like a little boy around me. Very gentlemanly. I just don't believe all these things in the papers."
    "They're true," he said as gently as he could.
    "So you say."
    It was impossible to get angry at her, but he could feel anger at her almost cultured blindness to reality. He held his reaction in check and