tial shock had worn
off--especially those who'd had friends or relatives affected.

But there had been enough whose horror had persisted to cause the
trouble that had inspired the Archbishop's appeal. Riots had broken
out in all but the smallest towns, Kins had been brutally murdered by
impalement, decapitation, poisoning, incineration--but that trouble had
tapered off dramatically, starting about a week after the Archbishop's
call, when all three Planetary Barons and the System Count announced
that they had been infected and become Kins themselves. Thompson found
that amusing, if almost inevitable; once Imperial nobility embraced
something new, most of the people in their fiefs followed suit. By
now, attacks on Kins were down to scattered incidents, and it looked
like they'd taper off to almost nothing soon.

In fact, public opinion had made almost a complete reversal from the
initial near-universal horror. In spite of some lingering
apprehension, Kins were rapidly becoming respected and even envied--a
process speeded by the fact that many of them had been that way to
begin with. The Archbishop had been right in his report that it was
the "best people" who were becoming Kins. Not "best" in the sense of
richest or most powerful, although some were, but in the sense of
contributing most to society. Kins overwhelmingly came from groups
like doctors, police officers, religious, and others who were devoted
to some form of service; none came from criminal or other anti-social
elements, and only a few from generally-neutral groups. The
approximately one-percent figure the tech had mentioned seemed
accurate, so not all members of even the highest-incidence groups were
Kins--but it was enough to convince Thompson that such an oddly
selective disease called for scientific investigation, rather than
military intervention. It wouldn't surprise him to see the Kins become
Narvon System's local nobility, either.

"Captain Thompson?"

He looked up from the journal to see the tech approaching, and his
people breaking off their conversations to join them. Waiting until
his team had gathered around, he asked the tech, "What results?"

"One susceptible, Captain," the tech said, his expression unreadable.
"You."

Thompson was silent for a moment, then said, "Oh, Chaos." He wouldn't
mind letting a Kin drink from him, but he had no desire to become one,
even with the social status they seemed to be gaining. He didn't know