let the tech take his sample.
When the rest of his team had followed suit, the tech sent them to a
waiting room until the results were back, probably in less than an
hour. Thompson posted the newest team member with their luggage, sent
his second-in-command to a phone to make arrangements for them to be
quartered in the System Palace, then told the rest to spread out and
start up conversations with the others in the room, all of whom looked
like locals.

Not that he really had to give them orders any more, he thought. All
except Corporal Nkomo--who'd replaced Corporal van Breda, killed on an
earlier mission--had been with him for at least four years; they were
more of a family than a military unit, although they were careful to
maintain protocol with anyone else around. Thompson knew he had a
reputation for being overly concerned with his people's welfare,
especially since he'd turned down promotion to stay with his team, but
he preferred being called a mother hen to taking command of a larger
unit that would give him less personal satisfaction.

While his people circulated, Thompson leafed through several of the
newsjournals that seemed to be an inevitable part of every waiting
room. He started with the oldest, published about six weeks ago,
discovering that the Archbishop's basic facts were accurate. There had
been riots, all right, when some kind of laboratory accident and
explosion had released the pseudo-virus and created the first Kins of
the Dragon. They'd called themselves that from the very beginning, it
seemed, which Thompson found intriguing--and it was discovered almost
immediately that they had to drink blood to survive. Preferably human
blood, taken directly from a donor's carotid, though they could manage
for short times on packaged or even animal blood. Normal food made
them violently ill, and strong spices caused anaphylactic shock,
usually fatal. To balance those limitations, they developed great
physical strength and endurance, as well as the responsive and
projective forms of empathy the detective chief had mentioned.

Unfortunately, the first reaction to the Kins had been horror.
Thompson could understand that, though he didn't share it; psych tests
kept people who couldn't overcome such feelings out of Imperial
service. He was more intrigued than frightened by the idea of a Kin
drinking some of his blood, and according to the journals, most
Narvonese had felt the same way after the ini