Robert Silverberg - Vampires from Outer Space

“Harriman speaking.”

“van Dyne here, Neil. I’ve just finished giving our specimen a good checkdown.”

“Well?” Harriman demanded eagerly.

In a quiet voice said “If a Nirotan committed those murders, Neil, then I should have been a streetcleaner instead of a medic.”

“What do you mean?”

“Item one, the Nirotan’s big front incisor teeth are wedge-shaped—triangular. The holes in the victims’ throats were round. Item two is that the Nirotan’s jaws aren’t designed for biting—he’d have to be a contortionist or better, in order to get his teeth onto a human throat. And item three is that metabolically the Nirotans are as vegetarian as can be. Their bodies don’t have any way of digesting animal matter, blood or meat. Human blood would be pure poison to them if they tried to swallow any. It would go down their gullet like a shot of acid.”

“So they were telling the truth after all,” Harriman said quietly. “And all they had to do was let us examine one of them for ten minutes, and we’d be able to issue a full exoneration!”

“They’re aliens, Neil,” said van Dyne. “They have their own ideas about pride. They just couldn’t bring themselves to let an Earthman go poking around their bodies with instruments.”

“You haven’t done any harm to your patient, have you?”

“Lord, no!” van Dyne said. “I ran a complete external diagnosis on him. When he wakes up he won’t even know I’ve touched him. By the way, what am I supposed to do with him when he wakes up?”

“Does he show any signs of coming out from under the anesthetrin yet?”

“He’s beginning to show signs of coming around.”

“Give him another jolt and put him back under,” Harriman said. “Keep him hidden down at your place for a while, until I can figure out where to go next.”

“You have any ideas? Now that we know definitely that the Nirotans didn’t pull the vampire stunt, how are we going to find out who did?”

Harriman said, “That’s a damned good question. I wish I had an equally good answer for it.”

Then his eye fell to the tape of Nirotan history, still open at the place where he had been reading when interrupted by the telephone call.

He read: However, the Nirotans have been engaged in fierce economic competition with the artisans of Drosk for the past thousand years, and several times during this period the rivalry has become so intense that it has erupted into brief but savage wars between Drosk and Nirota—

“I’ve got a hunch,” Harriman said. “It’s pretty wild, but it’s worth a try. Keep that Nirotan out of sight for the rest of the day. I’m going to make another trip to San Francisco.”

The San Francisco Security Corpsmen knew exactly where to find Blen Duworn, attachè to the Drosk Trade Commission office. For one thing, all non-human beings were kept under informal surveillance during the emergency, for their own protection. For another, Blen Duworn was a material witness in the killing of Sam Barrett, and therefore was watched closely so he could be on hand in case authorities cared to question him again.

Which they did. Early in the day, after his night flight to the West Coast, Neil Harriman was shown into a room with the Drosk and left alone. Blen Duworn was short, about five feet three, but sturdily built, with thick hips and immensely broad shoulders, indicating the higher gravitational pull of his home world. The Drosk was, at least externally, human in every way except for the half-inch stubs above each eye that provided a sixth sense, that of sensitivity to heat-waves. Internally, of course, the Drosk was probably totally alien—but non-terrestrial beings were not in the habit of letting Terrans examine their interiors.

Harriman said affably, “I know you must be tired of it by now, Blen Duworn, but would you mind telling me just what you saw that morning?”

The Drosk’s smile was equally affable. “To put it briefly, I saw a Nirotan killing an Earthman. The Nirotan had his fangs to the Earthman’s throat and seemed to be drawing blood out of him.”

Nodding, Harriman pretended to jot down notes. “You were not the first one on the scene?”

“No. The Earthman named Harkins was there first.”

Harriman nodded again. “We of Earth know so little about the Nirotans, of course. We have some of their history, but none of their biology at all. They claim to be vegetarians, you know.”

“They’re lying. On their native worlds they raise animals simply to drink their blood.”

Harriman lifted an eyebrow. “You mean they have a long history of—ah—vampirism?”

“They’ve been blood-drinkers for thousands of years. Luckily for us, Drosk blood doesn’t attract them. Evidently Terran blood does.”

“Evidently,” Harriman agreed. In the same level, unexcited tone of voice he went on, “Would you mind telling me, now, just how you managed to convince Harkins that he saw a Nirotan draining blood from Barrett—when it was really you he saw?”

The antennae above Blen Duworn’s cold eyes quivered. “On my world, Earthman, a statement like that is a mortal insult that can be wiped out only by your death.”

“We’re not on your world now. We’re on Earth. And I say that you killed Sam Barrett, not a Nirotan, and that you deluded Harkins into thinking it was a Nirotan he saw.”

Duworn laughed contemptuously. “How preposterous! The Nirotans are known for their blood-drinking, while we of Drosk are civilized people. And you can yet accuse me of—”

“The Nirotans are vegetarians. Human blood is poison to them.”

“You believe their lies?” Duworn asked bitterly.

Harriman shook his head. “It isn’t a matter of belief. We’ve examined a Nirotan. We know they couldn’t possibly have committed those murders.”

“Examined a Nirotan?” Duworn repeated, amused. “How fantastic! A Nirotan wouldn’t let himself be touched by Earthmen!”

“This one had no choice,” Harriman said softly. “He was unconscious at the time. We gave him a thorough going-over and found out beyond question that the Nirotans have to be innocent.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Believe as you wish. But who might be interested in seeing the Nirotans blamed for such crimes? For thousands of years Drosk and Nirota have been rivals in the galaxy, trying to cut each other out of juicy trading spots. Here on Earth we’ve allowed both of you to come peddle your wares, in direct competition with each other. But Drosk didn’t like that, did it? So an enterprising Drosk did some research into Terran folklore, and found out about the vampire legend—about the dreaded giant bats who drink human blood, and who happen to resemble the people of Nirota. And someone cooked up the idea of murdering a few Earthmen by draining out their blood, and letting us draw our own conclusions about who did it—knowing damned well that there would be an immediate public outcry against the Nirotans, and also knowing that the Nirotans were culturally oriented against defending themselves. You figured we’d never find out that the Nirotans couldn’t possibly have done it. But you didn’t count on the chance that we might violate Nirotan privacy, drag one of them off to a medical laboratory, and see for ourselves.”

Blen Duworn’s muscular face remained impassive, but his tiny antennae were stiff and agitated. “You forget that there was an Earthman who saw the Nirotan drinking blood.”

“We know the Nirotans can’t drink human blood,” returned Harriman sharply. “Therefore, Harkins was either lying, bribed, or not responsible for what he was saying. I rather think it was the last, Blen Duworn. That you manipulated his mind in such a way as to have him think he saw a Nirotan. And then that you gilded the lily by coming forth as a witness yourself—never dreaming that we’d be uncivilized enough to look at a Nirotan despite his wishes, and find out the truth.”