"Okay." Thompson extended his arm and 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 initial 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 just how much blood a Kin needed, but he was positive it was more than his team could supply, and probably more than anything short of a base or mid-sized ship could handle; if he became one, he'd lose his team, maybe even have to be discharged. "You said the virus has to get into my bloodstream to infect me?"