A Covenant of Justice by David Gerrold

across the distant Milky Way, breeding and spreading and smothering all the worlds they encounter. Perhaps one day, they will again leap across the years toward the beckoning Cluster. Do we dare relax our defenses? Do we dare become complacent? I think not. The Phaestor still stand watch against the predators, and those who benefit from our labors must pay us for our service. The transaction has no shame; we ask only life for life.
    â€œWe ask only your continued partnership.”

Partnership
    William Three-Dollar bowed politely. The tall, red-skinned man had an angular grace that rivaled that of the Vampires themselves. He said, “My Lady, with no disrespect, your version of history differs significantly from mine. Perhaps the error lies with your perspective. Perhaps it lies with mine. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in-between, and perhaps indeed, the truth exists in neither of our respective tellings. Nevertheless, it seems to me that your version of history contains a measure of self-serving inaccuracy that allows you to continue this fiction that we humans exist in partnership and that we should enjoy this relationship. In point of fact, we most emphatically do not.”
    Zillabar looked momentarily confused, but she recovered quickly and waved Three-Dollar’s words away with one bejeweled hand. “Look out there. See the storms that sweep across Burihatin? You swim like a balloon-fish in the current. You have no idea of the forces that move you. You have no idea what lies beyond your ability to perceive. Your language doesn’t even have the distinctions which would allow me to explain. You can’t hear what I say, you can only hear what your perceptions allow you to hear.”
    Behind Three-Dollar, Sawyer and Lee exchanged a wary glance. Three-Dollar inclined his head curiously, as if listening to something else, then bowed politely. “Enlighten us, then. Show us what we do not understand.”
    Zillabar thought about standing up to face the impudent man, decided not to; she still felt the delicious warmth of Finn Markham’s blood coursing through her veins; she didn’t want to spoil the moment. She stretched out comfortably across the couch.
    â€œI’ll tell you part of what you don’t know,” she said. “We have found the taste of human blood and human flesh to have an invigorating effect upon our palates. Humans provide a very sweet addition to our diets, much more delicious than our original bioform prey. Humans breed faster and taste better. Many vampires prefer the taste of humans, and correspondingly we feel much less pressure to restore and maintain our bioform herds as before. We would rather lessen the number of humans first. We do not enjoy your competition for resources.
    â€œThe matter of your sentience does not carry the same importance to us as it does to you; because from our vantage point, you really do not have anywhere near as much sentience as you think you do. You have just enough rationality to understand the concept, but certainly not enough to achieve it.
    â€œWe plan to have a Phaestor governor on every Regency world before the beginning of the next cycle. All of the lesser species will soon serve our needs, and we will complete the process of restructuring the Dominion. Despite the untimely death of Lord Drydel—an event in which your participation will not go unpunished—our plans will go forward. I will lay many eggs—more than any other queen in history. And you humans will play an important part in that drama as well.
    â€œOur experiments have proven that Phaestor boys grow faster and healthier when hatched in human hosts. So your species will provide another service to the Phaestoric Dominion. You will not only feed us, you will help us breed, and all the while you will help us reduce your numbers.
    â€œFrom your feeble perspective, of course, this must appear as a terrible violation of your desperate urge to