All his long life, Declan was careful not to turn any human by bite or contaminate with his blood.

  (Small Fry Chapter 4)

Over the next fifteen minutes, I sat curled up in a corner of a couch, in one of the three Observation Lounges.  I even sipped on a hot chocolate I had one of the food synthesizers create, in the Mess Hall.  The lounges were positioned by the outer dome wall, which gave an excellent view of the alien surroundings. 

Taurus Six had perpetual storms and the dense clouds created the constant lightning, which shot across the sky.  Occasionally, the hot sunlight from the binary star system did get through, but on any given day there could be up to five hurricane-force downpours.  The nitrogen generated from the lightning, as well as the regular rainfall, coupled with the hot light from the binary stars; gave the planet thick, tropical vegetation as well as a rich, oxygen atmosphere.  However, it was impossible for humans to colonize the planet, because of the ionized atmosphere the storms created, which wouldn’t allow spacecraft to safely traverse.  Then there was also the problem of the ships flying through the unstable nebula, the planet was inside.

As I sipped on my beverage, I enjoyed the stillness of the base.  I didn’t mind the solitude, as I liked the hum of the environmental systems which maintained the comfortable temperature and light.  Right now, I preferred it to what Declan and Ki were seeing in the Viewing Room.  My ominous feelings as a Circulator were still singing songs like, ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’.

I knew it wouldn’t be a pretty picture, European Werewolves and sexual reproduction.  It would attribute to how Declan was created, as most European Werewolves were; by bite or the transference of blood.  When he was three years old, he was mauled by the European Werewolf which killed his father and attacked his pregnant mother.  Declan almost died, but my Lokoti Werewolf grandfather, saved his life by sharing his blood.  Then he was trained by the pack not to turn into the man-eater which nearly destroyed his family.

All his long life, Declan was careful not to turn any human by bite or contaminate with his blood.  He was adamant he should be the last of his kind.  The humans he had bitten, he tore apart, so there wasn’t anything left to change.  In these instances, the Police allocated the murders to an ‘animal attack’.

So instead of seeing the depressing statistics, I amused myself by staring out at the tropical landscape.

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