Authors: Alan Dean Foster
He found himself musing on beauty. “Natural” was in itself a kind of beauty to be admired. Adept and diverse as it was, melding could only advance beauty so far. Restricted to modification of the purely physical, it could do nothing to beautify an individual’s inner self. There was as yet no meld for personality, for a sense of humor, for wit or for compassion. Or for love, he told himself.
Invent that one and become the richest person on Earth.
Home to two hospitals, a fully accredited meld center, and medical offices as well as shops and dwellings, the main entrance to the tower he now found himself standing before boasted three levels of security. Not as extensive as one would encounter at a government building, but daunting nonetheless. He tried to put a hint of jauntiness in his step, to act as if he belonged. Very soon now he was going to learn the efficacy of Chaukutri’s melds and see if they were sufficient to fool general public security. Given the exceptional speed and ferocious nature of the official pursuit that he and the late Jiminy had attracted, he had no doubt that the likeness of his premeld self now occupied a prominent place in every security and alert file in southeastern Namerica.
Singly or in couples or in small groups, residents, workers, and visitors were passing through building Security in both directions. Whispr tried not to make eye contact, did his best to avoid drawing any casual glances in his direction, and struggled to blend in with the crowd. This was made easier because his melds were not radical, especially when compared to some that were being discharged from the tower’s hospital facilities. One way or another, in a hurry or taking their time, every one of the building’s occupants or visitors had a destination in mind that likely did not cause them to all but quiver in a rictus of anxiety. That unsettled state of mind was reserved, Whispr was certain, solely for him. The deeper into the structure he progressed, the more he was certain he could not go through with this. Or if he did, that it could not end any way but badly.
True, Righteous had assured him that both the physicians whose names the street surge and musician had provided came highly recommended through the regional box. But a recommendation was not a guarantee, and yesterday’s ally could easily turn into tomorrow’s turncoat. Whispr shook his head mournfully. What certified doctor with a legitimate public practice would risk treating a multiple wound that had patently been inflicted by a branch of officialdom? Suddenly next in line to enter the first stage of Security, he took a deep breath and stepped forward, to find himself enveloped in a softly purring green halo.
He was about to find out.
T
HE MONSTER THAT WAS
chasing her wasn’t there.
That was because it was entangled, of course. And now it had entangled her. It was silvery and shapeless, tiny and enormous, heavy as a sun
and light as a feather. In and out of reality it burst, one moment threatening to crush her to a pulp, the next to envelop her in an alien embrace that was hot, was cold, was freezing, was burning up. Ingrid Seastrom screamed but made no sound. It did not matter because there were none around to hear.
The forest was filled with splinters. Underfoot as she ran was a surface composed of sequoias three centimeters high while around her blades of sharp glass hundreds of meters tall thrust skyward. Everything was the reverse of what it should be, oppositionally ornery, mary mary quite contrary how does your cosmos grow? As she fled in terror from the horror that was implacably closing in on her, from a dreadfulness she could not resolve, she felt little pieces of her mind sloughing off; memories rendered as dandruff. Felt her self remorselessly disintegrating, each fragment floating free on the sweltering humid air only to be swallowed up and digested by the indistinct ogre she was unable to elude.
Hot clammy fingers adhesive with moisture reached for her. She could not escape them because she was entangled with them. Once she had been absorbed by her shadowy pursuer she would cease to exist. Or would it be the monster that would cease to exist? With quantum entanglement one could never be sure which would be destroyed and which would survive, which was the original and which the copy.
It was upon her now; sultry, steaming, smothering. When she opened her mouth to scream again, it slithered down her throat and began to choke her. Perspiration stung her eyes like a hundred minuscule bees. She couldn’t breathe.
With a gasp she sat up in bed, her heart pounding, sweat cascading down her body in salty runnels, and knew instantly the cause.
Hormones.
Damn it
, she told herself.
This has got to stop
. Sliding unclothed out of the bed, her progress lubricated by the same perspiration that had contributed to her awakening, she stumbled into the bathroom and cursed at the shower. As soon as she entered, water of a preprogrammed temperature materialized all around to strike her body from every direction. Inhaling deeply of the warm, soothing wetness, she let out a long exhausted breath and began to relax. The shower was the personal luxury of which she was the most fond. It was also the most expensive. As a respected and successful physician, she could afford it. She owned little in the way of jewelry
save for one flashy sphene bracelet, did not take expensive vacations, and the typical social expenses of an attractive woman her age were generally picked up by the men who asked her out. She felt no guilt over the sophisticated shower.
Especially right now.
As the water was whisked away to be recycled by the building, she stood with her arms held away from her sides while the facility gently dried and scented her. One step beyond the utility’s one-way glass wall, the ground fell eighty-five floors straight away to the ground. She could see out and no one could see in, but it was no shower for an acrophobe.
More than anything, she was angry at herself for continuing to suffer from such nightmares and not doing anything about them. She was a
doctor
, for goodness sake! This early morning’s unenchanted death dream made twenty or so she had suffered this month. While the particulars of each nightmare differed, the underlying paradigm was the same. Something was chasing her, some unknown horror, and it always involved entanglement of a sort. Sunday night her imaginary tormentor had been a monstrous water-dweller. Before that, a gruesome flying creature.
Physician, heal thyself
. Or at least call a colleague. There were plenty of readily available medications that would mitigate the effects of the hormonal changes her body was undergoing. She had put off taking them: a fine example for a medical practitioner.
This evening
, she told herself. Before lunch she would file a request to fill the pertinent prescription and it would be ready for pickup when she finished work. As if the discomfort and personal embarrassment the nightmares were causing her were not enough, there was the matter of continually having to change the bed.
At least she could look forward to the fact that it was Friday. Saturday lay uncommitted before her, open and inviting. Maybe she would call Suzanne and Leora and the three of them would go down to Dubaia Park for the weekend, letting themselves luxuriate and unwind among the welcoming spas and sensoria of the south coast’s strand of artificial islands.
The mere thought was enough to reenergize her. So much so that this morning she decided to spurn the usual severe white unisex medical garb in favor of a lightweight business suit of robin’s-egg blue, one short of sleeve and tremulous of hem. It would brighten her colleagues’ day as well as her own. She smiled mischievously to herself as she imagined Rajeev’s
reaction to it. Though he didn’t see them often, he was of the considered opinion that she did indeed have legs.
Before she left her apartment and took the elevator down to work she thought to check on the lab report that had nagged at her ever since she had first listened to it. The notion of tiny vanishing devices fashioned of impossible substances was sufficiently thought-engaging to push the last remnant memories of her most recent nightmare clean out of her mind. While ongoing speculation as to the source and function of what she had extracted from the back of Cara Gibson’s head produced only greater confusion and bemusement, these were at least a welcome relief from continuing anxiety and frustration over the inescapable hormonal changes that were taking place within her own body.
Work itself was also a great help. Even for a general practitioner such as herself, far more concentration and effort was demanded than had been for her long-ago predecessors. Like her, they had prescribed aspirin and bed rest, had set broken bones and administered vaccines, had been required to observe symptoms and call for specific tests to isolate certain diseases.
None of them, however, had been asked to identify the cause of infection in a third eye. None had been expected to diagnose whether the progressively collapsing bone structure of a complete facial remeld should be attributed to failed surgery, inadequate maintenance on the part of the patient, or the insidious effects of a recently banned self-administered tanning additive.
Though she dealt with no one under the age of thirteen, there were still children present in the office antechamber. Accompanying adults seeking treatment and advice, the kids kept the atmosphere lighter than that generally found in specialists’ offices. Maybe it was the presence of the candy robot Ingrid had acquired several years back. The mechanoid entertained, and dispensed sweets, and joked around, and generally made life easier for her adult patients by diverting their progeny. Ingrid had never thought of the robot as a tool for bringing in business. In truth, she had more clients than she could comfortably handle and was regularly forced to turn prospective patients away. She hated to do it, but the alternative was to exhaust herself, to the detriment not only of her own health but of her work.
It wasn’t her unarguably capable skills but rather her concern that marked her as an exceptional doctor.
Even allowing for the fact that she had a competent office staff whose work was supplemented by up-to-date automatics, the morning passed with exceptional efficiency. Chosen on whim, her outfit had the desired effect not only on Rajeev but on everyone who saw it. Women complimented it, men ogled it, a few men complimented it and a few women ogled it. She drew equal attention from both Naturals and Melds. Even in modern society it was still recognized that certain aspects of physical attractiveness transcended time, space, and elective body modification.
After an excellent lunch at Laziiz, a restaurant with a view that blistered from the east wall of the tower, she returned to her office suite rejuvenated by all the attention that had been paid to her, even by strangers. And also by the knowledge that once she had seen to the afternoon’s pro bono patients she would be free for the weekend. In her mind, the artificial beaches of Dubaia were looking more and more attractive.
It had been a long time since the passage of the law that required every citizen to donate a certain number of hours per week to community service. For all its unpopularity when introduced, as a way of reducing the cost of government it had proven to be an undeniable success. What those forced to participate in the program got out of it, Ingrid had reflected on more than one occasion, was entirely up to them. Whether janitor or jailer, lawyer or landscaper, butcher, baker, or candlestick maker, the PSP (public service program) could either leave one feeling better for having helped out one’s fellow human, or that they had simply been taken advantage of by the government. The viewpoint one took was usually a matter of personality as well as perspective.
Personally, Ingrid enjoyed her pro bono time. There wasn’t much that made her feel better than resetting a twisted muscle, layering fresh bone over a fracture, or administering a successful epidural to someone suffering from a bad meld. Since the government paid for all medications, she felt no hesitation in handing them out freely but wisely. There were impoverished old folks whose youthful melds had begun to break down, poor but sturdy men and women in the throes of Mali cough, furtive and ignorant twenty-somethings whose medical difficulties were indicative of having engaged in the right sex in the wrong place, or the wrong sex in the right place.
Occasionally her office saw to immigrants whose illnesses required full body scans and subsequent library searches. She treated each and every
one of them with the same concern and compassion she lavished on her paying patients. Though her PSP efforts brought in no money, she had grown wealthy in grateful tears and thank-yous.
Last visitor of all today was this slender fellow, recently enhanced of thigh and calf, oddly ill at ease in her antechamber, who according to her receptionist had insisted on
being
the last patient of the day. An odd request, Ingrid mused as she examined him. The usual wish of her patients both pro bono and paying was to see her as soon as possible.
He didn’t look sick. Scrutinizing him as his own attention wandered from her to her professionally decorated surroundings to the spotless floor and back again, she found herself doubting that he had ever looked completely healthy. But according to the preliminary checks and initial readings she took there was no overt indication of illness. The man didn’t have so much as a head cold. She sighed resignedly. Another hypochondriac. He wouldn’t be her first. And contrary to popular thinking, hypochondria was not an affliction confined exclusively to the well-off.
Still, she told herself, he was the last patient of the day. She might as well complete the exam by running the usual full-scale body scan. The poor skinny fellow probably hadn’t had one in years, if ever.
“Stand over there please.” She held no clipboard, no compact recording device. Half a dozen linked recorders, some highly specialized, were built into the walls and ceiling of the gleaming, pale blue examination room. He nodded, complied, and retreated a couple of steps until he was standing within the main medical scanner. She did not ask him to remove his clothing. It was not necessary. “Hold still. This scan will complete your exam. You may breathe, if you wish.”