Authors: Alan Dean Foster
“Is it directional? The signal, I mean.”
She eyed him in surprise. “I can’t figure out if you’re knowledge-challenged or just knowledge-specific.”
He smiled diffidently. “Actually, I’m stupid, but I do know a few things.”
She turned back to the console readouts. Nothing to trace there. Her shoulders slumped.
Whispr could see that investigation-wise the doctor was at a dead end. Not one to linger in an atmosphere of unproductive circumstance, he started toward the instrumentation.
“I guess this is as much as I’m going to learn in your office. Thanks again for all your help, medicinal and otherwise. I promised you payment if you deactivated the traktacs. I keep my word, Ms. Doc. As soon as I find someone willing to buy that thing, whatever it is and regardless of whether it can be read or not, I promise that I’ll pay you—something.” He reached for the flex receptacle.
Her palm came down on a contact nearby. A sheet of hard transparency slid down to cover the opening to the receptacle. Grimacing,
Whispr put a fingertip on the covering and tried to push it back up. It didn’t budge. She withdrew her hand from the contact and backed up as he reached toward it. No matter how hard or how many times he pressed it, the receptacle’s protective cover remained in place.
Coded
, he told himself. Matched to a command or to her handprint. Either way, he knew he could eventually break in and get the contact to work. He was good at breaking into things. But he was curious.
“Why’d you do that? Your equipment can’t read the thread. It’s no good to you.”
“Or to you.” As she replied, she heard a tiny voice in her head shouting.
What do you think you’re doing? You’re all alone here, everyone else has probably gone home, this guy isn’t big but he’s strong and desperate, and you’re confronting him over—what? The unknown?
Employing much harsher and less politely acceptable silent musings, Whispr was wondering much the same.
“You can’t stop me getting it back. It’s my property. I’ll find something. I can use a chair, if I have to. I’ll break it open.”
It struck her abruptly and unexpectedly that a single trailing letter constituted the only difference between thread and threat. Banishing the less than noteworthy insight from her thoughts, she surprised herself by continuing to refuse to buckle to the demand of her taller, probably stronger visitor.
“I mean it when I say that I don’t know if there’s anything on that thread. But I feel that after everything I’ve done for you that I now have an equal right to know if there is. I’ve helped you twice now. You say you’ll pay me. I have no guarantee of that.” She indicated the receptacle. “You can pay me with knowledge. More fulfilling to me, cheaper for you. And there is this similarity of manufacture between the thread and the device I removed from the girl’s head. It’s important to me to understand and to resolve that. It’s a matter of medical knowledge.”
“I might trust you more if I could see that ‘device’ you keep talking about.” Whispr held his ground. “Where is it?”
“Elsewhere.” She improvised hurriedly. “It’s not currently accessible. It doesn’t matter. I have records of it that I can utilize for direct comparison. There’s no need for you to concern yourself with its location.” It was her turn to eye the receptacle. “I want to know what, if anything, is on that
thread. You want to know what, if anything, it’s worth. If we continue to work together we can achieve mutually beneficial and nonconflicting aims.”
“ ‘Work togeth …’ ” He gaped at her. The woman staring back at him was smart, she was a successful nonmeld physician, she was pretty—she might as well be from a different universe. He shook his head slowly but forcefully. “I just finished ‘working together’ with an old friend. Now he’s dead. Partly because we worked together. Doesn’t that scare you?”
She swallowed. “Yes. Yes, it scares me.” Having taken the first step off the precipice she found herself continuing to plunge helplessly. “But I don’t care. I’ve only ever seen one other thing like that thread, and neither of them make any sense. I don’t know for sure how much yours might be worth, but a part of me won’t rest until I understand one or both of them better than I do now. I’ll try to explain this to you, Whispr—I don’t have any choice in the matter. Now that I’ve seen them, I
have
to understand them.” She paused and stared hard at him. “It’s called ‘science.’ ”
Whispr reflected that to someone like himself and to most of his friends, such an attitude would be called “senseless,” but he kept the thought to himself. “Supposing for the moment that I might consider going along with something like this—why should I?”
She thought fast. “You don’t have access to the kind of expensive, specialized scientific equipment that I can call upon in the name of ‘research.’ I don’t have access to the kind of, uh, specialized resources that you do. We each have detailed knowledge in our respective—fields. Maybe I can figure out the secrets of this storage medium without you. Maybe you’d eventually be able to do the same without me. But there’s no guarantee of either one working, and we have a much better chance of learning what we want to know if we pool our resources.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “I wouldn’t have figured you for someone who would take a chance on someone like me.”
“Neither would I,” she responded unapologetically, “until just now.” She nodded toward the sealed receptacle. “The thread, it changes everything.”
“That’s your opinion. I still think I can solve it without you. And when I do, I’ll keep my promise to pay you.” He started again toward the console, looking around for something heavy with which to shatter the protective transparency that now covered the plug-in.
Her thoughts raced. She knew she couldn’t deny him physically. Anyway, if she tried to do so she might end up losing more than just an opportunity.
“I can also help you to hide from the authorities.”
That gave him pause. Even absent the matter of the mystifying thread, it would have given him pause.
She rushed on. “Just because you’re rid of the traktacs doesn’t mean they won’t run you to ground tomorrow. If everything you’ve told me is true they’ll still be hunting you because they want the thread back.”
He nodded slowly. “That’s—right. What exactly did you have in mind?”
I don’t have anything in mind
, she told herself a bit hysterically,
because I’m sure by now that I must have lost it
.
“I’ll—I’ll hide you. I have a big codo. There’s plenty of room. While we try to solve the thread you—you can stay with me.”
There
, she thought. Four successive terse statements; all true, half of which marked her as self-designatedly certifiable.
“No one will even think to look for you in a private residence, much less in my place.”
“You’re kidding,” he shot back. “You’re just trying to stall me until you can think of something else. Or call the police.”
“I swear it—Whispr. You can live in my place. Until we unravel the insides of that thread.” Seeing that he remained doubtful she tried to think of a rationale that would appeal to him on his own terms. “Besides, your promise to pay me will mean a lot more if I can keep an eye on you and the relevant property.”
“I’ll be damned.” A hand featuring heavily weathered, impossibly slender fingers stretched out toward her. “You’ve got a deal, Ms. Doc. And to show you that I mean to keep my part of the bargain I promise not to kill you in your sleep.”
As she shook his hand, feeling the coiled strength in the serpentine digits, her responding smile was twisted. “I’m relieved to hear it, Whispr.” She let go of his hand and the fingers slid away from her flesh like so many snakes slithering back into their den. Dividing her attention, she walked back over to the console that was now dominated by the shuttered receptacle.
While he watched her work the instrumentation, he admired the play of muscles and other things beneath her clothing. She was moderately fit, but he wouldn’t have called her athletic.
“You have my label,” he murmured softly. “What shall I call you? You’re a Natural, so you don’t have a Meld moniker. I can’t keep calling you ‘Ms. Doc.’ What’s your first name?”
Concentrating on reopening the receptacle, she barely glanced in his direction. “Why don’t you just call me ‘doc’?” Not wanting to irritate him this early in their new business relationship, she added, “Until we get to know each other better.”
He was disappointed, but accepting. “All right—doc. Only problem with that is it makes me think of some old guy with a long beard wearing a white coat. You got the white coat but you don’t look anything like an old guy with a long beard.”
“I can see that you could’ve made your way through life on flattery alone,” she replied absently. “
There
.” The protective panel slid back to reveal the silvery thread. Plucking it carefully from the flex plug receptacle, she slid it back into its protective capsule. A quick check of another instrument revealed that the device was still generating its minuscule emission. To what end and for what purpose remained as much a mystery as its composition and contents.
Feeble as the output was, perhaps the device was some kind of limitedrange homing signal, she mused. If that was the case then she might have the opportunity to learn the nature of the thread’s contents from its owners themselves. At which point, if such a get-together eventuated, it might be reassuring to have someone of Mr. Whispr’s idiosyncratic talents present.
When he started to reach for the capsule she instinctively dropped it down the front of her camisole. The instant she did so she grasped that this might not be the most rational response to his reaching. The realization that where such an action would give someone like Rajeev pause, it might mean less than nothing to her visitor. Her breath caught in her throat for just an instant, until he smiled and shrugged.
“If you want to hang on to the collateral, that’s okay with me.” His voice was devoid of worry. “Now that we’ve come to an agreement I know you’re not going to run out on me.” He smiled, and it was a genuine smile this time. “I know where you live. Or I will, as soon as we get there.” He looked toward the doorway. “How many k’s to your place?”
“Less than one,” she told him. “All of it vertical.”
• • •
W
HISPER WAS NOT AWED
by her dwelling, but he was quietly impressed. In company with Jiminy and others he had stolen from more elaborate surroundings. Possibly it was the sheer tidiness of the place. It was as clean and orderly as his unmemorable succession of habitats had been grubby and chaotic.
Not unlike his life, he thought.
She showed him the spare bathroom, which was indeed spare but positively luxurious compared to where he had recently performed his hygienic ablutions. The compact eating area featured a self-cleaning cooker and plates made out of material more solid than cellulose derivatives. He could dine when and as he chose, Ingrid told him.
If she had known how little time he’d had during the preceding several days to pause and eat, she would not have been surprised at the ravenousness with which he proceeded to consume an imposing quantity of food.
He apologized afterward as he lay slumped on the big U-shaped couch in the common area. “I don’t eat like this all the time.”
“Only when you’re running from the authorities?” she challenged him.
“No,” he countered without rancor. “There are times when I don’t have enough money to pay for food. When it’s on offer I tend to eat everything in sight.”
She slowly looked him up and down. “At least you’ll never have to worry about going on a diet.”
“Wouldn’t want to.” He patted his nonexistent stomach. “Inherited genetic predisposition as well as physical manip. This is what I opted to be. This is what I
wanted
to look like.”
She considered. “Mind if I ask you why?”
His reply was unexpectedly terse. “Yes. I do mind.”
That was the one and only time she queried him about his chosen meld.
While she dove into the global box the following day to try to learn everything she could about MSMH, he spent the hours wallowing in utter luxury. His only regret was that there were fewer of them (the hours, that is), because he did not awaken until some time after noon. It was the longest period of continuous sleep he had allowed himself in a very long time. Safe and secure in her upper-level codo, in an upscale secured
building, he was able to close his eyes in peace and shut down the automatic reflexes that he normally engaged to wake him at the slightest sound. Such reflexes were vital to ensuring survival on the street, where anyone at any time might slit your throat for your money. Or your shoes. While discovering that you had no money might prompt regret on the part of your murderer, it was better to avoid such possible post-homicidal misgivings by not getting yourself killed in the first place.
At his initially hesitant but increasingly confident command, the cooker in the trim and efficient kitchen area dispensed real bacon (not soy) and real eggs (not self-coagulating flavored albumin), together with real coffee, real sugar, real …
It had been so long since he had tasted real anything that the flavors were almost new to him. His shocked taste buds and overwhelmed digestive system both threatened rebellion. It was one uprising he put down ruthlessly, as the most difficult part of the meal proved to be keeping it down afterward. Unused to bona fide food, the risk of losing it via violent upchucking was all too real. He solved the problem by distracting himself with the entertainment system in the living area. When he activated the vit, the floor-to-ceiling windows darkened commensurately, threatening to send him off to dreamland all over again.
As he ate and relaxed, his host ignored him. Seated at her home station Ingrid recited a steady stream of vorec commands to speed-whip through readouts and dimensional projections faster than he would have been able to read one. Occasionally he would look up from the ambient entertainment and its cone of constrained sound to peer across the room at her. Above her station he caught glimpses of rapidly merging sentences underlying swiftly flowing imagery. Multisyllabic expressions, technical terms, incomprehensible lexi accompanied diagrams and schematics as alien to his experience as the construction plans for spacecraft.