The Human Blend - Alan Dean Foster [104]
“Tch. And just as I was about to elaborate on the specificities of my own meld.” He sniffed. “Buzzness it is, then. Show me something, and bee quick about it.”
The cosmos might not be founded on jokes, she told herself as she drew forth the capsule containing the storage thread, but this craft and its singular landlord certainly were.
He slipped the thread into a custom modified reader and began working on it even as she brought him up-to-date on everything she and Whispr had learned. Unable to tell if he was ignoring her or not, she contented herself with recitation until she had delivered the last bit of potentially pertinent information.
They spent the next half hour trying to contain their impatience while their host worked. He made no comment and raised no objection when they chose to occasionally wander outside. The waterland scenery constantly changed around the slowly drifting houseboat, its position continuously monitored and rejiggered by silent subsurface thrusters commanded by the craft’s GPS. Whenever midday’s oppressively hot and humid atmosphere began to weigh on them they would wander back downstairs and immerse themselves in the main cabin’s perfectly maintained climate.
During one muggy jaunt around the boat’s exterior Ingrid found herself entranced by the sight of a flock of snowy egrets and roseate spoonbills commuting to and from a roosting tree. Their continuous calls and cries resounded like half a ton of tinfoil alternately being crumpled and unfurled. As she was drinking in the beauty of the avian mural, a bee hummed past her face, buzzing an arc toward the boat’s bow. Black and yellow, it looked like a perfectly ordinary honeybee. Given its compound eyes, it was impossible to tell in which direction it might have been looking. For no especial reason, she thought it might have been looking at her.
“Doc! Ingrid!”
Dragging her thoughts away from potentially unsettling hymenopterian possibilities, Whispr’s shout drew her back toward the belly of the boat. A look of satisfaction on his too-young face, Yabby Wizwang was waiting for her.
“Tomuk Ginnyy’s search was even more on the mark than she thought.”
Ingrid joined Whispr in regarding their diminutive host. “What does that mean?”
Sliding out of his enfolding chair, their host underscored his points with a flurry of energetic, seemingly random jabs at and into the glut of three-dimensional projections that now filled the air of the cabin.
“She found evidence of these peculiar implants that quickly vanished as soon as they came under observation.” Whirling, he indicated his main console. It was so obscured with flex-plugs and add-ons that little of the base unit could be seen. “I’ve been able to correlate that information together with what you’ve given me.” He paused for emphasis. “There aren’t dozens of these occurrences. There are hundreds. Perhaps thousands. And who knows how many more that haven’t been reported, either because those who are afflicted with one of these devices don’t wish to file a report or because they’re not even aware they’ve been so infected.”
It was the first time in their frenetic acquaintance that Whispr had heard the attractive doctor whistle. “Incredible. Is there a locus for the outbreak?”
The melded eccentric shook his head. “Naturally I went ahead and recorded every reported incident. From what I’ve been able to collate, occurrence is worldwide and relatively evenly spaced. Whoever’s behind this evidently favors a comparatively egalitarian stratagem. Though to what purpose I cannot begin to divine.” Pausing in his pacing and gesticulations, he turned to face her. Seventy-four-year-old acumen stared out of a ten-year-old’s eyes. “I don’t suppose you could enlighten me further on that?”
Whispr glanced briefly at Ingrid, then back at their host. “We were kind of hoping you could do that for us.”
“Unlike some, I am not one who finds mutual ignorance comforting.” Lowering his