The Human Blend - Alan Dean Foster [116]
Molé rolled his eyes. This time, he did laugh. It was a subdued, soft sound, almost like a muffled cough. “Come, come, woman. When I was in my youth I played this game and enjoyed it. I used to play many games in which I no longer indulge. Not because I have lost my delight in them but because my time has become more precious than the transitory amusements they once afforded. You have the thread. This is known. You lent it to a colleague of yours and he subsequently returned it. That is also known. Therefore you have it now.”
Her eyes widened. “You—your people are the ones who beat up poor Rudy!”
Molé’s weary sigh reflected his boredom. “If you are referring to the assault that was perpetrated on the person of a certain Dr. Rudolf Sverdlosk, your accusation and your anger are misplaced. That involved neither myself nor those for whose satisfaction I am engaged.”
A surprised Whispr spoke up. “Another outfit besides the one you’re working for knows about the thread?”
“Too many know about it, my angular friend. Not what it is, not what it contains, only that it is valuable. Especially to certain concerned parties, my employers being foremost among them. Knowledge of this matter has already spread too wide and is renowned, even if only as hearsay, by far too many. All disquiet will be resolved, however, and everything returned to normal when the article in question is returned to its rightful owners. Which shall be directly.”
Even though it might reveal knowledge that could potentially seal her fate she could not help herself from asking questions. This is a condition that afflicts the majority of hopeless addicts. In the case of Dr. Ingrid Seastrom, her drug of choice was science.
“What about the juvenile nanodevice implants that are also made of MSMH? How does the thread relate to those?”
“Nanodevices? Implants?” Demonstrating yet another of his artfully veiled talents, Molé managed a passable imitation of her voice. “ ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ ” For a final time he gestured with the flurry. “Please give me the thread. Since I know it’s not in your boatel room.…”
“How do you … oh.” She caught herself. If this strange little old man could get past Yabby Wizwang’s sophisticated residential security he surely would have no trouble breaking into and searching the contents of an ordinary commercial dwelling.
“Unless,” Molé continued, his unblinking eyes flicking in Whispr’s direction, “your companion is currently holding it. Whoever has it please just give it to me. I don’t search live bodies.”
“We—we don’t have it, really,” she stammered. “It’s back in Savannah, in a safety deposit. You don’t think we’d actually bring it down here with us, do you?”
“No, I don’t think you would. I know you would. With apologies, doctor, this is an area of expertise where you are out of your depth. Your knowledge of such dealings extends to what your pathetic companion may have told you and to what you may have seen portrayed in cheap popular entertainments. To employ that medium’s time-honored if hackneyed vernacular, you are stalling. This is how I deal with stalling.”
The flurry went off. Despite the deceptive gentleness of its exhalation, Whispr flinched and Ingrid, unashamedly, screamed. Once again, only Gator held his ground.
She looked down at herself. Having already released her bladder, her leg was no wetter—neither from urine nor blood. She had not been hit by the blast. Neither had Whispr, who rose slowly from the crouch into which he had instinctively dropped. Gator had barely moved. Bewildered, she looked to her right. As a physician she found the sight of so much blood alarming, but only from an academic standpoint.
The hundred or so explosive darts that had emerged from one of the flurry’s twin barrels had shredded Yabby Wizwang from the waist up as thoroughly as if his body had been pressed through a giant cheese grater. The visual consequences made it look as if he had simultaneously been attacked by a dozen crazed barbers wielding straight razors. So overwhelming was the trauma to his system that