The Human Blend - Alan Dean Foster [35]
His patient replied sorrowfully. “I don’t know any of those places, ’Cuda. I’m not a man of the world like you. I was born here. This part of Namerica is my home. If I were to do as you say, then I really would lose myself.”
The melder sighed and sipped at his yogurt. “I am telling you, the word is out for you. Strong word.”
Whispr set his empty plate aside and smiled. Chaukutri did good work and the expression did not hurt his customer’s maniped face. “Thanks to your efforts they’ll have a tough time trying to ident me now.”
Chaukutri looked away and shrugged, but Whispr could see that he was pleased. “A little nip here, a tuck there, some new add-ons. Basic bone ladling, most of it. You should have gone more radical, Whispr. I could have put fifty kilos on you from top to bottom. That would have done it. Made you simultaneously bigger and more invisible.”
His guest’s smile widened. “If you had done that then I would have had to change my Meld name, too. No, ’Cuda. I needed a different look, but I still need to feel like me.”
Picking up the dishes Chaukutri rose from the folding chair on which he had been sitting. “That feeling will get you much sympathy with the police when they pick you up. I have done what I can. The last I can do is wish you good luck.”
Whispr also rose. “Thanks, ’Cuda. You’re a real friend.”
“Don’t turn those mournful eyes on me—especially since I just worked on them. You are a repeat customer, that is all. I am nice to you and concerned about your fate only because it is good business.” He nodded in the direction of his guest’s plate. “Would you like me to wrap up some food for you to take with you?”
Whispr shook his head. “Thanks, no. One of the benefits of my fullself meld is that I don’t need much food. I can’t outrun a lot of my, uh, colleagues—but over a long slog I can outlast them. Speaking of which, you happen to have heard anything about my associate Jiminy? I need to have words with him.”
“I have heard nothing about the gentleman you name.” Chaukutri’s shoulders rose and fell. “I am sure once you are back in circulation you will soon enough find out all you need to know.”
Whispr did, but not in the way he imagined.
MARULA’S REPAIR SHOP WAS BURSTING with parts and components for scoots, trucks, and a vast variety of personal transports. It was where people brought vehicles to be repaired that had gone out of warranty. It was where they brought vehicles to be extensively customized. It was also where the occasional stolen machine could be sold, bought, or traded in for one Marula had made legal.
The proprietor flashed quite a few extensive modifications himself. So many that first-time visitors committed the occasional oversight of mistaking the shop’s owner for one of his machines. Not only was N’da Marula not offended by such errors of identification; he was flattered by them. They only confirmed the effectiveness of the manips he had chosen to undergo.
Dark-skinned as the rest of him, his right hand was perfectly normal except for the variant sensor pads that had replaced his fingertips. The other hand was oversized, double-boned, and terminated in a clamp that had been created by fusing the bones of his fingers together and adding a second fused hand facing opposite. Mated to his enhanced bone structure it enabled him to lift and examine an entire scoot without mechanical aid. Outwardly he looked like a cross between a robot and a troll, but the shop owner didn’t mind such comparisons. In the realm of extreme melds his were far from the most outrageous. For one thing, he still looked human.
His right eye had been replaced with an analytical probe whose multiple lenses were capable of extending several centimeters from the socket. Ears and nostrils were original, there