The Human Blend - Alan Dean Foster [48]
7
“Really, I must speak with the fellow. He is my late wife’s cousin’s youngest son.”
The ramshackle residence hotel located in one of Savannah’s poorer districts being too low on the scale to afford a customized Meld (or even better, an automaton), its front desk clerk was a Natural. As a Natural he needed less coddling than a Meld and less maintenance than an automaton. He was also adaptable. Fully cognizant of his exalted position as decision-maker in matters of admittance, he took his time studying the supplicant before deigning to respond.
The poor old guy certainly looked harmless enough.
“Everyone calls your skinny whip-guile relative Whispr. Tell me his real name.”
The elderly visitor did not hesitate. “Archibald Kowalski. The family is from a little town up north—Pittsburgh.”
None of which meant anything to the clerk. He had solicited an answer simply to see if the visitor would have one. Whether it was accurate or not was immaterial. What mattered was that the old man had replied promptly and without hesitation. The clerk sighed.
“A duplicate keystress’ll cost you twenty, if you want to sit in the room instead of the hallway.”
The oldster dutifully slid a charge tic across the desk. Both of them knew that the clerk could have let the hotel’s visitor into the room in question for free, just as both of them knew he would not do so. A ritual as old as the first time one Cro-Magnon provided space in his cave to another, the exchange was soon concluded.
“None of my business,” the clerk murmured as the visitor deftly palmed the keystress, “but is this a family visit?”
The shuffling senior smiled slightly. It was impossible to tell just by looking at him if he was Natural or Meld. He was a short, sorrowful-faced little fireplug of a man, stocky but not fat beneath his cheap garb. On the street no one would look at him twice. Presumably it was an incurable (or too expensive to fix) spinal disease that caused him to bend forward slightly at the waist. His eyes were brown and his nose appeared at one time long ago to have been broken in several places and poorly reset: in an era of melds and other medical miracles such sloppy work was a sure sign of frail finances. There was a healthy glow to his full cheeks that stood in contrast to his otherwise genteel shabbiness, indicating that even if he didn’t dress well, he ate well. The fringe of unkempt white hair that haloed his otherwise bald head was thick and several centimeters long.
Yeah, he’s a Natural, the clerk decided as he appraised the pitiful coiffure. Even a poor Meld would go either all skin or all hair, both cosmetic choices that were equally easy to obtain. He realized that the old man was still speaking to him.
“I don’t mind telling you. My late wife’s cousin recently passed on. I am here to convey the news and to inform Archibald that he has been left a small inheritance. I come in person instead of sending the information via the box because I have papers with me that he must sign in person in order to claim the sum.”
Grunting acknowledgment of this explanation, in which he had no interest whatsoever, the clerk turned back to the soft porn projection in which he had been immersed. Half-meter-high dancing nymphs swirled around him, cooing and caressing. He smiled like someone in the throes of a pleasant drug-induced daze. In boxland did the entertainment moguls a pleasure dome decree.
“Got us a rich lodger, eh? That’s a first!”
“Oh no, not rich. Not at all. But it is only fair that Archibald receive that to which he is entitled from those who wish it upon him.” As he stepped into the open lift and turned back to face Reception the elderly visitor bowed slightly. Even lost within the lascivious projection the clerk was visibly startled. In his entire life he could not recall anyone