The Human Blend - Alan Dean Foster [5]
Besides, they were watching for cops.
Their waitress was on the upside of thirty, half blond and half redhead (straight down the middle), and four-armed. Looking at her, it was impossible to tell which were her born arms and which the subsequent biogens. Multiple limbs were a common meld useful in numerous fields besides waitressing, though all multiarms tended to be regarded by the populace at large as potential pickpockets and often treated accordingly. Sue-Ann (so said her nametag) was only interested in handling plates of fried catfish, fried shrimp, fried clams, and fried chicken, with fried okra on the side. If a customer was so inclined and sufficiently hungry they could also order their food served on a suitably flavored edible plate. Fried, of course.
Though they had not yet made the sale the two thieves felt confident in treating themselves. Whispr slipped onto a natural chair while his companion plonked himself down on a floor cushion. Though their table had been fashioned to resemble one made from an old ship’s hatch cover, it was capable of the usual multiplicity of adjustments necessary to accommodate the needs of dozens of different Melds. Jiminy was able to lower the half facing him down to chest level. The food itself was excellent and cheap, and no one in the country restaurant so much as glanced in their direction.
Equipped with four arms like the waitress, the Meld mixologist held court behind a bar that had been built up of slabs of welded metal cut from ancient hydrocarbon-powered vehicles. A real antique, Whispr thought as he studied it. Something that belonged in a museum—or in the back of Swallower’s shop, where advertised via the ugweb it would bring substantial subsist.
A brace of local oystermen hauled in. They didn’t flaunt their melds. According to the law, harvesting of oysters in the sloughs and bays could only be done the old-fashioned way, by hand and from small boats. One burly local had the three small fingers of his left hand transformed into a shell opener. A modest meld to be sure, but not one Whispr would want to have to confront in a fight.
The garrulous oystermen were interested in drink, not fighting. Chatting among themselves they sauntered past the Martians and spread out in front of the bar, a sunburned tide of braggadocio, boots, and body odor.
“Getting crowded.” Wiping his lips, Jiminy tossed the napkin onto his (inedible) plate, jacked himself up on his elongated legs, turned, and in two hops was at the door. He waited on Whispr. But then, he was always waiting on someone.
Thunder rumbled out to sea as they sped down the coast. Looking to his left from the rear seat of the covered scoot, Whispr could see flashes of lightning dancing beneath the moon. He hadn’t had time to check the latest weather report (he and Jiminy had been busy killing someone) and couldn’t tell if the storm was coming inland or crawling along a low pressure path northward. He desired the former. He liked the rain even more than he did hurricanes, though its arrival invariably triggered the usual jokes from bystanders about being so thin that he could stand between the raindrops.
Decelerating down an offramp Jiminy reassumed manual control of all the scoot’s functions as the highway’s integrals relinquished control. Here out in the labyrinth of canals, natural drainage channels, sloughs, patches of dense forest, and surviving high ground, traffic shrank to near nothing. Raised above the swamp and water on pylons of honeycomb foam, the side slip was barely wide enough for the scoot and far too narrow to accommodate a car. Its slenderness was not a problem