The Human Blend - Alan Dean Foster [55]
Whispr’s shoulders sagged. “I don’t have a choice.”
Later, as Righteous was arranging his fantastic array of physical melds preparatory to temporarily freezing the ability of the traktacs embedded in the other man’s body to communicate with their law enforcement host and broadcast their location, Whispr thought of something else.
“One more thing. I don’t have the money to pay you right now. But I expect to shortly.”
Righteous grinned. “That’s okay, my friend. The stall’s a cheap insert. I’ll stick it between two ribs, right in the center of where you were infected. It’ll give you seventy-two hours of anonymity. Best I can do. After that, the traktacs’ signal will override the install. You’ll have three days to get rid of the little hugger-muggers before they start bawling to the hop-cops. Me, I reckon if you ain’t evicted them by then you’re a pretty high priority candidate for pickup anyway. As for payment, I’m not worried. I know as soon as you can that you’ll compen and sate.”
They moved toward a secluded, tree-shaded area behind a shuttered cotton-ice stand where Righteous could perform the stall install in privacy.
“How do you know I will?” Whispr was genuinely curious.
“Because if you don’t, my friend, then I’ll find you and kill you. Or hire one of our mutual friends to do the deading deed.” Before commencing the on-site riverside outpatient surgery the musician-medic blew a brief underlying tune on his orthopedic radial sax, scoring as well as underscoring the threat he had just made with an appropriate snippet of man-music blown through his own bone.
• • •
AS HE EXITED THE PUBLIC transport the following morning Whispr proceeded on the belief that Righteous’s work was as good as his name. It was an assumption he had to make. It wouldn’t do any good to doubt it. If the traktacs embedded in his right side were now active and functioning and had not been temporarily stalled by the work of the musician-medic, the police were likely to land on him at any minute. The surest proof he had that the street doc had done his job properly was the undeniable fact that so far Savannah’s ugliest handpicked blues had failed to do so.
That did not guarantee everything Righteous had told him was truthful. Seventy-two hours stall-time, the mumed had promised him. Three days in which to liberate himself from the traktacs before they reconstituted their programming and he lost the protection provided by the provisional electronic scramble.
Assuming Righteous had been straightforward, Whispr could have taken a day to relax. Sure he could, he told himself. Just like when they used to give the condemned rolled tobacco to burn between the lips prior to execution by firing squad. Death anticipating death. Having always been a firm believer in no time like before the present, as he strode down the pedestrian path he studied the first of the two names and addresses Righteous had slipped him. Preferring to walk, he disdained the use of the parallel moving walkway off to his right. Not because he was a resolute believer in daily exercise but because the walkway’s protective transparent sides made it too easy for someone to be trapped within. Better to rely on one’s own two feet (or more, in the case of those Melds sporting multiple manips).
Even allowing for his naturally slender limbs, he was able to move faster than ever now thanks to Chaukutri’s excellent tendon melds. As long as he kept to open, old-fashioned, paved static paths he could take flight in any direction he wished at any moment he chose. He retained, as he and his friends were fond of referring to it, fleedom of movement.
It was for other reasons entirely that he found himself more than a little uncomfortable in his present surroundings.
Here in the northwest district, well above Old Savannah and its flat-land flood-prone suburbs, rose the residence-office towers of successful and important commercial enterprises. The university tower was here too, along with its attendant