The Human Blend - Alan Dean Foster [59]
Even allowing for the fact that she had a competent office staff whose work was supplemented by up-to-date automatics, the morning passed with exceptional efficiency. Chosen on whim, her outfit had the desired effect not only on Rajeev but on everyone who saw it. Women complimented it, men ogled it, a few men complimented it and a few women ogled it. She drew equal attention from both Naturals and Melds. Even in modern society it was still recognized that certain aspects of physical attractiveness transcended time, space, and elective body modification.
After an excellent lunch at Laziiz, a restaurant with a view that blistered from the east wall of the tower, she returned to her office suite rejuvenated by all the attention that had been paid to her, even by strangers. And also by the knowledge that once she had seen to the afternoon’s pro bono patients she would be free for the weekend. In her mind, the artificial beaches of Dubaia were looking more and more attractive.
It had been a long time since the passage of the law that required every citizen to donate a certain number of hours per week to community service. For all its unpopularity when introduced, as a way of reducing the cost of government it had proven to be an undeniable success. What those forced to participate in the program got out of it, Ingrid had reflected on more than one occasion, was entirely up to them. Whether janitor or jailer, lawyer or landscaper, butcher, baker, or candlestick maker, the PSP (public service program) could either leave one feeling better for having helped out one’s fellow human, or that they had simply been taken advantage of by the government. The viewpoint one took was usually a matter of personality as well as perspective.
Personally, Ingrid enjoyed her pro bono time. There wasn’t much that made her feel better than resetting a twisted muscle, layering fresh bone over a fracture, or administering a successful epidural to someone suffering from a bad meld. Since the government paid for all medications, she felt no hesitation in handing them out freely but wisely. There were impoverished old folks whose youthful melds had begun to break down, poor but sturdy men and women in the throes of Mali cough, furtive and ignorant twenty-somethings whose medical difficulties were indicative of having engaged in the right sex in the wrong place, or the wrong sex in the right place.
Occasionally her office saw to immigrants whose illnesses required full body scans and subsequent library searches. She treated each and every one of them with the same concern and compassion she lavished on her paying patients. Though her PSP efforts brought in no money, she had grown wealthy in grateful tears and thank-yous.
Last visitor of all today was this slender fellow, recently enhanced of thigh and calf, oddly ill at ease in her antechamber, who according to her receptionist had insisted on being the last patient of the day. An odd request, Ingrid mused as she examined him. The usual wish of her patients both pro bono and paying was to see her as soon as possible.
He didn’t look sick. Scrutinizing him as his own attention wandered from her to her professionally decorated surroundings to the spotless floor and back again, she found herself doubting that he had ever looked completely healthy. But according to the preliminary checks and initial readings she took there was no overt indication of illness. The man didn’t have so much as a head cold. She sighed resignedly. Another hypochondriac. He wouldn’t be her first. And contrary to popular thinking, hypochondria was not an affliction confined exclusively to the well-off.
Still, she told herself, he was the last patient of the day. She might as well complete the exam by running the usual full-scale body scan. The poor skinny fellow probably hadn’t had one in years, if ever.
“Stand over there please.” She held no clipboard, no compact recording device. Half a dozen linked recorders, some highly specialized, were built