The Human Blend - Alan Dean Foster [61]
She studied him without instruments, doing her best to try to generate a picture of her quietly desperate visitor. He did not look, sound like, or otherwise strike her as a violent person. There was a disarming innate shyness about him. Working in his favor was the fact that he had come to her office as a supplicant, making no demands and issuing no threats. Of course, that could easily change if she refused to help him. On the other hand, it was unlikely that whatever branch of law enforcement had invested him with the traktacs had done so out of boredom or a lack of other subjects for target practice. She knew it had to be something serious. Casual muggers, sneak thieves, and bar brawlers did not generally attract the attention of traktacs. The Greater Savannah Authority wanted this man badly or he would not have been shot with the minuscule locators.
Her continuing silence was making Whispr edgy. “Can you get them out?”
“Of course I can get them out.” Should she call for help? Or just run from the examination room? “The question is, should I?”
“You’re a doctor,” he challenged her. “I’m someone who’s been hurt. I need your help. I swear to you on my best friend’s life that I haven’t hurt anyone or damaged any property.”
She wasn’t buying it. “Then why do the authorities want you badly enough to inflict you with traktacs?”
That, at least, was a question to which he could reply honestly. “I swear to God I don’t know. I mean, I have an idea, but it’s only an idea. I’m not really sure. I think it has to do with money, but not with any money I stole.”
He was being evasive, which was hardly surprising. The beckoning languor of Dubaia Island was fading from her thoughts. There was no reason why it should. All she had to do was tell him to wait and that she would be right back. Once clear of the examination room she could activate a floor-wide alarm as well as instructing the office receptionist to call the police. Claiming the need to take additional readings and prepare the necessary instruments for extraction would allow her to stall him until they arrived. Washing her hands of him would be easy. She had almost decided how to proceed when he did something that caused her to hesitate.
In obvious pain, he winced and grabbed at his side. He could have used the brief burst of suffering to play on her sympathy, to plead, to try to make her feel guilty. He did none of them.
Traktacs were small, but they were still an alien intrusion in the body. Quite likely some were impinging on nerves. She could remove them, eliminate the pain they were producing, and then notify the police. That way she could fulfill the Hippocratic obligations according to which she had lived ever since she had received her medical degree and still turn her patient over to the authorities without feeling more than the slightest twinge of guilt.
“All right. I’ll take them out. But you’ll have to dispose of them yourself.”
He looked shocked, as if he did not really believe that she was going to help him. The disbelief began to dissipate as she approached him holding a small device from which protruded what looked like a large opaque magnifying glass.
“Lift up your shirt again and hold still.” He complied and she passed the lens over his side. The scan didn’t take long. He was the skinniest non-starving person she had ever seen, but he did not register on her instruments as unhealthy. Stepping back, she inserted the narrow end of the device into a slot in a nearby console. Telltales came to life as she waited for the readout.
Within moments she was examining a dimensional projection of the affected area. Whispr gawked at the glowing image as it hovered in the air between them. The projection was a perfect representation of the right half of his torso. Utilizing voice commands Seastrom caused the projection to focus in on specific areas. Imaged blood flowed through the network of arteries and veins while a detailed visualization of his right lung expanded and contracted in perfect parallel to his actual respiration.