The Human Blend - Alan Dean Foster [63]
Tic-tic-tic—seven, eight, nine little gray spheres accumulated in the dish. Other than the pings they made as they were dropped onto the glass and the steady breathing of doctor and patient, it was dead quiet in the room. Not many more to go. There was no bleeding. The tiny holes and shafts made by the multiple insertions healed behind the probe as it was withdrawn.
“Last one.” A moment later she was holding the business end of the probe over the collecting dish. Oozing from the instrument’s tip, the last of the itching, intrusive traktacs dropped onto the glass. Taking a long breath she sat back, pushed the lenses up onto her forehead, and rubbed her eyes. “You can sit up now if you like. Somebody doesn’t like you.”
He straightened on the table, letting his shirt fall down to cover the site. From armpit to waist he looked as if he had spent an hour under a heat lamp. His side ached in the places where she had been working, but not to the extent that he could call it pain.
“Somebody like you, for instance?” he opined.
She looked surprised. “I never said I didn’t like you. I’m neutral on the subject. Considering your probable social status, I’d say that’s probably giving you the benefit of the doubt.”
“Righteous was right about you.” Still sitting on the examination table, legs dangling, he worked to close his shirt. “You’re a real throwback: a doctor first and foremost. A doctor before anything else.”
“So I’ve been told, on occasion. It beats being handed a service plaque at a medical convention.” She frowned slightly. “ ‘Righteous’?”
He turned cautious again. “My professional reference. Did you get them all? The traktacs?”
Her expression twisted. “Are you questioning my professional competency?”
“No, no,” he replied hastily. “I just—it would only take for one to be left behind to make everything you just did a waste of time.”
“They’re all out.” Her tone was stern. “As it is time for you to be.” She nodded in the direction of the door. “You’re my last patient of the day—of the week—and I have plans.” Thus far those plans existed only in her head, but the reality of the anticipation was sufficiently strong that she did not feel like she was lying. And why should she care anyway if she bent the truth a little for this melancholy and socially dubious charity case?
As he slid off the examination table he eyed her uncertainly. “You’re not going to call the police as soon as I’m out of your building, are you?”
Turning away from him she busied herself with shutting down equipment for the weekend. “I was able to treat your traktac infiltration but I’m afraid I can’t do anything for your paranoia. I took care of your most obvious problem and now any remaining problems are entirely your problems.” Dumping the traktacs into a small glassine envelope, she handed them to him. “Of course, the longer you stay here the more opportunity I have to change my mind.”
He nodded understandingly. Lean as he was, he reminded her more than anything else of the occasional stray dog she encountered from time to time in the city parks. Sodden and shaggy mutts drawn to the city’s green spaces for access to their automatic watering systems—and any edible leftovers abandoned by uncaring picnickers. These clever stray canines were smart enough to avoid the park electronics that were designed to discourage their presence. Just as this Whispr individual and his advisor had been smart enough to identify her as one of the few regional physicians bound tightly enough by their Hippocratic oath to help him in his moment of need without turning him in.
Had he been telling her the truth? Had he been harried with traktacs