The Human Blend - Alan Dean Foster [66]
“Not a thread, no. Something that might possibly be made of the same material, but smaller.” She looked up at him. “Much, much smaller. It had kind of the same color and shine. I took it out of the back of a young girl’s head. It was part of a bad meld.”
Whispr frowned. “A bad meld? That’s all?”
It made no sense. Why would the Greater Savannah authorities be so anxious and commit so much in the way of resources to recover something that had to do with a social function as common as melding? Unless maybe the thread contained the record of some really important individual’s particular meld. Despite the vast range of modifications that were freely available to all, there were still such things as illegal melds. Maniping an arm into a gun, for example, was more than just frowned upon. You needed a special permit. Then there were melds that were socially frowned upon, many of them often of a bizarre sexual nature. And if the person who had undergone the illegal or perversion meld was famous …
Yes, it was starting to make a little sense. He still had no proof of anything, no facts, but at least now he had a theory. Gradually, his suspicion of the doctor’s motives was becoming subsumed by his desperate desire to have some answers.
So excited was Ingrid at the discovery that the tiny item her strange visitor was offering to swap for her services might peripherally resemble the nanodevice she had removed from the teenage girl that it did not occur to her that due to the increasing lateness of the hour she was now alone with him not only in her office but in a large part of the medical complex as well. This Whispr person was not only her last pro bono patient of the day, he was her last patient of the week. Her receptionist had departed and the offices and medical suites with which she shared the tower floor were also rapidly emptying out. Of course building security, live as well as automated, was always available and on-call twenty-four hours a day. But still, if her visitor intended her harm it would take time to produce a response.
None of this intruded on her musings. Her thoughts were entirely on the metallic thread and any secrets it might hold—provided that it didn’t vanish under her gaze. Understandably, her visitor was equally enthralled. Had she known more about his background, she might have worried.
They spoke little as she carefully removed the thread from its protective capsule, inserted it into an appropriate office inlab receptacle, and waited for the sophisticated medical analyzer to do its job. Eventually the lab’s synthesized male voice announced the arrival of preliminary results. Ingrid did not hold her breath, but she was focused. Left to himself, Whispr let his gaze rove over the multiple readouts that had begun to appear on a monitor while simultaneously trying to make some sense of a series of scrolling projections floating between the doctor and a wall. Their meaning being as alien to him as Malagasy he was grateful for the accompanying synth voice even if he could only make sense of a little of what it was saying.
“MSMH.” The inlab’s AI spoke confidently. “Insofar as I am able to determine, this storage medium is composed largely of the same material that was found in the smaller and more complex sample that you earlier submitted for analysis. However, there are also significant differences.”
Whispr’s brow furrowed. “What’s it talking about, an ‘earlier’ sample? Like that piece of a bad meld you mentioned?”
Ingrid ignored him, intent on the readouts and projections. “Specify the differences.”
“One end of the thread appears to terminate in a simple connector common to a wide variety of commercially available storage devices. I believe it may fit one or more flex plugs located elsewhere in this office.” Ingrid felt a little thrill of anticipation race through her at this revelation. Patience, she told herself. The inlab