The Human Blend - Alan Dean Foster [81]
“Get rid of this thread.” Along with his battered likeness, the voice of Dr. Sverdlosk was trailing the anxious Ingrid around the codo. “Is not worth whatever is on it. Not even if it really is made of impossible metal-magic stuff like MSMH. Go on boat picnic today, have good time—and throw it in deep part of river. Or better still, out in ocean somewheres. Same cheerful femmes that thrash-trash me may come looking soon for you. Tell them you take truth drug, anything they want, and when they ask about thread you can tell them truthfully what has been done with it. This is best advice cagey old beat-up doc guy like me who loves you can give you, Inny.”
“I’m coming down there.” Her tone was grim. “What section and room are you in? If you don’t want to tell me over the tower’s comm system, I can find out for myself at the hospital. Then we can …”
Being a doctor, Sverdlosk was accomplished at interrupting. “So. Here is orders. You don’t come to see me, pretty Inny. Much as I would enjoy company of your warm self sitting on side of my bed is not good idea right now. These people, whoever they represent, maybe others, might be watching me from first minute I admitted. Might be watching me now. Get rid of thread. I go on vacation as soon as I can arrange discharge. Never speak to me about it again, ever. I take emergency leave to visit Old Country and see grandchildren—who I would like to live to see grow up.” Before she could protest or offer an objection, his image began to dissipate.
“Good-bye for nowadays, Inny. Take care of yourself. Watch where you walk at night. Throw away thread. Maybe you also take hurry-up vacation.…”
Sverdlosk’s image vanished. When she anxiously called for reconnect, the link was refused.
“Your friend didn’t sound too good. Didn’t look so good, either.”
She whirled. Her guest had come up right behind her. Whispr is as Whispr does, she told herself.
“I heard most of it.” Surprisingly, he did not look frightened. Only pensive. As if he always planned his life one step ahead, whether contemplating a break-in or breakfast. “I’ve always been one for knowing when I was operating out of my depth. Maybe your colleague is right.” A small sound made him whirl toward the front door. “Maybe we should get rid of the thread. I always prefer to acknowledge an ill omen before it’s pulled tight around my neck.”
Ingrid stood there, holding a long-since drained caffeine cup in one hand and the capsule in the other, halfway between kitchen cubby and main living area. What had she gotten herself into? Galileo only had to worry about the Inquisition.
It was plain from his words and appearance that poor Sverdlosk could easily have ended up dead last night. Were his interrogators on to her already? Did they have ways of tracing the tower’s internal communications structure and know that he had just spoken to her? Or that so many people’s object of attention had already been delivered to her codo? If the latter, she might expect to hear an old-fashioned knock at the door at any moment. Or given his assailants’ lack of social graces, their arrival and intentions might be announced in something other than a civilized manner.
And there remained the question of what to do with and about her seedy houseguest.
“No.” She muttered an immediate response. “As a woman of science, I’m in too deep. It’s hard to describe, Whispr. There’s a name for people like me. Every time we learn something it only drives us to learn ten things more. It’s never enough. As far as this thread is concerned I’m like a fish that’s taken the bait. I can’t let myself off the hook until I know what’s on the other end of the line.” She smiled tightly at him. “I can’t jump off until then.”
“Or,” he countered, “there’s also the chance that if you stay on