The Human Blend - Alan Dean Foster [93]
She shook her head. “Not you. You’re not local vermin. You’re just visiting.”
“Hey,” he quipped back, “how many vermin can boast that they’re traveling with their own doctor?”
“I’m not your doctor,” she reminded him firmly. “I’m your partner.”
He nodded in the direction they were walking. “Heads up then, partner. That’s where we’ll be staying.”
A two-story structure loomed directly ahead of them. In design it was severe, in execution contemporary. As with every other structure they had passed, an amorphous solar veneer coated all but the north-facing wall and the photosensitive windows. At the sight she heaved an inward sigh of relief. If hardly luxurious, the place at least looked modern and clean. The dozen or so watercraft parked at the nearby dock attested to the boatel’s popularity. She wanted to ask if it was the best place in town but caught herself as soon as she realized it might be the only place.
The decorative sculpture out front piqued Whispr’s curiosity and for a change she was the one able to provide explanation.
“It’s an old boat,” she told him as they headed for the lobby.
“I can see that,” he responded, “but what’s that thing hanging off the back end?”
“I think it’s called an outboard engine. You know—one of those motive devices that was powered by a petroleum distillate? Back when petroleum was common enough to use as a fuel?”
He was clearly fascinated by the rusty relic of a bygone era. She would have gone into more detail except that as they entered the lobby she was nearly overcome by a blast of air-conditioning.
The boatel’s modern exterior did not extend to check-in. Instead of the usual automated console, there was a human receptionist. The middle-aged man boasted a couple of cheap webbing melds between his fingers. Also between his toes, the latter being visible above the double-wide sandals he wore. Whispr leaned toward him and smiled.
“One room with—”
Stepping forward, Ingrid cut him off abruptly. “Two rooms.” She also smiled at the clerk. “We do so treasure our individual privacy.”
Judging from his stolid reaction to their byplay, as long as their method of payment proved acceptable the receptionist could not have cared if they had voiced their intent to room together in concert with a pair of full Piscean Melds, a magician, and a couple of the howler monkeys descended from escaped zoo animals whose eerie calls crisscrossed the Everglades every sunrise and sunset.
“What now?” she asked Whispr as they walked toward their lower-floor rooms. If he was upset by her curt dismissal of his desire to stay in a single room, he gave no sign.
“Tonight I’ll take a walk around town and put out the word that we’re here looking to buy some special, expensive rainforest hallucinogens. The naturally harvested illegal variety—not those that are government approved and available in the familiar mass-produced packs from your local NDA drugstore. That should be enough to stimulate feelers from one or more of the local entrepreneurs that I’m told do business in this area.” He eyed her somberly.
“I’m pretty careful when I do my shopping, doc, but you should know that there’s a chance of running into a slumming undercover poc. It’s always a risk. But if I should get picked up, you’ll be in the clear, and no matter what happens afterward there’ll be no clean connection between you and me or between me and the thread. I’ll just be hauled off and charged with drone-drugging.”
“How very reassuring,” she commented dryly. “Assuming that doesn’t happen, then what?”
He was warming to the plan. “Once I’ve made a local contact we can rely on, we can set aside bogus drug requests and work through him or her to try and find out more about the thread and what might be on it. If everything I’ve heard is still valid, this floating shingle of a town is a gateway for all kinds of sensitive information and products to enter and leave the country without going through the usual