The Human Blend

by Alan Dean Foster

  Jiminy hesitated, then nodded approvingly. “Good point. I’m with you on sticking it in a reader.” He glanced down one more time at the dead man. The ampuscated was not bleeding. “We’re done here.” He slung his pack over his back. “Let’s go play money tag with the Swallower.”

  No one looked in their direction, much less confronted them, as they hissed out of the public parking structure on Jiminy’s two-wheeled scoot. Electrically powered like every other private vehicle on the city streets, the front end had been customized to accommodate its owner’s triple-length melded legs. Turning south out of the tourist area, Jiminy eased the scoot into a lane reserved for two-wheeled vehicles, set the automateds, and let his fingers relax on the U-shaped guide wheel as the road integrals took control of their direction and speed.

  Relaxing in the padded passenger seat behind him, Whispr let his gaze drift away from the backpack containing the decoupled hand and to the city lights flashing past. As always at such moments, he enjoyed squeezing his eyes nearly shut to morph the glow into swathes of black-framed rainbow. Most of metropolitan Savannah’s development had been inland, to the west. Walking stilts, float lots, and other advanced hydrologic technology had allowed some expansion north and south along the coast, but the costs were prohibitive compared to moving inland to higher, dryer ground.

  Steady acceleration soon had them out past the suburbs. They had entered the realm of floating towns, mobile villages, and the tropical vastness that had reclaimed the shallow land from what was left of inhabited Florida all the way up to the Chesapeake Bay. Isolated larger settlements utilizing the same climate-sensitive, flexible dike systems that protected Old D.C. formed oases of below-sea-level dry land that was scattered among the reeds, jungle, and powerfully resurgent mangrove forests. Eastward of permanent urban cores, massive hurricane barriers lay flat against the water, ready to be raised at the first sign of alarm from the weather service.

  Whispr knew that the season was predicted to be comparatively mild, with no more than two dozen major storms expected to strike the mainland. Though not a 3M (modified Meld marsher), he rather looked forward to hurricanes. This because despite alerted residents taking the usual traditional precautions there was always destruction, which meant salable goods and material would be available for salvage.

  Stopping for a celebratory early supper at a popular seafood restaurant, he and Jiminy encountered a busload of visiting Martians. Despite thickened black skin designed to absorb the sun’s feeble rays, specially melded corneas that protected their bulging eyes from Mars’s harsh UV light, greatly expanded chests required to accommodate four instead of two lungs, the respiratory reducing masks they wore (a Martian would drown in Earth’s far denser atmosphere), and the other biogen mods necessary to allow a human to survive on the surface of the Red Planet, their appearance was no more outlandish than that of half a hundred terrestrial Melds. Had they been visiting Titanites, now, Jiminy and Whispr might have stared. Titan’s melded natives were a rare sight on Earth because of the cost of traveling from their distant moon. But Martians—the two men paid them hardly any attention.

  Besides, they were watching for cops.

  Their waitress was on the upside of thirty, half blond and half redhead (straight down the middle), and four-armed. Looking at her, it was impossible to tell which were her born arms and which the subsequent biogens. Multiple limbs were a common meld useful in numerous fields besides waitressing, though all multiarms tended to be regarded by the populace at large as potential pickpockets and often treated accordingly. Sue-Ann (so said her nametag) was only interested in handling plates of fried catfish, fried shrimp, fried clams, and fried chicken, with fried okra on the side. If a customer was so inclined and sufficiently hungry they could also order their food served on a suitably flavored edible plate. Fried, of course.

  Though they had not yet made the sale the two thieves felt confident in treating themselves. Whispr slipped onto a natural chair while his companion plonked himself down on a floor cushion. Though their table had been fashioned to resemble one made from an old ship’s hatch cover, it was capable of the usual multiplicity of adjustments necessary to accommodate the needs of dozens of different Melds. Jiminy was able to lower the half facing him down to chest level. The food itself was excellent and cheap, and no one in the country restaurant so much as glanced in their direction.

  Equipped with four arms like the waitress, the Meld mixologist held court behind a bar that had been built up of slabs of welded metal cut from ancient hydrocarbon-powered vehicles. A real antique, Whispr thought as he studied it. Something that belonged in a museum—or in the back of Swallower’s shop, where advertised via the ugweb it would bring substantial subsist.

  A brace of local oystermen hauled in. They didn’t flaunt their melds. According to the law, harvesting of oysters in the sloughs and bays could only be done the old-fashioned way, by hand and from small boats. One burly local had the three small fingers of his left hand transformed into a shell opener. A modest meld to be sure, but not one Whispr would want to have to confront in a fight.

  The garrulous oystermen were interested in drink, not fighting. Chatting among themselves they sauntered past the Martians and spread out in front of the bar, a sunburned tide of braggadocio, boots, and body odor.

  “Getting crowded.” Wiping his lips, Jiminy tossed the napkin onto his (inedible) plate, jacked himself up on his elongated legs, turned, and in two hops was at the door. He waited on Whispr. But then, he was always waiting on someone.

  Thunder rumbled out to sea as they sped down the coast. Looking to his left from the rear seat of the covered scoot, Whispr could see flashes of lightning dancing beneath the moon. He hadn’t had time to check the latest weather report (he and Jiminy had been busy killing someone) and couldn’t tell if the storm was coming inland or crawling along a low pressure path northward. He desired the former. He liked the rain even more than he did hurricanes, though its arrival invariably triggered the usual jokes from bystanders about being so thin that he could stand between the raindrops.

  Decelerating down an offramp Jiminy reassumed manual control of all the scoot’s functions as the highway’s integrals relinquished control. Here out in the labyrinth of canals, natural drainage channels, sloughs, patches of dense forest, and surviving high ground, traffic shrank to near nothing. Raised above the swamp and water on pylons of honeycomb foam, the side slip was barely wide enough for the scoot and far too narrow to accommodate a car. Its slenderness was not a problem for the isolated commuters and fisherfolk who lived in this delta since most commuted to the city via hydroskim. Greater Savannah’s waterways were always more forgiving than the fixed coast roads, and never closed for repair. Off in the distance and illuminated by the moon a big six-masted container ship was slowly advancing landward, on course for Savannah port.

  Sprawled above reeds and sawgrass on four separate walkway-connected platforms, Swallower’s Pawn and Supply looked as if it had been hit by a bomb. In actuality it had been, and on more than one occasion. Following each incident the resilient proprietor rebuilt his business; bigger, better, and sloppier than ever. Hunks of scavenged machinery were piled high and haphazardly on two of the platforms. They showed little rust. Nobody used equipment in the American South anymore that was susceptible to rust. Not when modern materials and coatings were widely and cheaply available that could ward off or prevent it.

  Such resources could not, however, prevent swamp growths from epiphytes to mosses from taking root in odd corners of Swallower’s inventory. Sometimes he would spray retardant. More often he just let the growths flourish. As long as his customers could get a general idea of what lay underneath the thriving vegetation, he would declare, that was good enough.

  Slowing, Jiminy coasted to a stop in the small parking area reserved for scoots. Sturdy posts kept it well above the high-tide line and adjacent to the dock. There a pair of battered, scored, heavily used skims lay next to one another, floating like gian
t narrow leaves on the dark water.

  Swallower’s shop and office were part of the circular main building—circular in shape the better to withstand frequent hurricane winds and tidal surges. Its supporting platform anchored deep in the muck that passed for ground, it rose two stories high. The few windows on the lower floor were seriously security screened. It was assumed by visitors that the second floor was where Swallower dwelled in sybaritic and debased comfort. “Assumed,” because no one had ever been invited to see the owner’s living quarters. Those familiar with Swallower did not press for an invitation. There are some things mankind was not meant to know.

  A pair of great white herons lifted off a pylon as the two men advanced via a raised walkway that led, like the leg of some giant dismembered crustacean, from the scoot parking area toward the main structure. Silvery metal glistened inside a wrecked and salvaged industrial-grade water purification block. Within the old machine’s guts something dark and hirsute wandered slow and deliberate: a bird-eating spider that had claimed it for a home. A splash sounded from the high reeds where a family of capybara, taking no chances, made haste to remove themselves from the presence of man. Long-established residents of the southeastern coast, they were good eating and knew it.

  Having been alerted to the scoot’s approach by the shop’s automated outlying security, Swallower awaited them within the establishment’s central showroom. The large, high-ceilinged, circular space was crammed to the rafters with merchandise of every imaginable shape, size, and function: everything from antiques salvaged from Old Savannah to drums holding packets of the latest liquid jewelry in suspension. Access to the doughnut-shaped central counter and the single-person elevator at its nexus fluctuated according to the constantly shifting heaps of goods stacked on the floor. Having utilized the shop’s services on previous occasions, Whispr and Jiminy were able to approach the proprietor without the aid of a map.

  Swallower was not the only occupant of the congested floor display. At least a dozen cats prowled the piles and patrolled the spun-carbon struts that supported the second floor. Natural and melded felines coexisted as freely and easily as did their human counterparts. All were rescued animals. A man of many contradictions, it was known that the shop owner would blow off the legs of a prospective scam artist without a second thought and then force him to try to swim back to Savannah, but would spend thousands to save the life of an injured animal. Whispr shrugged at the thought. There was no accounting for personal predilections. As for himself, he was as indifferent to the affection of animals as he was to that of people.

  Swallower belched softly as he turned from studying a heads-up display to confront them. He did not ask if they were armed. If they were, shop security would never have let them past the parking area, much less across the raised walkway that led to the front door. Shadowy of skin, though not as black as a Martian, the wildly bearded mass of man was bigger than Whispr and Jiminy put together. When asked why he didn’t have his obese form melded, or at least suctioned, he declared with satisfaction that not only did he take pride in his appearance, he took pride in being naturally fat.

  “When I eat a good meal,” he had once explained without hesitation, “I want the results to show.”

  The world, Whispr knew, was replete with inexplicable perversities not all of which stemmed from the endless inventiveness of melding.

  The proprietor’s unwillingness to fine-tune his body did not extend to his profession. Above the natural eyes with which he had been born, two specialized ocular melds coldly examined the world around them. Their installation and grafton had necessitated a slight raising of his forehead. One eye was a magnifier of considerable range while the other saw into and registered sights far into the ultraviolet. Together they enabled their owner to ascertain the veracity of numerous items that were offered to him for sale, from fine meld componentry to estate jewelry that had been unwillingly liberated from various estates. More for show than need, Swallower had commissioned a pair of customized old-fashioned spectacles—with four lenses, two set above two. When worn, they helped to soften his otherworldly appearance. This was useful in business dealings, since there was nothing soft about the man himself.

  Thick fingers wrapped around and enveloped Jiminy’s much smaller hand. “I know thee, Cricket.” Releasing their careful grasp, they flicked in the direction of the other visitor. “As be your companion, how is the sad-eyed soda straw these days?”

  Jiminy’s head inclined toward the silent, staring Whispr. “Jolly as always. We just had ourselves a most fine dinner at the Bug Shack.”

  The proprietor’s doubled brow rose. “Eating out? Do not tell me you boys hath been working?”

  Jiminy winked and swung his backpack around in front of him. “Nothing special. Just another fluky salvage pickup off the street.”

  “Knowing thee and thy predispositions, I should rather say savage pickup.” A quartet of eyes peered downward. “What hath thee brought for me this night?”

  As soon as he heard their host murmur his approval of the ampuscated hand, Whispr lost interest in the negotiations. Wandering toward the rear of the shop, he lost himself in idle contemplation of the assortment of merchandise. Some of it he recognized, some he wished he could afford, some meant nothing to him. One of Swallower’s many cats ambled by, paused, and whistled a merry tune. In the course of the surgery necessary to save its life it had been given a throat meld. Now it could sing like a canary, or a mockingbird. Poetic justice, Whispr thought. Bending down, he let his hand stroke it from head to hips. Its tail came up and purring commenced to alternate with birdsong.

  Hundreds of containers, individual bits of machinery, partial scavenged melds, and other merchandise hung from the ceiling. Swallower’s shop was a bargain-hunter’s as well as a cat’s paradise. Whispr figured that Swallower could have done twice the trade if he had located inland on dry ground in the commercial district of uptown Savannah. But had he chosen to do so, his business would have been subject to more than twice the official scrutiny it presently received. Like a number of other kindred independent businessfolk whose establishments operated under ambiguous circumstances, Swallower preferred the anonymity conferred by the swampy suburbs.

  “Eight.” Jiminy was hopping in small circles, wary of banging his head against suspended product or the exposed fiber rafters. “Whispr and me, we took on a lot of karma to get this hand. We gotta have at least eight.”

  “I shall be fortunate to get eight on resale.” Swallower was less exercised than his visitor and no less resolute. “I can offer thee no more than three.”

  “Three!” Oversized leg muscles contracting, Jiminy literally hit the ceiling, albeit it was only a glancing blow. “For three I’d just go ahead and turn myself in to collect the citizen’s tip! Save all this time and trouble.”

  Unfurling a viewer from a pocket, Swallower nudged it to life and proceeded to consult the lambent screen. “I should sayeth three and a half, but I will go four in memory of the business we have done prior to this and the business that I expect will come after.”

  “Four. Four is a four-lettered word.” Jiminy was not mollified.

  “No it is not—four is a number.”

  The Cricket eyed the fat man unhappily. “You’re playing games, Swallower.” Holding out the dismembered meld hand he waved it in the proprietor’s direction. Secured in place, the fingers did not jiggle. “You want it or not? You’re not the only dealer on the coast, you know.”

  It was then that Whispr remembered the thread he had plucked from the dead man’s clothing. Should he mention it now? Swallower would likely have equipment capable of reading the contents of the unobtrusive sliver of storage media. Information was always worth subsist. But without any idea of what was on the thread, he and Jiminy had no way of pricing it. Relying on a prospective purchaser to tell you what your article was worth was a poor way to begin negotiations. Maybe they could hire someone just to read the thread. With this idea in mind he started towar
d the two arguers. He badly wanted Jiminy’s thoughts on how they should proceed. Besides, judging from the volume of perspiration rolling down their faces, both men could probably use a rest from the ongoing bargaining.

  The necessary break was supplied by a source other than the advancing Whispr when all hell broke loose.…

  2

  Like Swallower himself, the alarms whose shrieking suddenly filled the shop were anything but restrained. They howled, they clamored, they screamed for attention. And they got it.

  Wrangling forgotten, owner and visitor instantly ceased their haggling. Unsettled by the cacophony, panicked cats scattered among the rafters and merchandise in a flurry of tailed shadows and militant hissing.

  “What be the freak?” Exhibiting speed and agility that belied his bulk, the startled Swallower turned from Jiminy and lunged in the direction of the control counter behind him. By the time he and his visitors reached it, holos relayed by several remote pickups were already dancing in the air above the projectors. A couple of the more confident cats paused to watch, their attention caught by the internally illuminated hovering images.

  Whispr’s gaze went immediately to one particular oval holo. Uptaken from a unit hidden in a power tower or maybe a tree, it showed a line of high-power scoots traveling silently and at a high rate of speed down a narrow roadway. Even the dim light did not prevent Whispr from recognizing it immediately. It was the same elevated roadway he and Jiminy had recently used to access Swallower’s enterprise. He stared silently. There were an awful lot of scoots, and they were transporting an awful lot of police.

  They were coming this way.

  Face flushed, four eyes all but alight, a furious Swallower turned rising rage on Jiminy.

  “Treachery! Perfidious betrayal! Thou hath sold me out!”

  Crouched down behind his upraised knees, a manifestly perplexed Cricket struggled to make sense of what the concealed security monitors were showing.