The Human Blend

by Alan Dean Foster

  Finding herself operating in the kingdom of the incongruous, she would begin with the obvious—by inquiring of her ostensibly unaware patient as to the name, nature, and whereabouts of whoever had performed on her the deceptively straightforward cosmetic feather meld. What that might lead to she had no idea.

  Possibly even to a manufacturer of infinitesimally small machines that had no rational basis in known physical reality.

  4

  “Hey, old man!”

  Turning slowly as he leaned on his cane, Napun Molé squinted in the direction of the challenging voice. He was short, his white hair fraying and thinning, a squat little fireplug of a mestizo in his late fifties who looked much older.

  “Sorry—what?” Raising the hand that was not gripping the head of the cane, he pointed to the right side of his head. “My ears …”

  Rolling his eyes, the security guard came closer. “I started to say that this is a restricted area, old man.” He indicated the medium-size cargo ship, its sails autofurled, that lay alongside the dark dock. “What are you doing out here anyway, in the middle of the night?”

  “Middle of the night?” Lapsing into introspection, Molé put shaky fingers to his lips. “Is it that late? I thought—I thought …” He looked around and blinked. “I must have wandered away from the group. We came down the funicular and …”

  “You are lost, old man.” The oft-restored nineteenth-century funicular that still conveyed tourists and citizens alike from the top of Valparaiso’s cliffs down to the harbor lay several kilometers to the south. The guard’s tone softened. “I bet your guide or tour attendants are going loco looking for you. Do you have any identification? An emergency number I could call so someone can come and pick you up?”

  “An emergency—yes, yes.” Reaching into a pocket, Molé brought out a cheap, battered wallet, started to fumble at the contents with uncertain fingers, and dropped it. Sighing, the guard shook his head.

  “I’ll get it.” Muttering under his breath, he reached down to pick it up. He therefore did not notice when the hinged tip of the old man’s left index finger flipped open. The programmed-protein spidersilk-derived aramid fiber that shot out automatically looped itself around the guard’s neck and tightened convulsively. Eyes bugged wide, the startled guard tried to shout, but the swiftly contracting strand had already interdicted the air supply to his lungs. Reaching up with both hands, he tried to grasp the tightening filament, but it was too thin and too deeply embedded in the flesh of his throat for him to slip thick fingers between strand and skin. Blood began to trickle, then to spurt from beneath the thread, which by now had buried itself invisibly deep into his neck.

  Molé watched the guard’s demise evolve, until within minutes the man lay dead on the dock. His head had been half severed from his neck. A quick flick of the old man’s left hand halted the ongoing contraction and rewound the lethal loop. The strand’s gengineered hydrophobic properties kept the dead guard’s blood from adhering to it as it was reeled back into the hollow finger.

  A rapid survey showed that the killing had not been observed. Reaching down, Molé picked up his wallet. Using both hands he dragged the body of the guard to the edge of the dock and eased it over the side. Landing between the hull of the freighter and the dock’s polycrete pillars, it made only the slightest of splashes.

  From another, deeper pocket Molé extracted the folded dispersion suit and slipped effortlessly into the one-piece garment. Racing up the now unguarded rampway, he found himself on the open deck of the cargo craft. Many stories overhead a few lights shone from within the bridge. If someone was standing nightwatch they were not visible. Finding a gangway that led inward Molé hurriedly made his way deeper and deeper into the bowels of the ship. Except for the minimum personnel necessary to sustain a watch, most of the crew would be asleep, relaxing in their cabins, or most likely sampling the delights of downtown. While some of the old city and particularly the commercial port area had been lost to rising sea levels, Valparaiso had been luckier than most since a good portion of the modern urban area was situated on the steep cliffs that bordered the harbor.

  In the course of his fleet descent he passed several security cameras. By bending light around him the dispersion suit rendered him invisible to ordinary video pickups. It did not, however, prevent a wandering crewmember from nearly running into him. Despite the enhanced hearing afforded by his melded right ear, in the enclosed corridor Molé had not heard the man coming.

  “Hey, what …?”

  Not exactly memorable last words. Molé brought the blade of supersharp extensible bone that now extended from the edge of his left hand around in a sharp arc to cut the man’s throat. As the stunned crewmember staggered backward, clutching at himself with both hands in a futile attempt to stem the fountain of blood that was gushing from his neck, the relentless Molé followed up the initial incapacitating strike with a wholly traditional unmelded blow from his cane. Gagging and choking, the man went down in a heap. Unlike the security guard, Molé did not bother to try to hide the crewman. If the body was discovered before he finished his job here, it would mean that he was working too slowly.

  When he was certain he was well below the waterline he selected a gently curving inner segment of hull and aimed the cane. Flipping back the rounded head revealed a dense tangle of controls. These he proceeded to adjust carefully. Sending a steady stream of liquid explosive spewing from the tip of the cane he used the solution to apply a large glistening oval to the seamless material of the inner hull. The last of it he employed to write his name in the center of the oval.

  Becoming time-sensitive on contact with the air, the various chemical components of the sticky and highly volatile substance would reach critical blend in a short time. Even if it was discovered and recognized there was nothing that could be done to prevent the final denouement. Firmly adhering to the carbon-fiber hull it could not be removed, pulled apart, or scraped off. In order to accomplish that, a special neutralizing agent was required which the crew of the cargo vessel was unlikely to count among its customary stores.

  He encountered no one in the course of his speedy departure. Back on the dock he slipped out of the dispersion suit, crumpled it, touched an embedded switch, and dropped it in the water. In three minutes it would have completely disintegrated and begun to disperse through the harbor. He was halfway to the lights of downtown when the pedestrians among whom he was now walking looked up and back in astonishment as a small portion of the great port was infused by a sudden burst of light as bright as the sun. Seconds later everyone’s ears were assailed by the deep rolling rumble of a violent explosion.

  Napun Molé did not think of himself as a commercial assassin or an industrial saboteur. He was only a simple tutor delivering education to those badly in need of it. While the ship was doubtless insured, the fiscally substantial portion of its cargo that was illegitimate was not. The owners of the vessel who had refused to pay a long-standing debt to Molé’s current employers had just received an expensive lesson. If they were half smart it should not have to be repeated.

  With the exception of the occasional (and always disappointed) streetwalker, neither Natural nor Meld paid the least attention to the old man with the cane as he made his way deeper into the heart of Valparaiso’s nautical entertainment district. Interlocked young lovers out for the night looked only into each other’s eyes. Visiting couples from Santiago strolled quietly between show venues and restaurants. Tourists in pairs and in organized groups marveled at old buildings that had been preserved, raised, and moved to higher, safely dry locations. Rapa Nuians holding dual Sudamerican and Commonwealth of Oceania citizenship eagerly scrutinized the contents of souvenir shops.

  “Evening, senior señor.” It was impossible to tell from looking at her whether the young woman was a natural blonde or not. Certainly the golden mane that extended from her head all the way down her spine and ended in a half-meter-long tufted tail was pure meld. Snorting enticingly through her manipe
d, widened nostrils she let out a little whinny. “Interested in a little horseplay?”

  Looking down he saw that what at first could have been taken for four-inch black heels were in fact feet that had been maniped. In addition to hair and nostrils, she had undergone a full foot meld that had eliminated human heels and toes in favor of highly polished hooves. A small diamond flashed in the depths of the left one.

  “Not my cup of tea,” he replied in a polite quaver.

  As he tried to go around her she stepped in front of him, blocking his path. Her practiced smile continued to invite. “It’s been my experience that even old men are all equestrians at heart—when they are presented with the right mount.”

  The casually inadvertent “old man” designation did not trouble Molé. His actual age had never been a source of embarrassment to him. Quite the contrary. He took it as a point of pride that someone in his profession had survived for so long. Still, he was averse to the insistent invitation.

  “I don’t have the kind of meld that might make for a memorable evening for you, girl.”

  She laughed horsely. “You’ve got it backward, old man. It’s my job to make your evening memorable.”

  “Then I suppose I can only accede to your persistence.” He extended an arm. She immediately wrapped hers around the proffered limb.

  “A gentleman, too.” She squeezed his arm gently and her eyes widened in surprise. “Oh my—you’re in a lot better shape than you look! I promise you a night you won’t forget, senior. Or if times are difficult, an hour.”

  “I will do my best to reciprocate.” She did not notice that the old man quaver in his voice had disappeared.

  By the following morning she had, too.

  The call that reached Napun Molé a month later differed from many similar calls that had preceded it only in detail. It found him lying on a water-whisking lounge on the beach at Pimento, in northern Peru. Speaking aloud the acceptance code string that activated the receiver-pickup resting in his right ear he answered the secure circuit greeting while alternating his gaze between the wealthy swimsuited women up from Lima and the fishermen demonstrating the use of their traditional reed boats. Most fishermen now were Melds, having had their bodies maniped to feature everything from gills to gengineered swim bladders.

  No one paid any attention to one old man among many as Molé sat up on the lounge and swung his feet over the side. Nor did they remark on his incongruously youthful body, not realizing that the muscles it featured were wholly natural and the consequence of a lifetime of consistent serious exercise instead of a quick meld. The unusually thick soles of the feet he idly dug into the sand beneath the lounge were not manips to support creaking bones but cushions that allowed him to walk and run in near silence.

  The voice on the other end of the call was atypically stressed. An important person had met an untimely demise and the usual suspects exonerated. On his person this individual had been transporting something of immense importance. If it was not recovered certain people including the speaker were likely to suffer. If it was to fall into the wrong hands—the worldwide media, for example—the consequences could prove calamitous to the interested parties. Prattling on, the caller used the word apocalyptic. In a lifetime of practicing his vocation Molé had encountered many synonyms for deep concern, but until now apocalyptic had not been among them.

  Despite knowing Molé as well as it was possible for someone to know him (which was to say not very well at all) and being fully aware of his reputation, the caller still felt compelled to ask certain questions. Molé was not offended. The more significant the job, the more that was at stake, and the more money that was on offer, the more queries a prospective employer was entitled to ask. He replied patiently and without rancor to every one, accepting each condition one at a time and indicating his full understanding of every relevant detail.

  In response to one of the questions, as he was already mentally readying himself to start making the necessary preparations, he had to admit that, no, he had never been to the central far east coast of Namerica.

  WHISPER SPENT THE FOLLOWING DAY hiding in the center of a dense grove of ceibu trees. There was a time not long ago when such growths could not be found north of Central America, but with warming temperatures and rising sea levels they, like so many other plant and animal species, had eagerly migrated northward. Once he thought he heard the voices of visitors to the nature preserve, but he knew he could have been mistaken. As tired and hungry as he was it was entirely possible he had imagined the presence of other people. In any case, he never saw them.

  It was not yet quite dark again when he felt safe in leaving the temporary refuge, but he was anxious to be on the move. The sooner he was out of the surrounding slough and swamp preserves the sooner he would be back in the developed, civilized surrounds of the city where he could get something to eat and find out what had happened to that bastard Jiminy. Peering cautiously out from among the trees and undergrowth he could see no sign of police or mobile scanners. All would be well if he could continue to evade their notice until he could make his way back to town. A quick manip, just enough to fool the omnipresent pickups emplaced on numerous corners and shops, and he would be free to walk the streets again. The manip was vital. Once your features appeared in the continental Wanted database they were immediately accessible to every cop from Moose Jaw to Managua.

  But the database could be fooled. In a time when anyone could opt for a complete and even radical body meld, a simple facial could be performed in thousands of qwiclinics, or even one of the hundreds of mobile surges that plied every continent’s byways, highways, and flyways.

  He was about to step out into the shallows when he heard the growl.

  In early times the only dangerous large animals one had to keep an eye out for on the southeast coast of the old U.S. of A. was the occasional alligator and poisonous snake. Migrating north along with hundreds of other alien plants and animals were far more venomous New World serpents like the fer-de-lance and bushmaster, big crocodilians like the caiman and the Orinoco, dendrobates poison arrow frogs (kids were especially—and sometimes fatally—attracted to their bright, clownish colors) and a posse of exotic felines: ocelot, jacarundi, margay, and most conspicuously the one an unknowing Whispr had just roused from its morning meal.

  As he stood frozen in place and staring he was able to view at close range the jaws and teeth that gave the jaguar the most powerful bite in proportion to its body size of any of the big cats. As hefty as an African lioness at a hundred and fifty kilos, the mature male lay alongside its recent kill panting like a steam engine. Stocky and incredibly powerful, the cat had dragged the young bull from the farm or feedlot where it had been slain to this island of rainforest in the midst of the coastal preserve. Though it was quite capable of utilizing the throat-bite and suffocation killing technique of its cousins the lions and tigers, unique among them the jaguar preferred to bite down into the skull directly between the ears, piercing the brain of its prey and terminating it more quickly.

  As he slowly backed out of the last of the tall trees and toward the water, a wide-eyed Whispr knew that the big predator would scarcely have to exert itself to perform a similar operation on him. Maybe it would ignore him, he thought fearfully. After all, it had a whole young steer to consume.

  The piercing yellow eyes never left his as it growled a second time and started to get up.

  Whispr couldn’t help himself. He was no action hero and this was no vid documentary. Screaming, he turned and threw himself into the shallows, flailing at the water as he tried to get away, managing in a single moment to do three absolutely wrong things simultaneously. He screamed louder when he felt a sharp, searing pain tear across his upper back. Eyes bulging, he looked in terror over his left shoulder only to find himself almost eye to eye with the big cat. But for the water that surrounded him, he would have fainted. Instead he did something entirely predictable and entirely involuntary. His bowels let loose and he soiled hi
mself. Taken aback by the spasmodic intestinal eruption, the jaguar backed off.

  Continuing to swim and kick at the muddy bottom, Whispr forced himself forward into the dense, high reeds. Behind him the predator hesitated as it tracked his panicky flight. Then it turned and splashed lazily back to the island. Whispr knew that ultimately it was not his discomfiting bodily reaction that had saved his life but the fact that the massive feline had decided the pitiful, thrashing human was no threat to an already slaughtered steak dinner.

  In place of the anticipated lethal bite to the skull, Whispr had suffered only an annoyed swipe across his upper back. In the absence of a mirror he could not tell the extent of the damage. The flexibility afforded by his slender frame did allow him, however, to reach all the way around back and feel the area. The contact pained him and his fingers came away bloody—but not too bloody. Trying his best to ignore the burning he alternately stumbled and swam northwestward. The sensation was akin to someone taking a sheaf of new nine-kilo bond and dragging the edges across his deltoids: a hundred paper cuts all concentrated in the same place. He was hurting, but he would not die.

  Not from the single glancing paw swipe, but just possibly from hunger. He struggled onward. Many decades of federal protection resulting in the restoration of filtering reed beds, mangroves, and sawgrass had rendered the waters of the reserve in which he found himself at least nominally fit to drink, but he was still growing weaker by the hour. It had been too long since he had last had anything to eat and his slenderized melded frame contained no reserves of fat. He needed food.

  About right, he mused. He had eluded the police, avoided the dangers of the swamp, and escaped death by jaguar only to look forward to perishing for lack of access to something as banal as a vending machine.