Whispr spoke up. “For storage? Or for the kind of implants Ingrid just told you about? Did you find out anything that might explain how these implanted devices disappear when someone starts to examine them?”
“The business of entanglement? Nothing on how that might be accomplished, no. Sounds like magic to me.” He eyed Ingrid meaningfully. “But then, so does the ability to make MSMH under terrestrial conditions, much less build something out of it. As I say, there are just these rumors. Nothing at all conclusive.”
“We give you facts, you give us gossip,” Ingrid grumbled.
The Alligator Man was impassive in the face of her displeasure. “That’s more than you had before I gave it to you.”
“What’s the name of the company?” Whispr demanded to know. Picking at a downward protruding tooth, Gator looked over to him.
“It’s Sick.”
Ingrid’s expression contorted. “I’m not surprised, but what about the company?”
“Allow me to elucidate.” Wizwang was relaxing in his special chair. “I believe your nobby-skinned acquaintance is referring to the South African Economic Combine. Though its acronym is SAEC, it’s commonly pronounced ‘Sick.’ Or sometimes ‘SICK, Inc.’ among those with an economically inclined humorous bent.”
“Oh,” a chastised Ingrid murmured, “that SICK. I know the name, of course, though I’ve never had any dealings with them.”
“Why should you?” their host observed. “You don’t buy medical technology directly from them. You use what is purchased by secondary companies and then moved along the supply chain to local dealers and related establishments. SICK makes a great many products, of course, as well as dealing in raw materials. A consortium of that size and power would be interested in dealing in a substance like MSMH in its raw state as well as in the form of finished manufactured goods.” He bowed theatrically in Gator’s direction.
“I congratulate you, master of a maxillofacialist’s reverie. Only a rumor it may be, but one with some perceptible grounding in economic reality and likely worth pursuing.” His gaze crossed back to Ingrid. “As for you, mistress of elegance and knowledge, not to mention a fine set of—”
“We’ll follow up on it,” she said quickly. “It’s the only real lead we’ve come across.” She eyed the self-satisfied Gator. “However nebulous the facts supporting it. Right, Whispr?”
Her companion’s reaction was distinguished by a notable lack of eagerness. “Ingrid, I don’t know.” His gaze flicked from her to Gator to Wizwang to finally settle on his own nervously shifting feet. “If Gator’s infoup is right and it’s SICK, Inc. that’s really behind all this, it would go a long way toward explaining a lot of things. Why the police didn’t hesitate to vanish my friend Jiminy, how they latched on to Gator so fast.…” His voice rose along with his gaze as he met her eyes. “I’m not like you, doc. I don’t care what’s on that thread except how it can be translated into subsist. But there are more important things than money.”
“Why, Mr. Whispr, sir,” a mocking Wizwang declared from his chair, “you are in truth bulging with surprises for someone so slight in both substance and stature. I would never have expected to hear such a noble if clichéd assertion fall from what remains of your lips.”
By way of reply Whispr offered up an obscenity that relied for its effectiveness more on tradition than originality.
“It’s still our only lead,” Ingrid pointed out plaintively.
“You don’t get it.” Whispr fought to make her understand. “You don’t mess around with a consortium like the SAEC. There are Western rules, and Asian rules, and then the rules of companies that make them up as they go along. That holds especially true for most of the big companies that have risen up south of the equator.”
A somber Gator was nodding knowingly. “When it comes to the uninvited poking around their business, these big multinationals can be—impolite, doctor. Behind the smiling suits and flash melds are ugly little men making big subsist from nasty machines. The kind of people who inhabit the darker corners of urburgs like Karachi and Macao, Saopan Paulo and Joburg. They don’t play nice. Owning a professional degree wouldn’t impress them. Or restrain them.”
Ingrid refused to be dissuaded. “We have to pursue it. We’ve come this far. I once told Whispr I couldn’t rest until I found out what was on the thread—even if it turns out to be nothing.” She took a deep breath. “Despite everything that’s happened and despite what you’re telling me now, I still feel that way.”
“Actually, you can. Rest, that is.”
Holding the blunt and brutal short-barreled twin-triggered flurry out in front of him, Napun Molé descended soundlessly from the accessway’s last step and into the cabin.
16
“Please keep your hands where I can see them. Please do not move any more than is necessary to breathe.” Molé gestured with the flurry. The weapon was lightweight, big-mouthed, and lethal. “I would just as soon not kill anybody.”
“We are in agreement.” Sitting up stiffly in his enveloping chair, Wizwang stared fixedly at the newcomer. “Who are you, old man, and how did you get past my security?”
“My name is not important and often confusing to those who do not know me. Since you will not have the opportunity to know me, you will not be unnecessarily confused. As to your security—what a funny-looking little Meld you are!—I suppose it qualifies as sophisticated for this backwater blackwater segment of a submerged state. I am used to dealing with far more elaborate defensive measures. I assure you I have on my person enough equipment to defeat everything up to and including the surveillance facilities of a small military base. That which was emplaced to safeguard one houseboat did not delay me more than a few minutes.” His attention shifted to the openmouthed Ingrid.
“Your activities, on the other hand, Dr. Seastrom, have been grounds for a good deal of irritation on my part.” With the muzzle of the weapon he gestured at Whispr, who had been looking frantically and unsuccessfully for a hatch to bolt through ever since the heavily armed oldster had entered the cabin. “Why couldn’t you simply have left this sorry individual alone, or treated him and sent him on his way? Had you done that you could now be back home in your comfortable codo in Savannah relaxing in the midst of a mindless entertainment vit while, as most women of your age, pondering whether or not you are teetering on the biological cusp of sacrificing family for career.” He shook his head sadly. “Instead you are here, where I may unwillingly resolve that conundrum for you by blowing your head off.”
She had thought herself inured to the imagined dangers presented by possession of the thread. Proof that she was wrong was doubly confirmed; by the shaking of her body that began in the pit of her stomach and spread to her arms, and by the trickle of warm liquid that had commenced running down her left leg. Trembling visibly, she looked to her left. Her partner, her companion, her advisor, Whispr was paying no attention to her. If she expected him to leap to her defense, either physically or verbally, she was plainly badly mistaken.
Only Gator’s voice remained unshaken. “There’s no need for slaughter. You yourself just said you’d rather not kill anybody. Tell us what you want and we’ll give it to you. If it’s money I can …”
The old man almost came close to smiling, though the eventual expression was far less pleasant. “Oh please, don’t insult me. Would anyone, especially someone my age, go to all this trouble and come to this stinky hot place in search of mere lucre? If robbery is what was on my mind I would have set to work in Miavana, where there are actually things worth stealing.”
“If not money, then what?” Whispr felt he had to ask the question even though he was sure he already knew the answer.
“I don’t mind heat, but the humidity in this part of the world really is appalling.” The intruder returned his unblinking gaze to the shivering Ingrid. “In concert with another revolting Meld, the stick-insect standing alongside you killed a courier and stole from him something that belongs to my employe
rs. The courier’s death is of no consequence. What was taken is very much of consequence. He brought the stolen item to you. My employers want it back.” Once again he gestured with the murderous flurry. “This will conclude much more pleasantly for everyone if you simply hand it over to me.”
Ingrid swallowed. Quite to her surprise she heard herself saying, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Molé rolled his eyes. This time, he did laugh. It was a subdued, soft sound, almost like a muffled cough. “Come, come, woman. When I was in my youth I played this game and enjoyed it. I used to play many games in which I no longer indulge. Not because I have lost my delight in them but because my time has become more precious than the transitory amusements they once afforded. You have the thread. This is known. You lent it to a colleague of yours and he subsequently returned it. That is also known. Therefore you have it now.”
Her eyes widened. “You—your people are the ones who beat up poor Rudy!”
Molé’s weary sigh reflected his boredom. “If you are referring to the assault that was perpetrated on the person of a certain Dr. Rudolf Sverdlosk, your accusation and your anger are misplaced. That involved neither myself nor those for whose satisfaction I am engaged.”
A surprised Whispr spoke up. “Another outfit besides the one you’re working for knows about the thread?”
“Too many know about it, my angular friend. Not what it is, not what it contains, only that it is valuable. Especially to certain concerned parties, my employers being foremost among them. Knowledge of this matter has already spread too wide and is renowned, even if only as hearsay, by far too many. All disquiet will be resolved, however, and everything returned to normal when the article in question is returned to its rightful owners. Which shall be directly.”
Even though it might reveal knowledge that could potentially seal her fate she could not help herself from asking questions. This is a condition that afflicts the majority of hopeless addicts. In the case of Dr. Ingrid Seastrom, her drug of choice was science.
“What about the juvenile nanodevice implants that are also made of MSMH? How does the thread relate to those?”
“Nanodevices? Implants?” Demonstrating yet another of his artfully veiled talents, Molé managed a passable imitation of her voice. “ ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ ” For a final time he gestured with the flurry. “Please give me the thread. Since I know it’s not in your boatel room.…”
“How do you … oh.” She caught herself. If this strange little old man could get past Yabby Wizwang’s sophisticated residential security he surely would have no trouble breaking into and searching the contents of an ordinary commercial dwelling.
“Unless,” Molé continued, his unblinking eyes flicking in Whispr’s direction, “your companion is currently holding it. Whoever has it please just give it to me. I don’t search live bodies.”
“We—we don’t have it, really,” she stammered. “It’s back in Savannah, in a safety deposit. You don’t think we’d actually bring it down here with us, do you?”
“No, I don’t think you would. I know you would. With apologies, doctor, this is an area of expertise where you are out of your depth. Your knowledge of such dealings extends to what your pathetic companion may have told you and to what you may have seen portrayed in cheap popular entertainments. To employ that medium’s time-honored if hackneyed vernacular, you are stalling. This is how I deal with stalling.”
The flurry went off. Despite the deceptive gentleness of its exhalation, Whispr flinched and Ingrid, unashamedly, screamed. Once again, only Gator held his ground.
She looked down at herself. Having already released her bladder, her leg was no wetter—neither from urine nor blood. She had not been hit by the blast. Neither had Whispr, who rose slowly from the crouch into which he had instinctively dropped. Gator had barely moved. Bewildered, she looked to her right. As a physician she found the sight of so much blood alarming, but only from an academic standpoint.
The hundred or so explosive darts that had emerged from one of the flurry’s twin barrels had shredded Yabby Wizwang from the waist up as thoroughly as if his body had been pressed through a giant cheese grater. The visual consequences made it look as if he had simultaneously been attacked by a dozen crazed barbers wielding straight razors. So overwhelming was the trauma to his system that he had not even been able to pump a last burst of shocked air out of his shrunken lungs and past his juvenile vocal cords. Blasted back into his chair, blood draining from his minced corpse and onto the deck of the cabin, it was impossible to tell that he had undergone extensive melding to make himself look like a ten-year-old. In death as in life he still looked like a ten-year-old. Harder to discern than true age was that the flayed form had once been human.
Belying his advanced years while demonstrating his experience, Napun Molé had reloaded the instant after he had fired, extracting one shell among several from the bandolier slung beneath his loose-fitting, garish tropical shirt. His voice had not changed in the slightest when he resumed speaking.
“Please now, Dr. Seastrom. The thread? I assure you it will not be damaged if the destructive effects just applied to your host have to be repeated on your own person. The metal is stronger than you may imagine.” Holding and balancing the flurry with his right hand, its short stock jammed into the crook of his arm, he extended his other hand expectantly.
The black caiman that leaped on him from behind nearly got him.
Even as she threw herself toward Whispr, Ingrid could not decide which astonished her more: the fact that the Alligator Man had somehow managed to silently signal his maniped reptilian accomplices that he was in need of help, or the fact that a stumpy-legged crocodilian like a three-meter-long caiman could get that far off the floor.
Molé was surprised but not taken. Whirling, he unleashed both barrels of the flurry. The foreparts and front half of the leaping reptile disintegrated in an expanding sphere of blood, teeth, scales, and bone. Enough kinetic energy remained from its jump, however, to drive a portion of the organic debris into the assassin and knock him to the floor. A second caiman followed close on the armored heels of the first while yet another was smashing its way through the largest of the portside windows. Each had attached to its skull a similar tiny manip implant that allowed Gator to control and direct them.
Seizing a stunned Ingrid as well as the opening, Whispr yanked her in the direction of the cabin’s other entryway. Pursued by violent curses in several languages, the muted but lethal phut! of the flurry being fired again, Gator’s half-hysterical bellowed commands, and a succession of primeval crocodilian roars, they climbed and stumbled desperately up to the main deck.
“Wait, wait!” After half dragging her up the steps, Whispr now fought to hold her back. She soon saw why.
Along with the dark water in which it sat, the boat’s deck was alive with giant reptiles. Every species currently known to reside in tropical Namerica was represented: caimans black and white, alligators, crocodiles American and Orinoco. In response to Gator’s call they clambered over the sides of the houseboat, the smaller craft moored against it, and each other in their haste to force their way into the main cabin. Glancing back down the stairway Ingrid saw something massive, toothy, and glittering of eye coming her way.
“Whispr …” Without waiting, she pushed past him. “They’re not after us anyway.”
“What makes you think they can tell the difference between …?” He didn’t have time to finish the question because she didn’t give him any.
For whatever reason—the persistence of Gator’s summons, the natural attraction of the frenetic action occurring within the cabin, sheer dumb luck—none of the reptiles swarming the houseboat changed tack to lurch in their direction. One lumbering armored monster did take a snap at Whispr, who eluded the potentially bone-crunching bite with a twisting leap worthy of a celebrity ballerino. Ingrid gasped—she was beyond screaming—as something tore away a piece of her—shorts. r />
They made it to their rented watercraft which was, for the moment at least, thankfully unoccupied. Whispr disengaged the link locking it to the larger vessel. A quick spin of the wheel and a moment later they were accelerating away from the overgrown houseboat as fast as torque could be acquired.
Luggage being deemed less important than living, by mutual consent they did not go back to their rooms at the Macamock boatel. Instead, Whispr headed the speedy little watercraft straight toward distant Miavana. New clothes could be purchased. Personal effects could be replaced. Everything that mattered was already in the boat and intact: themselves, their individual faux idents, and most important of all, the thread. Far more important than recovering anything trivial from their rooms was the need to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the houseboat—in the event a fearsome and singularly ferocious old man managed to survive the dinosaurian assault Gator had thankfully unleashed upon him.
Tense behind the manual controls, sweat pouring off his bladed countenance, Whispr peered across at her.
“You look like hell.”
Her attention concentrated on the swamp and waterland ahead, she barely glanced in his direction. “That’s not surprising. I usually look like I feel.” She shook her head slightly, ever so slightly. “He just killed him. Killed Wizwang. No warning at all. He didn’t even say he was going to shoot. He just killed him. To make an example for the rest of us. I was looking at his face. His expression never changed.”
“Whose expression?” Whispr inquired with grim humor. “The old man’s, or Wizwang’s?”
“The old man’s. I didn’t get a chance to see Wizwang’s. When I did look he—there wasn’t anything left to make an expression with.”
Whispr maintained a death grip on the manual steering, unwilling to relinquish control of their craft to the boat’s deactivated autopilot. The last thing he wanted was to give the elderly horror that had come after them a chance to take control of the watercraft’s instrumentation.