Body, Inc.

by Alan Dean Foster

  That is, it would unless someone very, very high up in the SAEC hierarchy had given permission for the direct contact to take place, and had supplied the caller with Kruger’s direct number. That kind of exchange was virtually without precedent. Yet as he peered down at his phone the security chief could hardly deny the reality of the face that was looking back at him via the communicator’s own pickup. He was at once intrigued and bemused, but not concerned. After all, his caller’s aspect was hardly threatening.

  The old man’s voice, however, belied his appearance. It did not shake and more than once hinted at a confidence Kruger recognized immediately.

  The old man sounded very much like one of his own kind.

  “Am I speaking with Het Kruger, chief of security for the Nerens station?”

  “Who wants to know?” Kruger’s response was clipped but polite.

  “I am Napun Molé. While I am an independent contractor, I also work for the company. My area of expertise somewhat parallels your own.”

  “Prove it.”

  A tiny hint of a smile tweaked one corner of the respondent’s mouth. “I would think the fact that I am able to speak to you directly would be adequate proof of my status. However as an analog of sorts I appreciate your position and your concern. Please take a moment to review the following information.”

  The projection bubble on Kruger’s phone fizzed to lux. A series of numbers and names appeared in the air before him. He scanned them rapidly. He had to, because they did not linger. When he had seen enough he looked down at the phone and nodded.

  “You tote a weighty résumé, Mr. Molé. And such a sequence of recommendations and references as I have rarely seen. So, you also work in company security?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” the oldster replied. “My area of responsibility is broader than yours but my staff considerably smaller.”

  “What can I do for you, colleague?” As Kruger studied the small image his practiced eye picked out enough hints to indicate that the old man had undergone extensive melding. He wondered at their provenance and purpose but knew better than to pry.

  “I am in pursuit of a pair of thieves who have stolen company property. Very valuable property that has connections to the facility whose security is your responsibility. Though my pursuit was briefly diverted I now have reason to believe that they may be here in Southern Africa. And while there is no particular reason to believe they will ever make an appearance in your vicinity, where company business is concerned I am a firm believer in guarding against the unlikely as well as the expected.”

  Kruger found himself nodding in agreement. “We would get along, I think, Mr. Molé.”

  “Experienced professionals invariably do. I will now download to your communicator the details of their backgrounds and, insofar as it is current, their physical appearance.”

  Kruger hardly had time to inhale before the information transfer was completed. Making use of the communicator’s projector he studied the images and information that appeared in the clear desert air before him.

  “The woman is attractive. A practicing family physician of some repute, it says here. Of considerably less standing, her companion’s profile makes more sense to me. Neither appears to be the usual sort to trigger a company-wide security alert. Especially the woman.”

  “I find her participation in this matter a continuing puzzlement,” Molé responded. “However it is no less real for its incomprehensibility. But having been in this business for as long as you have I am sure that you know how the promise of wealth and power can alter the behavior and personality of even the most stable-seeming of citizens. That is apparently the case where this Dr. Seastrom is concerned. Having barely eluded me in Namerica I can testify both to her intelligence and her exterior attractiveness, though her recent actions call her purported intelligence into question.”

  Kruger closed down the projection. He could study the fine details later at leisure. “For the company to put an experienced (he did not say ‘old,’ which was what he was thinking) investigator like yourself onto them they must have stolen something substantial. If it had happened here I’d think a large diamond, probably a colored stone.”

  “Nothing so inconsequential,” explained Molé. “The object in question is a small storage thread. The material it is made from represents a proprietary manufacturing development of recent vintage of which the company is extremely protective.”

  “And its contents?”

  “Even more proprietary.” The old man’s tone was courteous but unyielding. Knowing that further probing would garner distrust in lieu of explanation Kruger did not inquire further.

  “Among the data that has been provided to you,” Molé continued, “is my own private number. Though it is my hope there will be no need for us to talk again, should you encounter any information that might lead to the apprehension of these two miscreants you should feel free to contact me directly.”

  Kruger’s lips tightened. “In other words, should I encounter them you don’t wish me to have them arrested.”

  “In other words,” the old man replied in a voice as cold as the depths of the offshore waters, “the company would prefer that I resolve the entirety of the situation quickly and efficiently. By myself if possible. By other hands if it should prove expedient.”

  “I understand.” The atmosphere around the security chief seemed to have chilled slightly.

  “I knew that you would.”

  “One thing before you go,” Kruger prompted his caller. “Am I correct in assuming that I am not the only member of company security that you’ve contacted personally about this matter?”

  “That is so. You are number thirty-two. I have forty more to call. I desire that everyone be suitably advised and prepared. One never knows from where a useful bit of information may be forthcoming. I wish you a pleasant day, Mr. Kruger.”

  The conversation was at an end. Replacing his unit in its self-sealing protective pocket Kruger once more returned to gazing out to sea. Ten minutes later he let out a long sigh, rose to his feet, brushed sand from his pants, and started back down the dune face. The information he had just received needed to be entered into the research facility’s security database and his subordinates would have to be informed. Then, in all likelihood, they could all forget about it. As the site’s maniped hyenas had recently proven, unauthorized travelers could not get within twenty kilometers of the facility even if they were aware of its exact existence and location.

  Besides, having spoken at some length with the formidable old man who called himself Napun Molé, Het Kruger felt very strongly that the two Namericans for whom he was searching would soon no longer have the freedom to wander about Southern Africa or anywhere else.

  HER NAME WAS THEMBEKILE. “But you can call me Thembe,” the big woman told Ingrid and Whispr as she led them deeper into the complex of spider houses. “The name is Zulu and means ‘trustworthy.’ For a poor farmer my father was prescient. Or optimistic. Depends on which of my clientele you talk to.” She favored them with a huge smile. “If you better like, you may call me the Electric Sangoma. That is my professional title.”

  She didn’t so much walk as waddle Whispr decided as he followed in her wake. Ingrid’s take on the woman who had been recommended to them was more nuanced. As a doctor she knew that their hostess could stand to lose some weight. On the other hand, it was entirely possible that within her profession physical size went along with spiritual heft.

  In the old days Thembe would have been a traditional healer among the Nguni peoples of Southern Africa, dispensing herbal remedies and sage advice in equal measure. Possibly she continued to do so, Ingrid mused as they started up yet another flight of flexible steps. But even a sangoma had to change with the times. Repeated inquiries by Whispr had led them to this place and to this woman.

  The synthetic ivory and hand-blown glass beads that were braided into her long black hair flickered with a rainbow of internal lights. Its internal dazzle-play
notwithstanding, the multilayered electrophoretic gown that whipped around her hid considerably less of her than Whispr would have preferred. He was far too diplomatic to comment on the overpowering interaction of light and flesh. And sufficiently cautious. The sangoma must have weighed well over a hundred and fifty kilos and could have squashed his meld-slenderized self like a bug. As they ascended the mountainside her gown continued to dazzle-up hundreds of different colors, though because of the nature of the material the display was less intense than the one flaring from her hair.

  Bringing up the rear, Ingrid noticed the presence in the complex coiffure of an object that was unambiguously organic, and inquired about it. Their hostess and guide offered an explanation that was as unexpected as it was prosaic.

  “That is the gallbladder of the goat that was sacrificed at my graduation ceremony.”

  “I didn’t know people in your chosen specialty had graduation ceremonies.” Now puffing hard, Whispr had long since stopped counting stairs. How the massive woman in front of him managed the climb without gasping prodigiously, much less having a heart attack, was beyond him. There had to be some kind of advanced internal respiratory meld that kept her going. Certainly there was enough room within the thickset rotund body to accommodate an extra lung or two, be it transplant or mechanical.

  “Indeed we do,” she told him. “I value our traditions, skinny man. They mean as much and are as important to me and my work as is my degree in Communications from Witwaterstrand University.” Looking back and down at him she smiled afresh, her gleaming cheeks bunching up like dark plums. “From the goat I got gallbladder, from the university I got gall.”

  “I don’t care if you shift sheep guts and read palms,” a wheezing Ingrid told her, “if you can help us.”

  The sangoma’s expression tightened. “Palm reading is for charlatans and swindlers and sheep organs are for the pot, my dear. Surely you expect better from me than that! What a good sangoma relies on is the throwing of the bones.”

  Uncertain whether the other woman was pulling her leg, Ingrid replied with her usual honesty. “We don’t know what to expect. We were just told to seek you out because we were told you were someone who might be able to provide the answers we need.”

  “I know what to expect,” Whispr grumbled as the house they were approaching, in its perpetual quest for hillside stability, took another step sideways and further widened the distance between them. “I can read the future, too.” He waved a hand melodramatically over his head. “I predict the materialization of a large bill.”

  “You are insufficiently deferential.” Their hostess pursed her lips disapprovingly. “But Thembekile forgive you.” She halted before the house, which had finally stopped moving and adjusting its position. “Here is my ndumba. In old times the place of healing would be little more than a simple hut. I heal here, but nowadays I only have to use one room out of many.”

  Halting before the front door she extended a hand palm out and facing forward. The seamlessly integrated lock scanned the electronic key embedded beneath the skin of her hand and clicked, opening to admit them.

  A short entry hallway led to a room of modest size. Every corner, every square centimeter, was filled with part of what in total comprised a fantastic panoply of the ancient and modern, the organic and the synthesized. Animal skins hanging from the flat ceiling flapped like primordial heraldic banners in the breeze generated by the building’s climate control. Beyond and below the steep drop outside, the entire Cape Town harbor and coastal metropolis could be seen, still spectacular despite the rise in sea level. The soft whirrs and clicks of automatic machinery rose from beneath the marula-paneled floor as the house once again changed position.

  Outside, the entire hillside was peppered with similar mobile structures. The community was in constant motion as each structure and its owner sought a more stable vantage point with a better view. Each time a home or business settled in for a few days or weeks or months it would spit forth a coil of animated seeker conduits. Searching on their own, homing in on the appropriate community terminals, each building’s sentient intestines would locate and link up connections for power, water, and sewerage. Seen from a distance the steep flank of the mountain appeared to be under assault by a swarm of boxy tentacular cockroaches.

  Such mobility wasn’t all, or even primarily, about the view. A house or business that was always on the move was one that was hard to tax. It also provided a complex but proven method of preserving one’s anonymity. This feature was highly valued by, for example, certain individuals who might be operating a barely legal commercial enterprise.

  Their hostess had alluded to a throwing of bones. Ingrid decided that the ones that ornamented the ndumba were much too big to toss around. Like Alice, she found herself drawn inexorably deeper and deeper into the improbable surroundings. One freestanding bone had to be the tibia of an elephant. From atop a cabinet overflowing with curiosities the bleached skull of a lion snarled silently down at her. Whether the skull was real or a reproduction even Ingrid, with her medical training, could not tell. Strings of beads hung like frozen rain, each strand irregular with bits of stone, seeds, bone, fish and animal vertebrae, shards of shining metal, chunks of colorful glass.

  The room certainly might have put the easily alarmed in mind of a spider’s web. Batik hangings illustrated scenes of death and destruction; semi-abstract portraits of a particularly African purgatory. Bowls and jars held an assortment of pickled and preserved parts of what seemed to be every phyla in the plant and animal kingdom.

  In complete contrast a large flexible box screen stood on its own pivoting mount. Behind it, neatly tucked in between a petrified monkey and a crate overflowing with dried skates and stingrays, stood several powerful cloud couplers. Their lights gleamed as bright and steady as the beads in Thembekile’s tightly braided hair.

  Once more the house lurched beneath them as it shifted position. Whispr cursed and their hostess apologized as she settled herself into the big overstuffed chair that fronted the box screen.

  “Sorry for that it be a moving day. Mountainside, she is getting crowded. Nowadaisys one person moves house, everybody has to move house.” Her wonderfully reassuring smile appeared afresh. “Drives the municipal authorities crazy. Which of course is the idea.” She folded her hands on her lap. “What can I do for you visitors? I know already it must be something unusual or you would not have sought me out. I specialize in satisfaction of the unusual. People do not come to me for restaurant recommendations.” Her attention focused on Whispr and her gaze narrowed ever so slightly. “By finding me you have already gone to some trouble and risked your visitors’ status. So I will try not to disappoint you. But I make no promises. Payment is in advance and nonrefundable.”

  Whispr grunted derisively. “Another prediction I could have made, and without the need for a goat’s gallbladder in my hair.”

  “Be polite, Whispr.” Ingrid fumbled inside her jacket, the unique signature from her right thumb and forefinger unsealing the special pocket that had been woven into the inside of the left cup of her brassiere. From the compartment she withdrew a small transparent capsule. It contained a single storage thread.

  “What is this?” Demonstrating surprising dexterity Thembekile took the capsule between two fingers and rotated it as she held it up to the light.

  “A storage thread,” Ingrid explained. “We don’t know what’s on it, if anything, because we can’t read it. Reading has been tried using an assortment of advanced and sometimes very expensive instruments. The thread itself is made of metastable metallic hydrogen, a material that according to physics and metallurgy ought to be unstable at normal temperature and pressure. In fact, it should be impossible. But the composition has been confirmed. We were told by our contacts in …,” she hesitated a moment, then resumed after careful thought, “we were told by our contacts that there is maybe one company in the world that is actually working on making such a substance viable. The SAEC.”

>   Thembekile nodded thoughtfully as she handed the capsule back to the doctor. “You seem to know much already of what it is that you want to learn. What do you want of me?”

  Ingrid wrenched her gaze away from the lion skull, whose hollow eyes seemed to be tracking her. “If SICK is working on MSMH it will be at their most advanced and secure research facility. We’re hoping if we can find out where they’re manufacturing the metal that it will lead us to whatever is on it. There are congruent social implications that relate intimately to my own profession. So … we need to know where that facility is located.”

  Their hostess looked from the doctor to Whispr and back again. “Sometimes SICK people are not very nice people. But in my experience people reply more courteously if you just ask them what you want to know. Why not simply go to one of their public offices and ask them about your little thread? They can always refuse to answer, or even claim they know nothing about such a material.”

  “That’s just it. Nobody knows about it.” Whispr was staring out the window, oblivious to the long drop below. “Nobody’s even supposed to know about it. SICK is working real hard to make sure nobody knows about it.” Turning away from the view and back to their hostess he smiled humorlessly. “It’s a secret.”

  “A secret that leads to other secrets—we think.” Ingrid did not elaborate.

  “Oh, ho!” As the sangoma chuckled her entire body rippled and shook like a finely turned-out mousse. “You seek answers to questions you are not supposed to know. Is there more I should know?”

  Ingrid glanced at Whispr, who threw her a warning look. They had come so far, she thought. They had come this far. She plunged onward. “This impractical material, this impossible substance of which the thread is made, has also been found in the heads of children. Children of many different backgrounds, from all over the world. Teenagers, mostly, who are suffering from depression and related problems.”