The lifechair swiveled a bit to face the retrogirl straight on. “With all due respect, Myr Kodiak,” it said, “Sam is my sponsor, not you.”
“What?” Kitty said. “Belt Hubert, are you talking back to me?”
A frail hand rose above the rim of the basket. “Kitty,” Samson peeped.
Kitty climbed up and leaned into the basket. “Morning, Sam,” she said, caressing his cheek. “I was just telling the chair to take you to my room.”
“My daughter Ellie,” he said in a strained whisper.
“They won’t let us see her,” Kitty said. “We tried, Sam. It’s no use.”
The chair said, “He says, I have no time to argue. I must go.”
“There’s no point in going, Sam, if they won’t even let us in.” The retrogirl climbed off the chair and said, “Belt Hubert, take Sam to my room. Do it now.”
The chair didn’t budge. Neither did Kitty. It was a standoff.
“Let him go,” Bogdan said. The boy had just come from the kitchen with a steamy cup of troutcorn chowder. “It’s something he has to do, and you shouldn’t be trying to stop him.”
“Fine,” Kitty said and got out of the chair’s way. “You can go with him, because I’m not.”
“No problem,” Bogdan said and went to the chair. “Good morning, Sam,” he said. The old man smiled up at him. “I hear you’re off to see your daughter.”
The chair said, “He says, That’s right.”
“Can I go too?”
“That would be nice.”
Bogdan turned and led the lifechair to the foyer and out to the street. Kitty stood with her arms crossed and watched them go. A moment later she heard the chair clop, clop, clop down the porch steps. “Oh, for pity sake,” she said and took off after them.
MARY TOOK A taxi all the way to the clinic. At the gatehouse, the sealed sample in her large tote bag passed through the scanway without raising a flag. She hurried down the path through the little woods that separated South Gate from the cottages. Inside Feldspar Cottage, Cyndee and Nurse Hattie stood at the tank controller. Mary could see that Cyndee had something to tell her.
The brain model above the controller showed only sporadic neuronal discharges, like fireflies on a summer night. Hattie switched it off and said, “They declared her irretrievable early this morning. I have to go now, but I’ll return to help Matt pull life support.” She hugged the evangelines in turn and said, “I know it’s hard to lose your first one.” She paused at the daybed on her way out. The Ellen jacket was still twisted in her never-ending scream. “Tell Matt to shut this thing off first.”
When the evangelines were alone, Cyndee told Mary that she and Ronnie had been discharged by Wee Hunk, but that they didn’t leave. But when Mary and Renata failed to show up at shift change, Ronnie decided it was really all over and left.
“But you stayed,” Mary said, tapping Cyndee’s saucer hat, “and that’s all that matters.”
Mary went to the controller and brought up the rhinecephelon display. She took the package from her tote bag and unsealed it.
“Yuck!” Cyndee said. “What is that?”
“I looked up Myr Starke on the WAD and learned that her father was a seared,” Mary said and held the napkin against the olfactory sampler grate. “Ellen,” she said, “your father is here. It’s time to wake up. Samson Harger is here. Ellen, do you hear me?” She watched the skull’s eyes as she talked. She pulled a chair next to the sampler grate and propped the napkin up on it. She stood in front of the skull and told Ellen Starke all she had learned of her father.
On the rafter above her head, the Blue Team bee recognized the signature aroma of the hankie. The bee flagged the human who had brought this sample as a possible friendly.
FRED SAT ON a packing crate next to the porthole of a TUG Moving and Storage container that was flying in a parking loop over Decatur. Its figure-eight route brought him near the Roosevelt Clinic once each sixteen-minute lap. This flying boxcar made an ideal staging platform, and Fred’s access to it was remarkably sudden. Veronica Tug, when he called her from his apartment, had taken his list of logistical needs, no questions asked. A few minutes later she called back with the address of the storage container. He took a taxi to Decatur and made a midair docking with the container. It was loosely packed with several households of wrapped furniture and appliances. He found the field identikit that he had requested and a scanway-proof weapon that he had not. The blackmarket kit contained everything he needed to create and assume a foolproof new identity. Fred went through it and found a red and black jumpsuit cut in a garish paramilitary style. It looked like the household livery of some self-important aff, but it was lightly armored and included a fairly decent cap and visor. Fred put on the cap and read his cover doss. Myr Randy Planc was a Chicago area russ who lived in an APRT near Gary Gate. He was engaged as major domo to a materials broker named Abdul al-Hafir. Fred researched both Planc and al-Hafir on the National Registry and found neither of them listed. He consulted the UD Whois, Applied People Directory, and several other key sources. Neither man existed—at least not yet. Fred’s disguise required the conjuring up of not one, but two, complete identities out of thin air. It couldn’t have been cheap, and Veronica never mentioned the cost.
Fred broke open a tube of skin mastic and squeezed it on his arm. While it melted into his skin, he swallowed a capsule of self-migrating keratochitin concentrate that would collect on his cheekbones and chin to slightly alter several key facial landmarks. He chewed a gum that thickened his larynx and deepened his voice.
Eyecaps, mouth dam, false palms, uniform—Fred changed into Myr Planc. He considered the weapons package. It was a carboplex dagger that came in binary blister packs. To use it, he would need to spread the contents of a blister on the skin of each leg, taking care to keep his legs apart until he was through the scanway. Though the weapons package bore the seal of a reputable arms dealer, Fred was doubtful about trying to smuggle a weapon of any kind through a Fagan clinic scanway.
Checking the cap’s chronometer, Fred peered through the porthole to watch the clinic pass below.
A MEDTECH ENTERED the cottage and said, “Holy shit!” She pinched her nose and looked around the room. Mary and Cyndee had been joined by Renata and Alex, an evangeline from swing shift. “What are y’all doing in here?” the medtech demanded. “And what is that smell?”
Hattie and Coburn entered after the first medtech, and Hattie said, “I know that smell, but I thought they were all dead by now.” She, too, looked for its source. Mary held up the offending napkin, then rewrapped it and dropped it into her tote. It had apparently had no effect on the comatose woman.
The Blue Team bee, on the beam over Mary’s head, watched the human activity below with the dimmest of comprehension. Today, all of the humans seemed to be running hot.
The first medtech left in search of nose plugs, but Coburn stormed over to the evangelines at the controller and demanded, “What are you dittoheads doing?”
“Her father was a seared,” Mary said, “and quit using that word.”
“Get away from this equipment.”
“Relax, Coburn,” Hattie said. “No one’s harming your precious equipment.” She went to the controller herself and paged through a quick series of diagnostic reports. “So, Ellen had a stinker in the family. Why didn’t they tell us that a few days ago when it might have done some good?”
Coburn set his medkit on a tray next to the tank and laid out his instruments. “Lower armature,” he told the controller.
“Controller, hold up a sec,” Hattie said.