Read Online Prostho Plus by Piers Anthony - Free Book Online Page B

and—oh—oh!" He put aside the instrument, listening.
    "It won't be easy the first few times, even so," Dillingham warned. "But at least—"
    "Overdrive shiftback!" Trach cried. He leapt for Dillingham.
    The ship turned inside out as they were dumped into the corner, but both were smiling.

    "But I'm not a dentist!" Judy told the transcoder. "I'm a dental assistant and hygienist and light book-keeper, as you must know." The transcoder typed her words on to a stick in the form of indentations, and the North Nebulite took this. He poked it into the orifice beneath his triple-slit nose and chewed gently.
    What jaw-motions constituted reading, as opposed to writing (typing?) she couldn't tell, and she was sure they could read by sight too. They had their own little ways of doing things. In a moment the creature fed the talk-stick back into the transcoder. "You are Dr. Dillingham's assistant. Extremely competent but aloof. We searched for you. We obtained you. This is his laboratory. So assist."
    She peered around at the alien paraphernalia. It had been a substantial education, finding out exactly what had happened to Dillingham. Horrible as the purple-lipped, double-jointed North Nebulites—Enens, according to Dillingham's invented information coded into the machine—appeared, they were pleasant enough when understood. The two designated to show her around were Holmes and Watson, though either answered (or failed to answer) to either name. "I never worked in the lab itself. Not that way. I can't make a reconstruction. I'm not allowed to perform dentistry on a patient—not by myself. I assist the dentist while he works. Where is Dr. Dillingham?"
    Holmes assimilated the new stick and bit off a reply. The Enens had been cagey about late news on Dillingham, apart from vague assurances that he was doing well. She kept inserting the question in the hope that one of them would slip and give her an answer.
    This time it worked. "Dr. Dillingham? We sold him to the high muck-a-muck of Gleep."
    Judy started to laugh at the grotesque designation Dillingham had hung on that entity. He must have enjoyed himself hugely as he programmed the transcoder! On Earth he had always been serious.
    She sobered abruptly. " Sold him?"
    "He was on contract, same as you. Hostage against the expense of his procurement and shipment. Perfectly regular."
    "I'm on—?! You advertised for a job, not a slave! You can't buy and sell human beings!"
    "Why not?"
    She was not the spluttering type. She spluttered. "It just isn't done! Not on Earth."
    Both Enens masticated that. "We aren't on Earth," Holmes pointed out. "Your ballbase players are bought and sold on Earth," Watson said. "Everything is in order according to Galactic codes," they both said—or else the machine had choked over the pair of sticks and read the same message off twice.
    "But Dr. Dillingham and I aren't ballbase— baseball! players! And it isn't the same. This is kidnapping."
    The Enens nibbled sticks, not understanding what all the fuss was about. "Everything is in order. We told you that. Now will you assist?"
    Judy dropped that tack for the moment. The Enens had not mistreated her, after all, and it was rather exciting being on another world, and she could never have afforded passage on her own. At least she was on Dillingham's trail, and that alone just about made up for the rest of it. It wasn't as though she had had any particularly inviting future back on Earth.
    "Well, how about letting me talk to the muck-a-muck? I can't accomplish much here by myself."
    "But you applied for a position at North Nebula!"
    "I changed my mind."
    It took her several more days to establish that her mind, once changed, was absolutely set. She did convince them that their own technicians were far more competent in the laboratory than she, though far less competent than supposed at the time Dillingham had been sold. She suspected that Earth was about to sustain another dental raid, and she felt sorry for