Read Online The Sum of Her Parts by Alan Dean Foster - Free Book Online
Authors: Alan Dean Foster
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in front of the dubious establishment, the pedestrians shuffling and hurrying around him ignored the unremarkable old man in their midst. It was no different here than in Tokyo, or Newnew York, or London or Hio Janeiro or Sagramanda. He was a nonentity. Even more, he was an elderly nonentity. Clearly no threat to anyone, too plainly dressed to be worth riffling, a cipherous bit of perambulating protoplasm that posed no evident threat to man, Meld, beast, or any combination thereof.
That was just how he liked it.
Should anyone happened to have glanced in the direction of the innocuous figure who was staring at the sign over the basement entrance they would never have guessed that beneath the elderly exterior surged an occasional and sometimes lethal volcanic eruption of aggravation. It was just as well that no one did. Molé was inno mood to suffer the inquisitive. Curiosity was intrusive, intrusion was invasion, and invaders were as likely to have their throats cut as their cheeks patted, depending on his frame of mind. At the moment the latter was as dark as the hour of night. The heavy cloud cover that had settled in over Cape Town like a thick wool blanket matched his mood.
He had lost the trail. Lost track of his quarry. The mildly deranged doctor and her nonentity stick-man Meld of a companion had vanished from the hunter’s ken, plucked literally from under his gaze by the operator of a counterfeit elephant. While Molé had looked on helplessly from atop a hill in the backcountry of the Sanbona Preserve, the quadrupedal mechanical transport had picked up his targets, turned, and strode off to the north. That did not mean its final destination lay to the north. Once out of his sight it could have gone in any direction, further complicating his interrupted pursuit of the two Namericans.
The machine itself was the only clue he had left. He still had no idea where the two mismatched thieves were going or what they intended to do with the thread. The fact that they had come here, to the heartland of his present employers, had been a sufficiently startling development in itself. Subsequent to their arrival everything they had done had been characteristic of the classic African tourist. They had done nothing to suggest that they were travelers in possession of extremely valuable stolen property.
Did they know that it was him who had nearly run them down in Sanbona? Not that it mattered. Having been alerted to the fact that their presence in southern Africa had been discovered they would be even more on their guard than ever. Which would make his job of locating them all over again harder than ever.
Despite his frustration he did not despair. Failure was not in his vocabulary. It was one reason why he was repeatedly hired for suchdifficult tasks. He had never failed to complete whatever assignment he had accepted. Nor would this be the first time. He certainly would not be bested by a pair of bumbling amateur know-nothings from Namerica who did not even understand the significance of what they had taken.
If the trail ahead disappears a good tracker knows to retrace his steps and search for overlooked clues on ground already trodden. Careful probing and questioning had led him here, tonight, to the least reputable section of Cape Town; a district so despised that the honorable citizens of the city could not wait for the planet’s slowly rising waters to overtake and consume it.
The House of Nasty, in fact, lay below sea level. The original brick walls of the basement in the old harbor warehouse had been reinforced and rendered watertight by being infused with a penetrating liquid epoxy. The result was the modern but far sturdier chemical equivalent of the Delft tiles the Dutch had once used to waterproof the lower floors of their own buildings. While not as attractive as the hand-painted seventeenth-century Dutch materials, the newer composites were considerably more hydrophilic.
Within the shimmering sign above the
That was just how he liked it.
Should anyone happened to have glanced in the direction of the innocuous figure who was staring at the sign over the basement entrance they would never have guessed that beneath the elderly exterior surged an occasional and sometimes lethal volcanic eruption of aggravation. It was just as well that no one did. Molé was inno mood to suffer the inquisitive. Curiosity was intrusive, intrusion was invasion, and invaders were as likely to have their throats cut as their cheeks patted, depending on his frame of mind. At the moment the latter was as dark as the hour of night. The heavy cloud cover that had settled in over Cape Town like a thick wool blanket matched his mood.
He had lost the trail. Lost track of his quarry. The mildly deranged doctor and her nonentity stick-man Meld of a companion had vanished from the hunter’s ken, plucked literally from under his gaze by the operator of a counterfeit elephant. While Molé had looked on helplessly from atop a hill in the backcountry of the Sanbona Preserve, the quadrupedal mechanical transport had picked up his targets, turned, and strode off to the north. That did not mean its final destination lay to the north. Once out of his sight it could have gone in any direction, further complicating his interrupted pursuit of the two Namericans.
The machine itself was the only clue he had left. He still had no idea where the two mismatched thieves were going or what they intended to do with the thread. The fact that they had come here, to the heartland of his present employers, had been a sufficiently startling development in itself. Subsequent to their arrival everything they had done had been characteristic of the classic African tourist. They had done nothing to suggest that they were travelers in possession of extremely valuable stolen property.
Did they know that it was him who had nearly run them down in Sanbona? Not that it mattered. Having been alerted to the fact that their presence in southern Africa had been discovered they would be even more on their guard than ever. Which would make his job of locating them all over again harder than ever.
Despite his frustration he did not despair. Failure was not in his vocabulary. It was one reason why he was repeatedly hired for suchdifficult tasks. He had never failed to complete whatever assignment he had accepted. Nor would this be the first time. He certainly would not be bested by a pair of bumbling amateur know-nothings from Namerica who did not even understand the significance of what they had taken.
If the trail ahead disappears a good tracker knows to retrace his steps and search for overlooked clues on ground already trodden. Careful probing and questioning had led him here, tonight, to the least reputable section of Cape Town; a district so despised that the honorable citizens of the city could not wait for the planet’s slowly rising waters to overtake and consume it.
The House of Nasty, in fact, lay below sea level. The original brick walls of the basement in the old harbor warehouse had been reinforced and rendered watertight by being infused with a penetrating liquid epoxy. The result was the modern but far sturdier chemical equivalent of the Delft tiles the Dutch had once used to waterproof the lower floors of their own buildings. While not as attractive as the hand-painted seventeenth-century Dutch materials, the newer composites were considerably more hydrophilic.
Within the shimmering sign above the
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