The Human Blend by Alan Dean Foster Read Free Book Online Page A

Like everything else in Greater Savannah it was tightly sealed against the eventual inevitable intrusion of the ever-rising Atlantic.
    Able to afford more than a scoot, her personal vehicle had four wheels. The built-to-order back end contained a complete portable medical facility, touted by its manufacturer as the “hospital in a trunk.” It was not quite that, but Ingrid could do in the field what most twentieth-century medical facilities required the contents of entire buildings to accomplish.
    Powered by a single battery slab her car could not achieve a high rate of speed, but it was more than adequate for traveling around the metropolitan area and taking her as far as the outlying suburbs. A good deal of the Carolinas and Georgia was still rural, especially those districts that impinged on national or international nature preserves, and many of their denizens could not afford to come into Savannah or Jacksonville for advanced medical care. It was while working among the poorest of her clients that she felt the greatest satisfaction. The government covered basic medical needs, but beyond that patients were on their own.
    Among the worst cases she saw were those involving botched melds.
    As a Natural, she was not expected to be sympathetic. All melds were elective, and many Naturals felt that those who chose to undergo such procedures could hardly expect understanding from their fellow citizens should adverse consequences result. That she was at all times empathetic always impressed her clients, be they highly paid businessmen or low income specialty farmers and fisherfolk.
    The afternoon was unexceptional, featuring a ten-minute pause to let one of the almost-daily equatorial downpours burn itself out over the city. She had read that there was a time in the past when such heavy tropicalrains had been far less frequent in the southeastern states. But there had also been a time when Old Savannah, like Old Nawlins, had actually sat on dry ground instead of having to be raised up on stilts. Having grown up in such surroundings she felt perfectly comfortable among them, of course. Ancient history was full of surprising revelations.
    As the characteristically sultry afternoon wore on and she dispensed the usual much appreciated advice, recommendations, medications, injections, and minor meld repairs, her curiosity was stirred only twice. Once by an ill Natural sixteen-year-old boy who the instrumentation in the rear of her car diagnosed as suffering from dengue-h fever. She treated him and advised his concerned parents to bring him into the city for a checkup and possible isolation treatment. The second case involved a would-be professional model living in an expensive floating coastal codo whose melded left leg was showing signs of degradation of gengineered calcium sponge. An injection temporarily relieved the young woman’s discomfort and Ingrid advised her to seek a consultation with the original surgeon, with an eye toward a possible remeld. This advice was not received enthusiastically.
    The sun was on its way down and she was already contemplating dinner options when she parked in front of the house in the woods.
    It fronted a private forestry concern. Behind the house hectares of rocket pine thrust bright green needles toward the recently rain-swept sky. Gengineered to provide two harvestable crops a year on poor soil, rocket pine had replaced peanuts and tobacco as a ready cash crop throughout many of the southern states. While the advent of electronic readers had replaced the need for newsprint throughout the world, no one had yet come up with an electronic substitute for paper towels or toilet paper. Additionally, private forests supplied incidental habitat for a far greater diversity of fauna than other farms while simultaneously serving as excellent buffers for nature and wildlife preserves.
    Runoff from the recent sticky downpour was still trickling into holding ponds and tanks as Ingrid got out of the car. With