Jeb saluted and led Kenmuir back out. “This way,” he directed.” ‘Cross the square. The clinic there, see?”
Understanding smote. “The health officer” hadn’t registered a meaning, unless as a vague idea of still another tribal functionary. But Bruno had said “it.” Yonder waited a sophotect
Kenmuir stumbled. He had almost dug in his heels. Jeb gave him a Questioning glance. No. He must go through with this. Suddenly to return to his volant and take off, that would cause wondering. “Excuse me,” he muttered and strode on.
Why did Bruno want the machine to approve him? Omciousness? The mayor, like the port commissioner, didn’t get many chances to throw his weight around in the presence of strangers. Or was Bruno anxious to stay on the good side of the government, leaning backward to look cooperative? He might fear that sometime, policy or no, there would be a crackdown on local practices.
No matter now. What Kenmuir must do was pass himself off as what he claimed to be. He swallowed, cleared his throat, and told the muscles in his back to slack off.
Outwardly the clinic resembled its neighbors. The reception room was reassuringly if rather hideously decorated with Bramlander art. Behind it, Kenmuir knew, was up-to-date equipment for treating most hurts and ills. Likewise was what the sophotect used to monitor sanitation, automated services such as energy, and the biological well-being of the land around. The town of his childhood, also isolated, had had just such an attendant. People there had called it the caretaker, when they didn’t say “Auld Angus.”
The form here was hauntingly similar, boxy, four-legged, six-armed, with turret for sensors and elec-trophotonic brain, housing for powerpack, and retractable communications dish. The voice was’ male, deep and resonant: “Hi, how c’n I help you?”
“Got this guzzah wants ‘a stay a couple days,” Jeb explained. “Mayor wants you awright him.”
“Ah.” The accent became educated. “Bienvenido, senor. For favor, be seated. A formality, I’m sure. Everybody’s tense, what with this unfortunate friction with Elville. My opposite number there and I are trying to get it composed, but—“ The flexible pair of arms rippled through a shrug. “Jeb, you can go.”
“Not need me?”
“Certainly not. You may go, I said.” The tone had sharpened the least bit. Jeb bent his head, perhaps unconsciously, and left.
“Do take a seat,” the sophotect urged. “I suspect you’ve had a slightly unpleasant time. Would you care for coffee, tea, or a short whisky?”
Kenmuir took a chair. His body resisted its form-fitting embrace, but he kept his face steady. “No, thank you, I’m on trajectory, really I am.”
The machine seized on the expression. “Ah, are you concerned with space? How interesting. You’d be our first visitor who wasn’t of this Earth earthy.” A chuckle ran forth.
Kenmuir swore at himself. “No, I, I have a friend in the Service, and I’ve gone once to the Moon. That’s all.” He retailed his story and waited belly-painful. That he chose to go by a name like Hannibal was nothing unusual, it could be whim, but what if the officer asked him for his registry number?
That still might not be fatal, he thought beneath thethunders. For the time being, this was a distinct, separated personality that stood before him. It could not have received any reason to be suspicious. (Unless the cybercosm had contacted every last unit on the planet … but that kind of effort, at the present stage of things, was unlikely. The channels and the data-processing capabilities that would be tied up—) It might not call in to query whether the man thus identified was wanted for anything. After all, if it did, that would entail a global data search to determine whether the number he gave was false.
“I see,” the sophotect said quietly. “Bueno, let me repeat, bienvenido. Or, in your idiom, welcome. I hope you and your friend to come will enjoy your stay.”
The voice was warm. Could the wish be sincere? Why not? Kenmuir harked back. Auld Angus, comforting him when he was small and had broken a rib, telling him a fable and singing him a song … Auld Angus, counselor, arbiter of quarrels, patiently listening to a boy who was one-sidedly in love … Auld Angus, courteous as he told the town council that it must enforce limits on mussel gathering if it didn’t want the government to station a patrol at the bay … Auld Angus, advising a youth that he indeed seemed to have the potential of becoming a space pilot, and he should go for it …