He clapped his hands loudly and without warning by her left ear. No reaction.
He put his hands on her shoulders and shook her gently but firmly.
No reaction. Not an extra blink, not a change in expression, not a sound, not the slightest hint of voluntary movement.
Dalt rose to his feet and turned to find Dr. Webst standing in the doorway staring at him.
"Something wrong, Doctor?" Again, he wore the preoccupied, puzzled expression that did not seem to be at home on his face.
"I don't think so," he replied slowly. "Something may be very right, as a matter of fact. But I'll have to look into it a little more." He looked frustrated. "Would you mind going over to personnel for now and straightening out your papers while I try to straighten out a few things over here? I know what you're thinking ... but IMC is really much better organized than I've demonstrated it to be. It's just that we've had some strange occurrences this morning that I'll explain to you later. For the moment, however, I'm going to be tied up."
Dalt had no desire to talk to the personnel department. On an impulse, he asked, "Is Ellen around?"
Webst brightened immediately. "Dr. Lettre? Yes, she's in the next building." He guided Dalt back to the entrance and pointed to a red building on the other side of the garden, perhaps twenty meters away. "Her office is right inside the far door. I'm sure she'll be glad to show you around her section, and I'll contact you there later." He passed his hand over the doorplate and the inner door began to move.
("Nice security system,") Pard said as they strolled past the lolling patients. ("The intercoms and the door-locks are all cued to the palms of authorized personnel. Patients stay where you put them.")
Unless of course someone gets violent and decides that the quickest way to freedom is to cut off someone's authorized hand and waltz right out of the complex.
("Your sense of humor eludes me at times ... but let's get to more-pressing matters.")
Such as?
("Such as Webst At first he lied to get us over to the psychiatry units; now he seems anxious to get rid of us and made up some lame excuses to do so. I'd very much like to know what he's up to.")
Maybe he's just inefficient and disorganized.
("I assure you, Steve, that man is anything but inefficient. He's obviously puzzled by something and we seem to be implicated.")
He did, however, promise to explain it all to us later.
("Correct. Hopefully, he'll keep that promise.") The door Webst had pointed out opened easily at Dalt's touch and did not lock after him. He concluded that there must not be any patients quartered in this area of the building. On a door to his left was a brass plate engraved DR. ELLEN H. LETTRE. He knocked.
"Come in," said a familiar voice. El looked almost as beautiful in a gray smock as she had in her clingsuit aboard ship.
"Hasn't that dictation come through yet?" she asked without looking up. "It's been almost ten minutes."
"I'm sure it'll be along soon," Dalt said.
El's head snapped up and she gave him a smile that he didn't feel he deserved after his cool treatment of her the night before. "How'd you get here?" she asked brightly.
"Dr. Webst showed me the way."
"You know him?"
"Since this morning."
"Oh? I thought you were going to be with the microbi—"
Dalt held up his hand. "It's a long story which I don't fully understand myself, but I'm here and you said you'd show me around your unit someday. So?"
"Okay. I was about to take a break anyway." She took him on a leisurely tour of her wing of the building where various behaviorist principles were being put to work on the rehabilitation of schizophrenics who had successfully responded to medical management. Dalt's stomach was starting to rumble again as they returned to her office.
"Can I buy you lunch?"
"You sure you want to get that involved?" she said with a sidelong glance.
"Okay," Dalt laughed, "I deserved that. But how about it? You've got to eat somewhere."
She smiled. "I'd love to have you buy me lunch, but first I've got to catch up on a few things—that 'break' I just took was well over an hour long." She thought for a minute. "There's a place on the square—"
"You actually have a town square?" Dalt exclaimed.
"It's a tradition on Tolive; just about every town has one. The town square is one of the very few instances of common ownership on the planet. It is used for public discussion and ... uh ... other matters of public concern."
"Sounds like a quaint locale for a restaurant. Should be nice."
"It is. Why don't you meet me there at 13.0. You can familiarize yourself with the square and maybe catch a little of the flavor of Tolive." The square was near the IMC complex and she told him how to get there, then called an orderly to drive him out of the maze of buildings to the front entrance.
A cool breeze offset the warmth of the sun as he walked and when he compared the vaguely remembered cab trip of the morning to the route El had given him, he realized that his hotel was right off the square. He scrutinized his fellow pedestrians in an effort to discern a fashion trend but couldn't find one. Men wore everything from briefs to business jumpers; women could be seen in everything from saris through clingsuits to near-nude.
Shops began to proliferate along the street and Dalt sensed he was nearing the square. A sign caught his eye: LIN'S LIT in large letters, and below, at about a quarter of the size above, For the Discerning Viewer.
("There's plenty of time before your lunch date. Let's see what they sell on Tolive—you can learn a lot about a culture's intellectual climate from its literature.")
All right. Let's see.
They should have been prepared for what was inside by the card on the door: "Please be advised that the material sold within is considered by certain people to be obscene—you might be one of those people."
Inside they found a huge collection of photos, holos, telestories, vid cassettes, etc., most devoted to sexual activity. Categories ranged from human & human, through human & alien animal, to human & alien plant. And then the material took a sick turn.
I'm leaving, Dalt told Pard.
("Wait a minute. It's just starting to get interesting.")
Not for me. I've had enough.
("Immortals aren't supposed to be squeamish.")
Well, it'll he a couple more centuries before I can stomach some of this junk. So much for Tolive's cultural climate!
And out they went to the street again. Half a block on, they came to the square, which was actually round. It was more like a huge traffic circle with the circumference rimmed by shops and small business offices; inside the circle was a park with grass and trees and amusement areas for children. A large white structure was set at its hub; from Dalt's vantage point it appeared to be some sort of monument or oversized art object in the ancient abstract mode.
He wandered into a clothing store and was tempted to make some purchases until he remembered that he had no credit on Tolive as yet, so he contented himself with watching others do the buying. He watched a grossly overweight woman step onto a fitting platform, punch in a style, fabric weight and color code, and then wait for the measuring sensors to rise out of the floor. A beep announced that her order was being processed and she stepped down and took a seat by the wall to wait for the piece she had ordered to be custom-made to her specifications.
A neighboring shop sold pharmaceuticals and Dalt browsed through aimlessly until he heard a fellow shopper ask for five hundred-milligram doses of Zemmelar, the trade name for a powerful hallucinogenic narcotic.
"You sure you know what you're getting into?" the man behind the counter asked.
The customer nodded. "I use it regularly."
The counterman sighed, took the customer's credit slips, and punched out the order. Five cylindrical packages popped onto the counter. "You're on your own," he told the man who pocketed the order and hurried away.