Free The Sum of Her Parts by Alan Dean Foster

daily life had receded. Away from the gyration floor there were tables and booths and time for moneyed wastrels to contemplate a multitude of whispered inanities.
    The bartender turned to feign a serious inspection of the rows of bottles and other containers behind him. “Sorry. We’re fresh out of that. Try again. Or you could go back outside.” He nodded in thedirection of the entrance that led to the street above. “Harbor’s full of water.”
    “Ah. Humor. I appreciate humor.” Molé’s voice was perfectly devoid of inflection. “Since you insist, I will have a single shot of raki flavored with synchoc. Light on the phenylethylamine content, please.”
    The Natural smiled professionally. “Interesting call. You from around Istanbul?”
    Having turned again on his seat to resume studying the crowd, Molé did not answer. The bartender shrugged, prepared the drink, and served it in a small glass at room temperature. Reaching behind him, Molé picked it up and sipped delicately; staring, watching, searching.…
    There. Setting the half-full glass back on the bar he passed his credit card across the sensor set flush into its side, not bothering to see if the transaction took. He was not running a tab and the bartender, busy with other customers, did not check to see if the old man’s cred had been accepted. His attention was not necessary. Had payment been refused the alarm in the glass would have reacted by alerting club security.
    His informant had earned his subsist, Molé mused as he made his way toward a table located close to the back wall. Of course the woman sitting there by herself might be a completely different good-looking tentacular Meld than the one he was looking for, but the bright red stripes that adorned her fingerless grasping limbs suggested otherwise. Mindful of her professional reputation, local though it might be, he halted on the other side of the table.
    It took a moment before she noticed him staring at her. Deliberately she reached out and wrapped the attenuated sucker-lined end of one limb around the four-sided quarter-meter-tall metal drink holder in front of her.
    “I don’t like men who stare. And old men revolt me. So youdisgust me doubly. Find someone else to feel up with your eyes before I wash them out with alcohol.”
    Molé was not in the least disturbed by the affront. Instead of complying he quietly took a chair across the table from her. Her right tentacle tensed around the drink container. He began patiently, speaking as one would to a child.
    “Your name is Lindiwe. Together with an unfortunate companion named Terror and a self-evidently incompetent European team leader named Chelowich you broke into the house-business of a local witch doctor named Thembekile. You were seeking information on a pair of visiting Namericans whom I have found out paid her an earlier visit: a doctor named Ingrid Seastrom and a vapid male Meld companion who calls himself Whispr. I have attempted to get in touch with the witch doctor herself. This is at present not possible because the thoroughly botched intrusion by you and your friends has apparently unnerved her and sent her into deep hide somewhere else in the country.
    “I am sure that I can eventually locate her but it will take time and much effort since she appears to have many friends and colleagues. Since you do not, it was far easier to find you. Being conservative by nature and in this particular instance more than customarily impatient, I naturally decided to begin by seeking the information I require from one who may already have obtained it.”
    Molé essayed a trustworthy smile, an expression at which over the years he’d had occasion to have considerable practice. Taken together with his age and general appearance this rendered his aspect positively avuncular.
    It certainly struck the tentacled woman as such, though not exactly in the way Molé would have preferred. Hard-staring back at him she admitted nothing and confirmed