The Seventh Tide by Joan Lennon Page B

life and groomed your fur all by itself.
    The rat heaved a long-suffering sigh. ‘Very subtle approach, Eo. Confront her with some completely unexplained strangers, throw in a linguistically superlative ferret to top things off and then watch while she screams and/or faints. Very diplomatic.’
    The animal turned his attention to Jay. Allow me to introduce myself, my dear. My name is Professor Pinkerton Hurple, and could you please take us to an adult person, preferably one with a good deal of power. I would also like to ask you, as a great personal favour, not to scream. Or faint. Or both.’
    ‘Well, I’ll be swamped,’ was all Jay could think of to say. ‘That’s some robot!’
    ‘Young woman, you are mistaken,’ said the rat, or – no , thought Jay, more like a weasel – I am not a robot.’
    ‘Really? Hologram, then?’
    The creature tutted.
    No. I am a ferret … but not an ordinary ferret. I am a ferret gifted with speech. And a rather enormous IQ.’
    Jay shrugged. ‘Fair enough,’ she said.
    There was a burst of agitated and unintelligible words from behind her. She swung round to see another boy standing beside the other box. He was shorter, stockier and not nearly as pretty as the Eo person, and he was waving one of his arms about as he came over to them.
    ‘What language is that?!’ exclaimed Jay. ‘What’s he saying?’
    ‘Adom, there you are,’ cried Eo, sounding relieved. Then he turned back to Jay. ‘No, I suppose you wouldn’t recognize that – I’ll translate. He says he wants to know where we are, of course, but he’s also saying he was absolutely sure he broke his arm, back on the beach,’ Eo translated. ‘It hurt like – it hurt a lot , apparently. And now…’
    ‘The Medi-box fixed it,’ said Jay. ‘It’ll have healed anything that needed it – it’s not going to let him out still damaged, is it? It’ll have mended any rips in his, um, smock thing too. Given him and his clothes generally a quick clean and dry.’
    But why do you need me to tell you that ? she wondered. What game are you playing with me here? Where could you possibly come from that you don’t know what a Medi-box does ?
    Actually, now you mention it, his skin’s looking a lotbetter too – did you notice?’ the one called Eo commented to the rat. Weasel. Ferret. Then, ‘Hey! I wonder –’ and he wrenched back the sleeve of his shirt. There were three angry-looking sores on his forearm. Just seeing them made Jay suck in her breath, but he seemed resigned to them being there.
    ‘I’m really sorry… I think the box you were in must have been malfunctioning,’ said Jay. ‘Those look like they hurt!’
    Eo shrugged. ‘G normally take care of healing themselves. Your box probably never met somebody like me before, and these –’ he pulled down his sleeve again, covering the welts – ‘well, if I can’t heal them, I guess it’s not surprising it couldn’t. My pain blocks are holding fine, though, so never mind.’
    Jay wasn’t sure she understood much of what had just been said.
    ‘I’m sorry – who did you say normally heal themselves?’ she said.
    ‘G,’ said Eo. ‘That’s me. G.’ He grinned at her.
    ‘You’re… Gee?’ said Jay.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Would you care to spell that?’
    ‘Sure. It’s spelled “G”.’
    ‘But…’ Suddenly Jay realized that time was passing, much too fast. She turned briskly. ‘Come on – we really should go now. With any luck the Guardians and the Medics will accept the False Alarm I coded in, but there’s bound to be Maintenance staff on their way to reset the RNLI equipment and…’ She noticed the total absence of comprehension on her audience’s faces. ‘Never mind, just come! ’
    ‘Am I correct in assuming our present location is, in some way out of bounds?’ asked the non-robot.
    ‘You might say so,’ Jay replied drily.
    ‘Why’s that?’ asked the boy.
    ‘Perhaps it’s some sort of holy site,’ suggested the animal. ‘Or a