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Patching my leg was a simple enough procedure. They had it held still in a regenerator, and I just had to wait an hour or so. After that, I'd be back to my full-self and ready for a killing (after getting back to my hotel room to rearm). I had a TV in the hospital room, so I flipped around the channels.

"The delping waits in the river, its gray coloration blending itself with the rocks. When prey comes into view, it strikes by kicking forward with its strong rear legs and expelling all the air in its lungs out of two reverse facing nostrils on the sides of its heads. Using this jet propulsion, with blinding speed it snatches the..."

"Rico, how are you doing?"

It was Dip talking into the hidden communicator in my ear.

"Why do you ask?"

"I saw in the news that there was violence near where you should be. Then I saw that further violence ended the initial violence. I conjectured you were involved with one of those violences based on my knowledge base about your behavior."

"Really? Which one would you think was me?"

"Usually violence you do is reflected negatively in the press, but the disliked violence involves multiple sentients, and you have always worked alone since I've known you. On the other hand, the second act of violence seems to be thought of favorably, and I've never known what you do to be thought of favorably by the general public, Rico."

"I've killed a few people the general public were happy to be gone."

"Still, it has always been looked at as criminal. This act of violence is referred to as 'heroic.'"

"I killed five murderers - preventing the death of others - and took a bullet through my leg in the process. Would you call that 'heroic,' Dip?"

That took him a second.

"I would assume you had ulterior motives, Rico."

That made me laugh. "Dip, I have another job for you. I want you to connect to any databases you can on this planet and find information on a Nar Valdum City's Detective named Diane Thompson."

"Certainly, Rico. I have progress on the previous job you assigned. I have a plan to extract you from Nar Valdum's capital which I rate as having a 20% chance of success."

"That a nice round number."

"There are many unknowns I had to assign some value to, so I went with inexact figures."

"Whatever. I need a better number that 20%."

Dip was silent again. "When calculating the chance of success, I could give a greater weight to the ship's maneuverability which would..."

"I don't mean fudge the numbers, Dip; I mean come up with a better plan."

"I will try, Rico. By the way, you never answered my initial question: How are you doing?"

I never answers his questions, something I'm sure Dip was wise to. "How do you think I'm doing?"

"You seem fine."

"Get to work. Dip."

I looked back to the TV. The mating habits of the delping was being discussed now. I don't usually find that part as informative, but I didn't have a chance to watch it either as I now had a visitor.

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