“It's a good thing Aahz didn't see that,” Tananda teased me, when we landed. “He'd have been all over your rear end for playing rocket ship.”
“What's a...”
She gestured upward. “That was a pretty good imita?tion. So what was that I heard before you two decided to re?create 'Fly Me to the Moon'?”
Since it was daylight I had no idea in which direction the moon lay, but we pulled Kassery around the corner of the statue so she could tell us her news.
“What do you mean, sales are down to zero?” Paldine asked in disbelief.
“Sorry, ma'am,” the Ronkonese representative rattled out, not really wanting to look her directly in the eye. "A
bulletin from the Bureau of Consumer Affairs rescinded your safety certificate this morning."
“And reissued it this afternoon! I've just spent four hours arguing the matter with the board, and they agree with their original license. Our item is fine.”
The rep spread out his hands apologetically. “Yes, but if there was even a question of a hazard issue the public gets absolutely crazy. The recall has made the talk shows, news?paper headlines, even getting talked up in 'man on the street' interviews. The reinstatement will get a mention in small print in the 'Corrections' page of the newspaper to?morrow morning. No one will notice it. I'm sorry.”
“But why?” Paldine pleaded. “Everyone was for it! You all like it.”
“I love it,” the rep said frankly. “I'm keeping mine. It's cool. But this Skeeve guy got a lot of press when he de?nounced it on television this morning ...”
“Skeeve!”
“Yeah. Do you know him? A Klahd.”
Paldine drew her face into a grim set. “A soon-to-be- dead Klahd. What did he say?”
“Read it for yourself.” He tossed a newspaper across the desk to Paldine. She read the front page story which was embellished with a picture of a really young Klahd male with blond hair. That was the way the Deveels in the Bazaar described Skeeve the Magnificent. This article de?scribed him only as Our Confidential Source. Dammit. How could he have found them? Why was he doing this? The Ronkonese rep looked at her questioningly.
“I'll be back,” she informed him. No sense in killing the messenger, no matter how tempting the prospect was. “Don't box up the merchandise yet. We may still be able to move it. Once this Skeeve is history.”
“I spent hours looking for him, but the reporter who did the original and, it seems, only interview, said he blipped out of there without finishing answering all her questions. She asked if I wanted to offer her an exclusive tell-all. It was all I could do not to reach down her throat and pull her giz?zards out.”
“Never mind,” Vergetta soothed her. “We'll find another place to unload the Pervomatics. Meanwhile, I think we've found our leak.”
She gestured to the “hot seat,” where a tall, pale-haired Wuhs sat with Tenobia's knee across his thighs.
“An old lady told us that you took a couple of Klahds through the factory, the torturer hissed. ”Confess!"
“But madam,” Parrano protested. “Tours are not against the rules.”
“They saw our special project!”
“W-w-what special project?”
With a questioning tilt to her head, Charilor held up an eggbeater.
“Never mind the small stuff,” Tenobia growled. “Bring me the gumbo!”
This Wuhs had already heard the stories from Gubbeen and Coolea; he was babbling out his entire life story and apologizing for every misdeed, minor, major and imag?ined, that he had ever committed. Sweat poured down his silly face as he tried to scramble away from the purple goo in the bowl. “I'm sorry! I'll never do it again! I swear to you, ladies, I swear!”
“All right, all right, all right!” Vergetta exclaimed, push?ing Tenobia away from her victim. “I believe you.”
That declaration was little consolation to the Wuhs, who had passed out cold at the sight of the pseudopods of bub?bling stew pulsing out of the bowl at him. Niki slung him over her shoulder and trudged downstairs to put him into a cell to recover his wits. Charilor picked up the gumbo and a spoon.
“No sense in wasting good food,” she commented.
“But if that gibbering fool didn't show them the Pervomatics,” Oshleen pointed out, “then this Skeeve saw through the concealment wards. Damn, but this Klahd must be packing some fierce firepower. His reputation must be true.”
“As strong as ours?” Nedira asked.
“Well, it would have to be,” Vergetta agreed.
“I'll pit my wards against anyone's magik!” Monishone protested.
“Then how did he figure out where we were going? What we were making? The Pervomatic hasn't been any?where but the factory and Ronko!”
“He wouldn't have to have seen them at the factory,” Caitlin spoke up. They all turned to the littlest Pervect. She pounded her hands down on her keyboard. “He hacked us. I've got a power signature on my computer that came in not too long before the trouble started on Ronko.”
“He's got a computer?”
“Why not? He's got a credit card. I found his credit his?tory on line between Deva, Klah and Perv.”
“How'd he get into your system?”
Caitlin avoided the eyes her elders, ashamed to be caught off guard. “My bad. I didn't think I'd have to put locks on the back door to this thing, not since this is the only computer in the entire dimension, but it seems I was wrong.”
“Wow,” Charilor scoffed. “She actually admits she was wrong about something.”
“I think all these Wuhses have been lying to us,” Loorna growled. She threw a hand at the glass prison on the table. “That one claims that they hired him to get rid of us. I think they brought the Great Skeeve here to bankrupt us so that they can keep us here forever.”
“I want to go home!” Oshleen wailed.
“Right,” declared Vergetta, putting her hands down de?cisively on the table. "This means war. He can't be in too
many places at once, no matter how tough he is. We'll have several fronts. If he shuts one down, then we'll have the others. He can't cover every dimension. We'll diversify, get into places before he knows that we're there. And we'll shut him down. We are the Pervect Ten. The second he comes back here, he's history."
Oshleen raised a slender eyebrow. “What makes you think he's coming back?”
Vergetta picked up the snow globe and shook it. “We've got his friend.”
Myth 13 - Myth Alliances
TWENTY-SIX
“What do you say to a little revolt?”
F. CASTRO
“In a paperweight?” I repeated, not for the first time.
“In a crystal sphere,” Kassery said, huddled with us be?hind the statue. “I couldn't say if it was used to hold down paper or not. Many of those invited by the Pervects to ... to go and converse with them... claim that they have seen him.”
Trust a Wuhs not to be able to make a straightforward statement about anything. “Are you sure it's him, not an il?lusion?” I said.
“Well, I would hesitate to doubt such upright members of the community,” Kassery waffled, “but I have also heard Coolea say something similar. He claimed that he saw my mate standing before our tormentors, then was whisked away.”
“I believe that would confirm that it is he,” Zol sug?gested. "If the Pervect Ten meant to frighten their intervie?wees with the thought that they, too, could become a
permanent guest they would leave him on display. Pervects are not subtle people."
“That's true,” I agreed. “All right, that's it. I've been feeling guilty because I believed I had driven Wensley to a suicide attack. That had me stuck for a while, but I'm not stuck any longer. We're going to get him out.”
“How?” Tananda asked, reasonably.
“The only way to do it is to beat the Pervect Ten into submission,” I insisted. “We strip away their strength and put them at our mercy.”
The looks on my frien
ds' faces ranged from astonish?ment to open pity. Even Gleep wore a puzzled expression.
'Ten Pervects at our mercy?" Bunny asked.
“Are you sure you are feeling all right?” Kassery in?quired, with tender solicitousness.
“I'm fine,” I informed her. “I'm better than I have been for ages. I'm not crazy. I know how we can do this,” I think. “We can't beat them if we go at them head to head, but we're not going to; we're going to hit them where they live Ñliterally.”
Tananda watched me carefully. “It sounds like you want to commit organized suicide. Mind letting us in on your plan?”
“It's not organized suicide, or suicide of any kind.” I looked her squarely in the eyes. “A good general never wants to go into battle. I learned that from Big Julie. But when you have to, you go in to win, one way or another. Where you can't win openly and honestly, you win any way you can, because the enemy is going to do the same thing. Right? And you know me. I don't want any of us to get hurt, not even the Pervects, if I can help it. To do that I need your help. All of you.”
Tananda's moss-green eyebrows climbed her forehead. “I'm not sure I like the way this is going. Excuse me for being skeptical, but I signed on to watch your back, and I will. I'll do anything you need me to, but I'm not even a lit?tle sure what you want to do is possible.”
“Trust me,” I pleaded. "You might like what I'm going
to suggest. At least I'm hoping you might. At least, I'm hoping you won't throw me through a wall for suggesting the first step I want you to take. I need you to go back to Scamaroni and look up your friend Scootie."
A half-grin appeared on her face, and her shoulders shifted unconsciously as she considered it, not unfavor?ably, I thought. “And ask him what?”
I whispered in her ear. She let out a long giggle, took my face between her palms and gave me a big kiss right on the lips.
“See you later, handsome,” she waved. There was a loud bamf as she vanished into thin air.
“What can I do?” Bunny asked eagerly.
“Nothing right away, but I'll need you and Bytina to help with negotiations with the Ten.”
“Why Bytina?” Bunny asked, with wide eyes.
“Access,” I grinned. “With what I have in mind we may not be able to speak with them directly. Bytina may be the only way we can communicate with them. I'm going to trap them inside their own fire spell.”
“How?”
I waggled my eyebrows. “Tanda's gone to get the means. I hope.”
“How may I help, Master Skeeve?” Zol inquired.
“Insights,” I replied, though I didn't tell him how I planned to use the opposite of whatever he said. “Tell me how the Ten are likely to respond when we throw our one-two-three punches at them.”
“Ah!” Zol exclaimed. “A three-pronged attack. Very clever. I see that Mistress Tananda is one step. The fire spell is another step. But what is the third?”
“For that I'll need about thirty packets of Kobold snacks,” I grinned.
Zol's big dark eyes crinkled with merriment. He glanced at Gleep, who looked innocently from one of us to the other.
'This is why you are such a successful magician," Zol said me, as he picked up his notebook for a quick trip back
to Kobol. “Innovation. Would you care to join me, Miss Bunny?”
“I'd love to,” my assistant replied. The two of them van?ished. One more item off my mental checklist.
“Can I help?” Kassery inquired shyly.
“I need to meet with as many Wuhses as possible,” I said. “Tonight or tomorrow, in Montgomery's inn.”
“A secret meeting? Can I tell them what it's about?”
“It's simple,” I responded. “Everyone has a stake in get?ting the Pervect Ten to leave. It's time that some of you Wuhses step up and help out. I promise that no one will get hurt. They might get yelled at, but they face that any day.”
Kassery nodded. “I will begin to organize it. They will be there.” She rose from her crouch on the stone steps.
“Oh,” I added, “and can you look after Gleep for me for a little while? I have to run back to Deva to pick up a few things.”
Gleep looked disappointed, but Kassery regarded my dragon warmly. “It would be my pleasure,” she responded, hooking her hand through his collar. My pet followed her with reproachful looks over his shoulder, but I knew better than to take a dragon shopping with me at the joke shop in the Bazaar.
We reunited at Montgomery's that evening. Kassery, Gleep and I waited at the table in the corner that had come to be our headquarters. As Bunny and Zol appeared, I was care?ful to throw a disguise spell over them. After the debacle on Ronko, I was certain that the Pervect Ten were very an?gry with me. I figured the safest possible place to be was right underneath their noses, but I saw no reason to adver?tise the fact, either.
Bunny's eyes were bright with excitement. "Oh, Skeeve, I had such a good time! Kobolds certainly know
how to throw a party. They updated Bytina's communica?tions program, and I think I got messages from everyone in the dimension!"
“Mission accomplished,” Zol informed me, patting his satchel. “Is there any other way in which I might aid you?”
“There is one thing,” I began.
Just then, Tananda reappeared. Her clothing was a little disheveled, but she had a smile on her face, and she was humming happily. I reached out to extend my disguise spell to her, but I was unable to cover up her olive-skinned beauty with the semblance of a sheep-woman. I smiled smugly. Mission accomplished.
“If you wouldn't mind,” I queried Zol, “I would appre?ciate your help with a research project.”
Tananda ambled over to me and placed a small object on the table. I noticed that as we leaned in to look at it, our faces changed from Wuhs to our respective races.
“But what is it?” Bunny asked.
“It's a stone,” I informed her. “At least, I think it's a stone.”
“That I can see,” my assistant replied, with some asper?ity. “I may be able to play the dumb moll but you know I'm not.”
“Sorry,” the Trollop apologized, grinning. “Skeeve didn't know what he was going to get. It's a piece of stone from the Volute courthouse wall.”
“This will do it?” I asked, nervously.
“Mmm-hmm,” she hummed, running a sensuous finger along the decolletage of her tightly laced tunic as if re?membering a pleasant sensation. “He swears it. Precisely what he said is 'It makes more of itself.' That was the best he could explain it, and believe me, I asked him several times. He was not inclined to mislead me at the moment. He's just not a magician.” She raised her eyebrows mean?ingfully, and I did not want to ask her under which circum?stances Scootie was sworn to honesty. I could guess.
“What is it?” Bunny insisted.
“It contains a portion of the enchantment that created the anti-magik field inside the jail on Scamaroni,” I explained.
“But what's the use in that?”
“What's the biggest advantage the Pervect Ten have over us?” I asked her.
“That they can mop up the floor with us?”
“That's only if they can reach us,” I pointed out.
“But so can any Pervect,” Bunny asserted reasonably. “Between their magik and their strength, they can pound any Klahd or any Trollop into jelly.”
“No,” I corrected her, “what makes the Ten unbeatable is their ability to combine their magikal talent into ten times ten, to command forces that make my talent look like a drop of water in an ocean. If I can figure out how to du?plicate this spell, we can knock out their power.”
“Which still leaves them able to mop up the floor with us,” Tananda pointed out. “They don't need their magik to tear us to pieces.”
“Not if they can't reach us,” I replied. “You see, if they can't use their talent, they can't dimension hop.”
“Out of what?”
“Remember their fire protection sp
ell? The one we took for a walk the first day we came to Wuh?”
Tananda made a noise. “Will I ever forget it? I like be?ing around hot stuff, but that goes outside the definition.”
“That's the one. We get them inside it, but we turn it in?side out so they're trapped. If they can't use magik, they're not going anywhere. Then we have negotiating power.”
“And how are we going to get them to wait politely in their chamber while we steal their powers and lock them inside their own security spell?”
I agreed with them. “For that, we're going to rely upon Wuhs power.”
Since the Wuhses were still under house arrest during all nonbusiness hours the only time they were able to attend a secret meeting was just after dawn and before they had to report for work in their shops and factories. Thirty or forty Wuhses crowded nervously into Montgomery's main room.
“We do not wish to be late, Master Skeeve,” Gubbeen reminded me, watching through the window as the sun climbed with distressing rapidity up the eastern edge of the sky.
“Then I won't waste your time,” I said. “I'm ready to fulfill the deal we made, but to succeed I am going to need your help.”
“Us! W ... w ... well, you're the one Wensley hired,” Ardrahan protested.
I raised an eyebrow. “How badly do you want these Pervects out of here?”
“Er,” Gubbeen thought about the question for a mo?ment, “a lot?” The others nodded their heads vigorously. That seemed to be the general consensus. They were will?ing to agree upon that concept.
“Enough to risk your life?” I inquired, pushing a little harder.
“Uh,” Cashel gulped, “well, now that you mention it, not really. It hasn't been so bad with them here now, you know ... new things to do, new industry getting started ...”
I interrupted him. “Do you want to end up in a bottle like Wensley?”
“No!” the Wuhs protested. He began to back out, but there wasn't room in the crowded inn. “I mean, if it's not necessary, but they have their own opinions on how they want to deal with us, you know. Everybody has his or her own style, and who am I to condemn that, right?”
Myth 13 - Myth Alliances Page 21
