“What died!?”
The Djin was holding his nose as he glanced disdainfully around the restaurant’s interior.
“Come, come now, Kalvin,” I said, trying to make light of the matter. “Haven’t you ever smelled a good home-cooked meal before? You know, like mother used to burn?”
If the reader deduces from the foregoing that Pervish cooking is less than fragrant ... that, perhaps, it stinks to high heaven, I can only say that my skill as a writer has finally reached the level of my readership. That is, indeed, what I have been attempting to say. Fortunately for the dimensions at large, however, mere words cannot convey the near-tangible texture of the stench.
“If my mother cooked like that, we would have gotten rid of her ... even earlier than we did,” Kalvin declared bluntly.
Curious comment, that.
“You can’t tell me you like this,” he insisted. “I mean, you may be a little strange, but you’re still a sentient being.”
“So are the Pervects.”
“I’m willing to debate that ... more than ever, now that I’m getting a feel for what they eat. You’re avoiding the question, though. Are you really going to eat any of this stuff?”
I decided the joke had gone far enough.
“Not on a bet!” I admitted in a whisper. “If you watch closely, you’ll see that some of the food actually crawls out of the bowl.”
“I’d rather not!” Kalvin said, averting his eyes. “Seriously, Skeeve, if you aren’t going to eat anything, why are we here?”
“Oh, I’m going to try to get something to eat. Just nothing they would prepare for the natives. That’s why I was hunting for a place that served food from—and therefore, hopefully, stomachable by— off-world and off-worlders.”
The Djin was unimpressed.
“I don’t care where the recipe comes from. You’re telling me you’re going to take something that’s been prepared in this kitchen and been in proximity with other dishes that stink the way these do, and then put it in your mouth? Maybe we should debate your qualifications as an intelligent being.”
Looking at it that way, he had a point. Suddenly I didn’t feel as clever as I had a few moments before.
“Cahn I help you, sir?”
The Pervect who materialized at my elbow was as stiffly formal as anything I’d seen that wasn’t perched on a wedding cake. He had somehow mastered the technique of being subservient while still looking down on you. And they say that waiters can’t be trained!
“Well, we ... that is, I ... ”
“Ah! A Tah-bul for one!”
Actually, I had been preparing to beat a retreat, but this guy wasn’t about to leave me that choice.
Chairs and tables seemed to part in his path as he swept off through the diners like a sailing ship through algae, drawing me along in his wake. Heads turned and murmurs started as we passed. If they were trying to figure out where they had seen me before, it could take a lot of talking.
“I wish I had thought to dress,” I murmured to Kalvin. “This is a pretty classy place. I’m surprised they let me in without a tie.”
The Djin shot me a look.
“I don’t know how to say this, Skeeve, but you are dressed, and you are wearing a tie.”
“Oh! Right.”
I had forgotten I had altered my disguise spell in the taxi. One of the problems with the disguise spell is that I can’t see the results myself. While I’ve gotten to a point where I can maintain the illusion without giving it a lot of conscious thought, it also means I occasionally forget what the appearance I’m maintaining really is.
I plopped down in the chair being held for me, but waved off the offered menu.
“I understand you serve dishes from off-dimension?”
The Pervect gave a little half-bow. “Yas. Ve haff a wide selection for the most discriminating taste.”
I nodded knowingly.
“Then just have the waiter bring me something Klahdish ... and a decent wine to go with it.”
“Very good, Sir.”
He faded discreetly from view, leaving me to study our fellow diners. It was too much to hope that coincidence would lead Aahz to the same dining room, but it didn’t hurt to look.
“You handled that pretty smoothly.”
“What’s that, Kalvin? Oh. The ordering. Thank you.”
“Are you really that confident?”
I glanced around at the nearby tables for eavesdroppers before answering.
“I’m confident that I couldn’t even read the menu,” I said quietly. “Trying to fake it would only have made me look like a bigger fool. I just followed the general rule of ‘When in doubt, rely on the waiter’s judgment.’ It usually works.”
“True enough,” Kalvin conceded. “But the waiter’s not usually Pervish. It’s still braver than I’d feel comfortable with, personally.”
The Djin had a positive talent for making me feel uneasy about decisions that had already been made.
Fortunately, the wine arrived just then. I fidgeted through the tasting ritual, then started in drinking with a vengeance. A combination of nerves and thirst moved me rapidly through the first three glasses with barely a pause for breath.
“You might go a little easy on that stuff until you get some food in you,” Kalvin advised pointedly.
“Not to worry,” I waved. “One thing Aahz always told me ... If you aren’t sure of the food on a dimension, you can always drink your meals.”
“He told you that, huh? What a buddy. Tell me, did it ever work?”
“Howzat?”
“Drinking your meals. Did it ever do you any good, or just land you in a lot of trouble?”
“Oh, we’ve had lots of trouble. Sometime lemme tell you about the time we decided to steal the trophy from the Big Game.”
“You and Aahz?”
“No. Me and ... um ... it was ... ”
For some reason, I was having trouble remembering exactly who had been with me on that particular caper. I decided it might be wisest to get the subject of conversation off me until my meal arrived.
“Whoever. Speaking of bottles, though, how long had you been waiting before I pulled the cork on that one of yours?”
“Oh, not long for a Djin. In fact, I’d say it hadn’t been more than ... ”
“Tananda!”
“Excuse me?”
“It was Tananda who was with me when we tried for the trophy ... the first time, anyway.”
“Oh.”
“Glad that’s off my back. Now, what was it you were saying, Kalvin?”
“Nothing important,” the Djin shrugged.
He seemed a little distracted, but I thought I knew why.
“Kalvin, I’d like to apologize.”
He seemed to relax a little.
“Oh, that’s okay, Skeeve. It’s just that ... ”
“No, I insist. It was rude of me to order without asking if you wanted something to eat, too. It’s just that it would have been awkward trying to order food for someone no one else could see. Understand what I’m trying to say?”
“Of course.”
I seemed to be losing him again.
“It wasn’t that I had forgotten about you, really,” I pressed. “I just thought that as small as you are, you wouldn’t eat much and we could probably share my order. Now I can see that that’s rather demeaning to you, so if you’d like your own order ... ”
“Sharing your meal will be fine. Okay? Can we drop the subject now?”
Whatever was bothering the Djin, my efforts to change his mood were proving woefully inadequate. I debated letting it go for the moment, but decided against it. Letting things go until later was how the situation with Aahz had gotten into its current state.
“Say ... um ... Kalvin?”
“N
ow what?”
“It’s obvious that I’ve gotten you upset, and my trying to make amends is only making things worse. Now, it wasn’t my intent to slight you in any way, but it seems to have happened anyway. If I can’t make things better, can you at least tell me what it was I did so that I don’t fall into the same trap again?”
“The wine doesn’t help.”
I nodded at Kalvin’s terse response. He was right. The wine was hitting me harder than I had expected, making it difficult to focus on him and what he was saying.
“It doesn’t help ... but that’s not the whole problem,” I said. “All alcohol does is amplify what’s there already. It may make my irritating habits more irritating, but it isn’t causing them.”
“True enough,” he admitted grudgingly.
“So lay it on me,” I urged. “What is it about me that’s so irritating? I try to be a nice guy, but lately it hasn’t been working so well. First with Aahz, and now with you.”
The Djin hesitated before answering.
“I haven’t really known you all that long, Skeeve. Anything I could say would be a snap judgment. So give me a snap judgment. I really want to ... ”
“Your dinner, Sir!”
The Pervect who had first seated me was hovering over my table again, this time with the waiter in tow. That latter notable was staggering under a huge covered platter which had steam rising from it enticingly.
I was desperately interested in hearing what Kalvin had to say, but the sight of the platter reminded me that I was desperately hungry as well. Apparently the Djin sensed my dilemma.
“Go ahead and eat, Skeeve,” he said. “I can hold until you’re done.”
Nodding my thanks, I turned my attention to the waiting Pervect.
“It smells delicious,” I managed, honestly surprised. “What is it?”
“Wan uf ze House Specialties,” he beamed, reaching for the tray cover. “From Klah!”
The tray cover disappeared with a flourish, and I found myself face-to-face with someone else from my home dimension of Klah. Unfortunately, he wasn’t serving the meal ... he was the meal! Roasted, with a dead rat in his mouth as a garnish.
I did the only sane thing that occurred to me.
I fainted.
“SKEEVE!”
The voice seemed to come from far away.
“C’mon, Skeeve! Snap out of it! We’ve got trouble!”
That caught my attention. I couldn’t seem to get oriented, but if there was one thing I didn’t need it was more trouble. More trouble? What ... later! First, deal with whatever’s going on now!
I forced my eyes open.
The scene which greeted me brought a lot of the situation back with a rush. I was in a restaurant ... on the floor, to be specific ... a Pervish waiter was hovering over me ... and so was a policeman!
At first I thought it was the same one we had encountered earlier, but it wasn’t. The similarities were enough that they could have come out of the same litter ... or hatching. They both had the same square jaw, broad shoulders and potbelly, not to mention a very hard glint in their otherwise bored-looking eyes.
I struggled to sit upright, but wobbled as a wave of dizziness washed over me.
“Steady, Skeeve! You’re going to need your wits about you for this one!”
Kalvin was hovering, his face lined with concern.
“W ... what happened?” I said.
Too late I remembered that I was the only one who could see or hear the Djin. Ready or not, I had just opened the conversation with the others.
“It seems you fainted, boyo,” the policeman supplied.
“I theenk he just does not vant to pay for zee food he ordered.” That was from the Pervect who had seated me, but his words brought it all back to me. The special dish from Klah!
“He served me a roast Klahd on a platter!” I said, leveling a shaky but accusing finger at the Pervect.
“Is that a fact now?”
The policeman cocked an eye at the Pervect, who became quite agitated.
“Non-sense! Eet is against the law to serrve sentient beings without a li-cense. See for yourself, Offi-sair! Thees is a replica on-ley.”
Sure enough, he was right! The figure on the platter was actually constructed of pieces of unidentifiable cuts of meat with what looked like baked goods filling in the gaps. The rat seemed to be authentic, but I’ll admit I didn’t look close. The overall effect was, as I can testify, horrifyingly real.
The policeman studied the dish closely before turning his attention to the waiter once more.
“Don’t ya think it was a trifle harsh, servin’ the lad with what seemed to be one of his own?”
“But he deed not look like thees when he came in! I on-ley served heem what he asked for ... sometheeng from Klah!”
That’s when I became aware of the fact that my disguise spell was no longer on. I must have lost control of it when I fainted. When it disappeared, however, was not as important as the fact that it was gone! I was now seen by one and all as what I really was ... a Klahd!
The policeman had now turned his gaze onto me and was studying me with what I felt was unhealthy interest.
“Really, now,” he said. “Perhaps you could be tellin’ how it is you come to be wearin’ a disguise in such a fine place? It couldn’t be that you were plannin’ to skip out without payin’ fer yer meal, could it?”
“No. It’s just that ... ” I paused as a wave of dizziness passed. “Well, I’ve heard you can get better service and prices on Perv if folks don’t know you’re from off-dimension.”
“Bad answer, Skeeve,” Kalvin hissed, but I had already figured that out.
The policeman had gone several shades darker, and his head almost disappeared into his neck. Though his tone was still cordial, he seemed to be picking his words very carefully.
“Are ya tryin’ to tell me you think our whole dimension is full of clip joints and thieves? Is that what yer sayin’?”
Too late I saw my error. Aahz had always seemed to be proud of the fact that Pervects were particularly good at turning a profit. It had never occurred to me that to some, this might sound like an insult.
“Not at all,” I said hastily. “I assumed it was like any other place ... that the best prices and services were reserved for locals and visitors got what was left. I was just trying to take advantage of normal priorities, that’s all.”
I thought it was a pretty good apology. The policeman, however, seemed unimpressed. Unsmiling, he produced a notepad and pencil.
“Name?”
His voice was almost flat and impersonal, but managed to still convey a degree of annoyance.
“Look. I’ll pay for the meal, if that’s what the problem is.”
“I didn’t ask if you were payin’ for the meal. I asked you what your name is. Now are you going to tell me here, or should we be talkin’ down at the precinct station?”
Kalvin was suddenly hovering in front of me again.
“Better tell him, Skeeve,” he said, his tone matching his worried expression. “This cop seems to have an Eath up his Yongie.”
That one threw me.
“A what up his what?”
The policeman looked up from his notepad. “And how are ya spellin’ that, now?”
“Umm ... forget it. Just put down Skeeve. That’s my name.” His pencil moved briskly, and for a moment I thought I had gotten away with my gaffe. No such luck.
“ ... And what was that you were sayin’ before?”
“Oh, nothing. Just a nickname.”
Even to me, the explanation sounded weak. Kalvin groaned as the policeman gave me a hard look before scribbling a few more notes on his pad.
“An alias, is it?” he murmured under his breath.
This was sounding worse all the time.
<
br /> “But ... ”
“Residence?”
“The New Inn.”
My protests seemed to be only making things worse, so I resolved to answer any other questions he might have as simply and honestly as possible.
“A hotel, eh?” The pencil was moving faster now. “And where would your regular residence be?”
“The Bazaar at Deva.”
The policeman stopped writing. Raising his hand, he peered at me carefully.
“Now I thought we had gotten this matter of disguises settled,” he said, a bit too casually. “So tell me, Mr. Skeeve, are you a Klahd ... or a Deveel masquerading as one?”
“I’m a Klahd ... really!”
“ ... Who lives on Deva,” the policeman finished grimly. “That’s a pretty expensive place to be callin’ home, boyo. Just what is it you do for a livin’ that you can afford such an extravagant address ... or to pay for expensive meals you aren’t going to eat, for that matter?”
“I, uh, work for a corporation ... M.Y.T.H. Inc ... It’s a co-op of magik consultants.”
“Is that a fact?” The policeman’s skepticism was open. “Tell me, boyo, what is it you do for them that they had to hire a Klahd instead of one of their local lads?”
Maybe I was recovering from passing out, or maybe his sarcasm was getting to me, but I started to get a bit annoyed with the questions.
“I’m the president and founder,” I snapped, “and since I personally recruited the staff, they didn’t have whole bunches to say about my qualifications.”
Actually, they had had a lot to say. Specifically, they were the ones who railroaded me into my current lofty position. Somehow, though, this didn’t seem to be the time to try to point that out.
“Really?” The policeman was still pushing, but he seemed a lot more respectful now. “It’s clear that there’s more to you than meets the eye, Mister Skeeve.”
“Steady, Skeeve,” the Djin said quietly. “Let’s not get too aggressive with the representatives of the local law.”
It was good advice, and I tried to get a handle on my temper. “You can check it out if you like,” I said stiffly.
MA08 Myth-Nomers and Im-Pervections Page 6
