Zol brought his little book out of his satchel and handed it to another diminutive Kobold, whom he introduced as Asciita. I was struck with how much all of them, male and female, looked alike, with their gray skin, dark hair, long hands and huge eyes. She, or perhaps he, set Coley down on top of her own book. The two computers glowed brightly for a moment. Suddenly the books adjacent to the first two burst into light, then the next ring, like ripples spreading out in a pond. The Kobolds sitting before the magik mirrors burst into activity, tapping and stroking the button boards with eager looks on their faces.
'There," Zol concluded, retrieving Coley and tucking him into his satchel. "They are all working on it now."
He escorted Bunny to the huge table. The books, mirror and compacts, seeing that someone was paying attention to them, began flapping and blinking eagerly like puppies in a basket. Bunny wore an expression of delight, overwhelmed by the number of choices before her.
"Now, just let yourself choose," he told her. "They're all very impressionable at this stage. But use your intuition. You will know if you are making the right decision."
The entire concept of deliberately letting oneself be tied for life to any creature made me nervous. True, I had permanently impressed a dragon, but it had been by accident. If I had known it could happen, I would have stayed away from the stall. But then, I thought, putting my hand on Gleep's head, I would have missed all the joy and fun of the companionship we had shared. Apart from the yearlong chore of housebreaking, of course. Dragon dung is second only to Pervish cooking in terms of all-time gagging stenches, and dragon breath comes in third, I mused, as Gleep snaked his head up to slurp me affectionately on the cheek.
Bunny nodded. "They're all beautiful," she murmered, softly. Her hands ran over the surface of each of the books. I thought I saw the gleaming shells quiver at her touch. I understood that; I had felt the same way. She unrolled the big coil of silver and discovered that it was almost as wide as she was tall.
"That is really an item for an artist," Zol put in. "You'd mount it on a wall or a big table to work."
"Oh! I couldn't leave it in plain view," she explained. "It's too technological for Klah, and in the Bazaar I'd be afraid someone would be able to see what I'm doing. So much of my work is confidential."
Zol gestured toward the tiny ones. "Then you want a compact. It will do all of the tasks you have mentioned so far: bookkeeping, spreadsheets, projections, expense breakouts, and it will fit in a handbag or a belt pouch. See if you like any of these." The little round mirrors began to clack at her like castanets, all vying for her attention.
"Oh, they're perfectly darling," Bunny cooed.
The Kobold beamed. "How very intuitive of you! That's what they're called, Perfectly Darling Assistants, or PDAs for short."
The little objects, seeing that she favored them, began to jump up and down like fish snapping at bait. Bunny looked them all over carefully. Their jewel-like colors were very attractive. Each of them seemed to grow brighter, hoping to attract her attention. But as she came close to a red-cased compact, it opened wide to show its miniature screen. Bunny's blue eyes were reflected in it. She reached out, and it almost jumped into her hand. Bunny brought it close to her and began to stroke the smooth, gleaming shell, murmuring to herself.
"Goodness," Zol stated. "That one really likes you, Mistress Bunny. I've seldom seen such an enthusiastic response."
The feeling was mutual. Bunny kept turning the little object over, examining it, touching every inch of its surface. It leapt up to get the full benefit of each pass of her hand, and emitted a cacophony of sounds that was a combination of music, chirps, sensuous purrs and whistles.
"Awwww," Tananda crooned. "How cute!"
"It is," Bunny agreed. "I think I'll call her Bytina."
"How do you know it's a she?" I asked, skeptically.
"Well, just look at her," Bunny insisted, holding the little device out to me. It snapped its covers shut as I leaned down to examine it. "Oh, you've scared her."
"I've scared her?" I echoed. "What did I do?" "Now, now, Master Skeeve, the relationship has to build naturally, one connection at a time. Put her here for a moment, Mistress Bunny," Zol suggested, patting the top of Asciita's book, which extended a silver pseudopod large enough to hold Bytina. "Good! Now she, and you, will have connections to networks to which you are invited." Instantly dozens of books and mirrors on-a-stick all around the room began to blink. "See! They all want to get to know you."
Bunny glanced down into the minute magik mirror, which no longer reflected her face. Instead, we could see the image of a polished wooden desk. I understood the "desktop" concept now, because hundreds of envelopes of every size and. shape began to fall onto it with the swishing sound that real paper would make. 'There. You've got mail already."
Bunny tapped the mirror with her fingertip. "How do I open those envelopes?"
"There is your hand," Zol replied, pointing to a hand-shaped button. Bunny touched it, and the very image of her hand appeared in the picture.
"I can't open envelopes one-handed," she objected.
"Touch it with the other hand, too."
Suddenly there were two little hands in the mirror. It was good magik. The disembodied images picked up the first envelope, opened the flap and extracted an engraved card. Bunny peered close.
"I can't read it."
"Expand the window," Zol instructed her. Before Bunny could ask how, Bytina stretched and stretched until she was the size of a dinner plate. The first missive was now easily read.
" 'Welcome,' the card said in swirling blue letters, 'u r v beautiful i would like to be your friend do u like pizza (g)? rofl Kas Nostat.'"
Bunny smiled, bemused. "I like pizza very much," she said. "Who is Kas?" A unit in the far back of the room started blinking blue. Bunny's compact started flashing silver. "Oh! Are they talking?" "Yes. They all speak their own language. This is very convenient, because it will provide me with a means of communicating with you if we are not together."
Bytina's mirror filled with more envelopes, all of them flapping around like hysterical butterflies. Bunny opened them all with pleasure. Before long she had been introduced to everyone in the room. Further invitations were pouring in from farther afield. Zol identified some of the signatures as coming from entirely different countries in the dimension.
"How can it do that?"
"We harnessed natural forces," Zol explained. "You know how quickly a rumor can spread, for example? A story that you thought was private going to the ends of the earth before you know it? Well, we tagged one, let it loose, and followed how it made its way all over the world. Those information pathways are the basis of our system. So our rumor-nation, if you will forgive the term, is now able to ruminate upon our little problem. And Bytina is part of the solution."
"Well, I like her," Bunny declared, happily. "She is just darling, and she's a genius." The compact in her hands seemed wildly happy, flipping its mirror open and closed. Gleep came close for a sniff. Bytina closed her lid with a snap that nearly took off one of his whiskers. Gleep retreated behind me with his head peering over my shoulder. "You'd really like having one," she told us. "It's wonderful. I feel like I'm connected to so many people now."
"Not for me," Tananda insisted. "I have complicated enough relationships of the breathing kind."
"How is this worldwide connection doing on finding the dimension the Pervect Ten went to?" I asked, peevishly.
"I'm glad you asked," Zol smiled at me. "I believe I have an answer for you." Our host led us to yet another huge white room filled with Kobolds and computers. The Kobold scribes were too busy with their keyboards to look up at us as we entered, but they had noticed us. Several of the screens offered flashes of welcome. A vast silver curtain filled the wall opposite the door. On it was a complicated design that looked like a web. I would have hated to meet the spider-bear that had woven it; it was gigantic.
"There are an infinitely large number of d
imensions that can be reached directly from Wuh," Zol lectured, gesturing up at the curtain. A pale beige light erupted close to the center of the web. "As you can see on this screen, we are here," he pointed to a small silver light immediately adjacent to the pale dot. At another gesture the whole chart burst into brilliance as the first-generation connections lit up. "Based on research I and other field researchers have already gathered, these are the other dimensions we know of that are on a first-jump basis with Wuh. Now, Pervects have a tolerance for far more poisonous atmospheres and less salubrious terrain than, say, Klahds and Trolls, but we can begin to eliminate numerous dimensions from the total. First of all, we can ignore the ones that don't use magik. And the ones whose level of civilization is insufficient to accept the presence of demons, particularly ones who resemble Pervects. You must admit their appearance takes a little getting used to."
"You can say that again," I asserted fervently. Tananda elbowed me hard in the ribs.
"Skeeve!"
"Moreover, we need one whose denizens can make use of a sophisticated philosophical device, one that has a good deal of disposable income, respects wizards openly and has two eyes in a fairly narrow head."
"How did you figure that out?" I said, genuinely curious. While Zol could be a bit of a pain, there were times when I was overawed by his applications of logic.
"Why from the object that Mistress Tananda ab- stracted," Zol explained, holding up the spectacles. He put them on his own nose. The ear pieces slid down the sides of his head, having no visible ears to clip onto, but the spectacles were still too wide to fit. "It must be put on willingly; there is no spell, strap or adhesive to adhere it to the wearer's head. Once donned it is bespelled to speak directly into the wearer's mind, and to transmit a good deal of data therein."
"What kind of data?" I asked suspiciously.
"Fantasies," Zol frowned. "Nonsense. Mind-filling trash that numbs the emotions and dulls the calculating faculties."
I was horrified. "They're going to take over another dimension by brainwashing the inhabitants. Who is it? Where is it? We've got to go there and warn them!"
"We have reduced the number of possibilities to thirty-five dimensions," Zol calculated, peering into the magik mirror of his book. "It will take some time to narrow our target further."
"We can visit each one," I offered. "As soon as one of us spots these glasses, we'll know we're there."
"It would be easier to wait for the data," Zol suggested. "Don't exhaust yourselves searching unnecessarily. Let our fingers do the walking."
I glanced at my companions.
"I have to admit it makes sense," Tananda shrugged. "Dimensions can be big places. This isn't like a house-to-house search."
"Okay," I agreed at last, though I was itching to go in search of the Pervect Ten's latest victims and liberate them. "We'll wait."
Paldine paused until Vergetta and Oshleen materialized beside her on the steps of the First General Savings Bank of Scamaroni, Volute branch. Volute was a medium-sized town within a day's ride of the capital city. Merchants, mostly those who had big holdings in dry goods, kept their factories here, where they could oversee them from their vast and handsome manors. Privilege oozed out of every pore. Even second, third and fourth children had their own carriages. Babies were tended by captive or indentured Genies and Brownies. Even the working class had good clothes, whole shoes and a general air of cleanliness. Theaters and other entertainments abounded, including magikal revues and small venues for performing wizards. They'd ascended far enough above peasantry to be the ideal market for the storytelling goggles. Scamaroni was not unlike Perv, Paldine mused, of several hundred years before—if that unnamed Pervect had not discovered electricity and realized it was good for more than a really hilarious practical joke. A statue to that long-ago inventor still stood in the capital, lightning jolting upward from its outstretched palm, though the name had been excised centuries ago, probably by the families of jealous rivals who would like to have taken credit for such a revelation, or by outraged consumers because he had tried to extort a royalty every time someone plugged in a vacuum cleaner. A greedy bastard after Paldine's own heart.
"And we're here for what, this early in the morning?" Vergetta asked, as Paldine pulled them into the alley between two buildings to avoid being seen by the locals. "Take it easy on the material, darling."
"To see the evolution of our marketing empire," Paldine gloated, pointing. "See there?"
"It's a shop. I've seen thousands."
"It's our first outlet. I signed him up yesterday. The shop owner, who, by the way, owns ten stores in Volute alone, loved the goggles. His mate loved them. Their children loved them. They thought they were fabulous, the best entertainment they had ever seen. Once he got over being awed at my appearance, he bargained like a Deveel…" "What, that badly?" Oshleen. asked with mock innocence, polishing her nails on her designer dress.
Paldine ignored her. "… for an exclusive license to distribute on Scamaroni."
Vergetta grinned, a sight that made the vermin in the alley flee, squeaking. "For which you made him pay through the nose, of course."
"If you call that outrageous protuberance in the middle of their faces a nose, yes," Paldine replied. "He would have promised me anything to get his hands on them. He thinks he can sell a thousand a month in this town alone, and plans to expand to the capital as soon as he has merchandise. I already notified Niki to get the Wuhses to start manufacturing more."
"Isn't that putting the cart before the horse, to use a backward expression for a backward place?" Oshleen sneered.
"Listen, window-dummy, he was wetting himself! At one point in the bargaining I pretended to get insulted at his offer and started to leave. He threw himself in front of the door! In front of a Pervect! The kids fought over the sample unit until one of them broke its arm." Oshleen's face slowly split into a grin. Paldine nodded smugly. "Yes, you believe me now. We've got a winner, ladies: we're feeding an addiction. We're scratching an itch." Lines of force were plentiful on Scamaroni. The marketing specialist reached into the ground for a handful of power. With no effort whatsoever she drew a blanket of nothingness around herself and her two companions, rendering them invisible to the crowd on the street. "The goggles are about to go on sale. It could be a bloodbath. Let's go see the fun."
TWELVE
"This must be the place!"
— C. COLUMBUS
It took three days of number-crunching and data-wrangling while the Kobolds worked on reducing their original list of thirty-five dimensions to the Pervect Ten's most likely destination. Zol saw to it we were housed comfortably, in a little podlike house that looked like an egg laid by the big building. We were all starting to get indigestion from the local food, but none worse than Gleep. Between the starch and the grease of the processed packets, his digestive system was producing stenches beyond all previous efforts, some of which were legendary. In the end I took him miles out beyond the manicured gardens and let him hunt for his own food in the fenlands. Once I had been assured there was nothing sentient out there, I didn't worry about Gleep. Dragon digestive systems are notorious for being able to find nourishment in almost anything.
Gleep dug happily in the marshes, scaring lizard-frogs and marsh slugs while he looked for something to eat. He emerged from one particularly nasty bog clutching a football-sized, grayshelled creature that had far too many spiky legs and eyes. I winced as he crunched on its carapace and slurped down eye stalks, all with relish. At least he never seemed to eat anything cute. Or if he did, I mused, I'd never seen it. I chose not to worry about the concept. He licked his moustache back to fluffy whiteness and trotted over to me with a pleased air.
"Come on," I urged, hooking my hand through his collar, though I stood about as much chance of keeping him next to me if he didn't want to be as I did harnessing a tornado. We stalked back to the pod-house, shedding mud as we went. The whole Kobold system seemed to be in harmony with cleanliness and order.
By the time we stepped inside we were both as clean as if we had had baths. Gleep pranced up and collapsed next to Tananda to groom his scales with his long tongue. She sat in an easy chair with her feet up on the table, cleaning her nails with a long knife. Wensley paced back and forth. A groove in the silver-gray carpet proved he had been engaged in that activity for some time.
"Where have you been?" Wensley wailed, coming over to wring his hands at me. "What are we waiting for? Every minute, the Pervects could be digging their claws more deeply into our backs. Wuh is in danger, and we are sitting here."
"Just how much money do you owe them?" Tananda asked. "Couldn't you just work out a solution and pay them off?"
"We have nothing to pay them with," Wensley whined. "No liquid assets worth speaking of. We would prefer not to deed them the equivalent in land, and our people chafe at the notion of working off the fee as involuntary personal assistants."
Indentured servants, I translated. I gave a moment of thought to being personal valet to a Pervect, and the pictures that sprang to mind made me shiver.
"As it is, they control all our manufacturing. We have no tourism. 'Come and see our historical castle, currently under permanent occupation by an outside consulting firm.'"
"Listen, cutie," Tananda began, stopping her manicure to point the knife at him. 'The Great Skeeve is taking time away from his very important studies to help you. Do you want him to back out? I'm sure he'd be thrilled to go back to the work he was doing when you interrupted him."
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