Myth Alliances m-14

by Robert Asprin

  "Oh, they aren't physical cards, Master Skeeve; they're magikal projections. You can play hundreds of different card games on a magik mirror like this. Unfortunately, in everything but solitaire, your virtual opponents tend to cheat."

  "Just like real players," I nodded.

  "But among all of this detritus they are working on plans," Zol said, his huge dark eyes reflecting the light coming from the small square mirror. "We are in the enviable position of being able to monitor their every move. See this? Men, machinery, logistics, principles of generalship… They must be out for empire-building. This is bigger than I ever dreamed possible. Marvelous!"

  "Marvelous?" I echoed.

  Zol beamed at me. "Yes, seeing how the minds of Pervects work. Released from the ease of their own dimension's comforts, they set their sights on spreading then-influence across the multiverse. What an opportunity to observe! Untrammeled ambition! How the two halves of their nature intersect! They seek to Pervert the course of the future in these places, to Pervect their vision."

  "Well, it won't do," I snapped. "This isn't an experiment, it's all these people's lives. Their real lives. It cost our friend Wensley his life, in case you have forgotten."

  "I'd forgotten how straightforward you Klahds are," Zol offered sincerely. "Please accept my apologies. I became too enthusiastic a scholar, and forgot to be a loving, caring being. I am so sorry." The big dark eyes turned sad.

  "He's not upset, Zol," Bunny hurried to assure the author. "Are you, Skeevie?"

  I winced. She knew how much I hated to be called Skeevie, so she must be trying to make a point. "But what do we do?"

  "You must use that Klahdish sensibility," Zol told me. "Confront them. Head them off and prevent them from achieving their latest objective."

  I peered over his shoulder. "Can we tell where they're going this time?"

  "Yes, indeed," Zol replied, enlarging a map so I could easily read the name in the center. "Ronko."

  "It slices. It dices. It cooks. It even cleans itself if you dunk it in water," Paldine expounded to a roomful of potential distributors.

  Ronko ought to be the ideal dimension, she had argued to her companions; they loved gadgets of all kinds, putting even Perv in the shade when it came to techie-toys. She leaned over the Formica podium with one of Niki's inventions in her hand. The development of the dimension was at about the era of early sitcoms, perfect for a gadget like hers.

  "It has only one moving part. You push it down. When it pops up, you push it again. When your food looks the way you want it to, you stop. It's so easy an animal can use it." She didn't add, "like you." She might have thought it, but she would never say it.

  "That's not in the sales brochure," complained one of the Ronkonese in the front row.

  She knew he was going to be trouble from the beginning. His tanned face was wrinkled and lined as if he had spent too many an afternoon out with his pocket fisherman, obviously a veteran of thousands of intense sales pitches.

  "Well, you can confide that to a buyer when you're trying to sell him one," Paldine countered, getting exasperated. "Exclusive information they can only get from you!"

  "Is it safe?" asked a Ronkonese female, raising a pencil in the front row next to Paldine's "problem child."

  "Of course it's safe. You think I could have gotten an import license from your government if it hadn't passed a dozen tests first?"

  Paldine turned the business end down onto her palm and pounded the plunger up and down a few times. Then she displayed her unmarked hand to the audience.

  "If it's not food, it won't cut. In other words, don't try to use it to shred those confidential documents, folks; it won't work." An appreciative chuckle ran through the room.

  She went through flip charts showing sales projections, giving them every wrinkle she had worked out to attract the attention of the average and below-average buyer. They might be scared witless of her looks, and they were wise to pay heed to that discomfort, but no one listening could deny that she knew what she was talking about.

  If her master's program in marketing at the Perv Academy of Design hadn't been enough to teach her her business, a full century at Bushwah Tomkins and Azer had certainly cemented her reputation as an innovative sales thinker. She had won the coveted Euphem Ism Queen title twelve years running. Since the Pervect Ten usually undertook accounting and refinancing contracts she hardly ever got to stretch her advertising muscles, and she was enjoying it.

  The first two posters on her flip pad were okay, and she knew it, but the third one was the big bombshell, the sell-all ad. When she revealed it the room burst into applause. She built on it by going from there to newspaper ads, sponsorships at halftime shows, sandwich boards, and direct mail. A pleased murmur ran through the room, as she showed them the potential profit per type of ad purchased. Paldine built upon the growing enthusiasm.

  "But nothing works like word of mouth. Stress convenience! Stress price!" she urged them.

  "Are you trying to tell us how to do our job?" the pain in the butt in the front row asked, raising his voice so all of his fellow pitchmen and women could hear him. Paldine had had enough. She bared all her fangs and walked right up to him. When she was an inch from his face she whispered, "No." The Ronkonese recoiled, then looked puzzled. "I'm telling you how to sell our item," Paldine roared. The force of her voice pushed the troublemaker back into his chair, his fluffy hair plastered backwards on his head. "If you don't think I'm an expert on a product that we invented, that we put all the features into, step right up here and explain it to me."

  For a moment the sales force looked as nervous as Wuhses. Paldine was satisfied. She had gotten her point across and without bloodshed. It didn't hurt that some Pervects in the past had paved the way for her by proving that they were not demons to be trifled with. In fact, the point had been proved so well that most of the Ronkonese were crowded against the back wall trying to edge warily toward the door.

  "All right," she rallied them. "Then get out there and make us some money!"

  TWENTY-FOUR

  "Interesting place. Wonder what they sell here?"

  — m. polo

  It was a good thing that we had such an experienced dimensional traveler as Zol with us. Even Tananda had never visited Ronko. The route from Wuh had taken us through three intermediate hops, each into dimensions less than friendly to Klahd metabolism. I would never have tried such a transit on my own.

  Gleep had perked up every time we materialized in a new place, but seemed to understand that no matter how interesting the smells were coming from that primeval swamp or those volcanoes, it was more important to stay close to us while Zol calculated the next jump. In the meanwhile, I kept wards around us, sealing in a bubble of air that we could breathe.

  The second hop left us teetering on a boulder perched on a mountaintop that threatened to topple over and plummet us into an avalanche of bright blue snow. Even Gleep looked nervous as we all wobbled with our arms out, trying to keep our uneasy perch from overbalancing. At the conclusion of the third hop we found ourselves on level ground. Well, at least it wasn't moving. The city around me, for it was a city, swooped upwards on both sides of the street on which we were standing. I had been in cities before, including the filthy and dreary burg on Perv that Aahz hailed from, but I had never seen one like this before.

  Instead of plain boxes, the buildings on either side were made in fanciful shapes. To our left was a turreted castle covered with bright yellow tiles. Next to it, a squat fortress made of green stone seemed to beckon us toward its portcullis with concentric arcs of lights that blinked in sequence from the outside inward, over and over again. Across the street stood a vast rough wooden box, fifty feet on a side, with what was the mother of all bird's nests on it, each straw as thick in diameter as my body. That was just a relative sample of the structures we could see from where we stood. And the signs! Hundreds of them were plastered on all flat surfaces, from the sides of big vehicles to entire walls of soaring
buildings. Brilliant orange, pink and blue ribbons of light were shaped into letters and pictures. We couldn't read any of them, but the illustrations above and around them made their meaning clear. They were advertisements.

  I enjoyed looking at them. Everyone in them looked cheerful, healthy and prosperous. I couldn't help being interested in what they were so cheerful about. The street was full of traffic, both foot and vehicle. I pressed my back against a handy lamppost so I could see the giant posters without getting in anyone's way. The denizens of Ronko were similar in shape to Klahds, though they were slightly smaller in stature, like Zol. All of them were talking on small devices or playing with square toys that beeped or bobbing their heads from side to side as they walked.

  "It doesn't look like the Pervects have started their strike yet," I observed. "Maybe we've gotten here first and can head them off." "I'm afraid you are incorrect, Master Skeeve," Zol replied. "We are too late."

  He pointed. My eyes followed the line of his finger.

  On the side of the biggest building we had yet seen was a gigantic representation of a Pervect female wearing a military uniform. Serpentine yellow eyes caught passing glances and held them, daring one to look away. The Pervect in the picture held an object which I didn't need to have anyone tell me was what the Wuhses in the factory were assembling. It was a cylinder about the length of my forearm, with a plunger at one end and wicked-looking blades protruding from the round casing at the other.

  "It's a weapon," Tananda mused critically. "It must be nasty, if it has to have a safety casing like that around the business end."

  "I wonder what the poster says?" I asked.

  Bunny held up Bytina. "She translated it for me. Look." Bunny held the PDA under our noses. There, on the little screen, was a miniature representation of the huge advertisement. Instead of the square script of the Ronkonese, curly letters in Klahdish spelled out an order.

  "We want YOU to join the growing army of happy Pervomatic users!"

  "It's a recruiting poster," I growled.

  Zol's dark eyes went wide. "How could we have missed the clues?" he demanded, shaking his head at his own naivete. "It was there on their desktop: they were looking for a force. But for what purpose?"

  I smacked my fist into my hand. "To take over other dimensions. They supply the weapons here on Ronko, then use the Ronkonese as a strike force somewhere else. It's brilliant."

  "What are four of us going to do?" Tananda asked.

  "Gleep!" protested my pet.

  "Sorry, Gleep," Tananda replied, scratching him around the jowls. "Five of us… And if your suggestion is join up, I may love you like a brother, but the answer this time is a flat no."

  Having seen how complications can set in even in such a straightforward enterprise as trying to disrupt an army from within (for further information on the last time my companions got involved in an operation like that I draw your attention to the fine book M.Y.T.H. Inc. in Action), I shook my head.

  "We're going to shut them down," I informed them.

  "How?" asked Bunny.

  "I don't know yet," I admitted. "I'll figure it out on the way there. Bunny, can Bytina lead us to this recruiting office?"

  "You bet," she answered, pleased to show off her pet's prowess.

  "No, wait, Master Skeeve," Zol halted us. "If you will allow a little advice? It is not enough to attack a single outlet, as you saw before. You need to reach as many people as possible." He pointed to a shop window where people were gathered to look at screens similar to computers but somehow not as sophisticated.

  "Black and white," Zol explained, "not as advanced as in some dimensions, but all-pervasive here on Ronko. I seem to recall having been interviewed some years ago at a media outlet, though I cannot recall precisely where it is." He turned to Bunny.

  She touched the tiny keyboard, and an arrow filled the round mirror. Bunny held the small device level, and gestured over her head. "This way."

  I glanced into the screens as I passed. The images in them didn't look black and white to me, but a spooky gray blue and chalky white that made the beings pictured look otherworldly. But I was the demon here. Maybe that looked good to the denizens of Ronko.

  The television station was a building off to itself at the edge of a big park square. It had been built like one of its own screens, a huge box with a glass front. Inside Ronkonese hurried around three-walled rooms with lights, boxes on wheels and hand-sized padded sticks, which they pushed in front of one another's faces.

  I told my story to the receptionist. She gestured us to a seat, and we waited. The lobby had a wall of screens, each showing a different activity. On one, a male gestured with both palms at a map. It had a smiley sun face and a frowny rain cloud facing one another over a dashed line that separated rough halves of the geographical area pictured. In another, a cheerful looking female in a frilly apron held up a cylindrical bottle and a sponge. I guessed she was promoting some kind of cleaning product.

  In a while, an eager little Ronkonese female came out to meet us. She was dressed a lot like Bunny often did, in a trim skirt suit with a ruffle at the neck.

  "I'm Velda Skarrarov," she introduced herself, shaking hands with all of us and ending with a pat on Gleep's head. The fact that we all looked very different from natives of Ronko, or that we had a dragon with us, seemed not to faze her at all. "I'm very interested in your story. Will you come to my studio with me, please?"

  We followed her through the chaotic hallways. Velda talked to us over her shoulder as she negotiated her way, striding past busy men in headsets pushing big pieces of equipment. "I'm an investigative reporter," she confided. "They all think I'm insane, a girl trying to make it as a rough-and-tumble journalist, but I know they're wrong."

  "They are," Zol replied, keeping up with her effortlessly. "Why, in a few years it will be the norm to see females in your position. Be strong, be intelligent, and when the time comes, be generous to your detractors. They can't see what you do."

  "Why, thank you," Velda smiled. "I really appreciate your confidence. Of course I know who you are. I'd like to interview you after I speak to your friend." "With pleasure," Zol assured her.

  I didn't like the television station, and I could tell Gleep felt as uncomfortable as I did. A shrill whine permeated every room all of the time. There was no escape from the sound. It made Gleep flatten his ears sideways. I wished mine were as mobile.

  "It's the monitors," Velda informed us. "They don't like to work, and they want us to know they're unhappy. They don't like to suffer alone."

  "Misery loves company," Zol intoned. Velda regarded him with the same sheeplike expression Bunny did. I could tell she was falling under his spell.

  "Can we get back to the reason we're here?" I insisted, with some heat.

  "Oh, yes!" Velda exclaimed, gesturing us into an office, once again with only three solid walls. The fourth was a section of the vast window that made up the front of the building. She showed my friends a line of chairs against a wall, and pointed me at a seat in front of a row of hot lights. "Please sit there."

  The room was very plain except for a panel behind us that looked like the cityscape we had admired on the way there. Opposite it on the far wall were several big monitor screens, with different scenes on each one.

  Two big boxes were wheeled in that looked like siege cannon except that the gun end had a glass lens in it. Each contraption moved on a platform with three or four Ronkonese to steer it. A woman appeared wielding a powder puff and an eyeliner pencil. She applied both to Velda and then to me. Tananda and Bunny, safely out of the way, giggled at my discomfiture.

  "Ready?" Velda asked me, as she settled herself in the seat opposite mine in front of the lights. "Tell me your story."

  I told her the entire tale, beginning with the arrival of Wensley in my study, going on through his description of the Pervects' domination of the Wuhses, our surveillance of them in their lair, their attempt to take over Scamaroni, and our discovery of the
new plot against the Ronkonese.

  "Those things that we saw in the poster," I explained. "We think they're weapons. I believe that the Perverts intend to use your people as soldiers, assembling an army that will be under their absolute command."

  "But Ronkonese are very independent thinkers," Velda countered. "We wouldn't make a good army to attack anyone else."

  "But you wouldn't know you were doing it," I pointed out. "I told you they've also invented these mind-bending spectacles. If you were wearing those you might march on an unsuspecting enemy thinking you were doing no more than, say, cutting up food."

  Velda nodded sagely. "I thought those Pervomatics sounded too good to be true," she said. "I thought they were just food choppers, like the ads say."

  But I wasn't listening. My attention had been drawn to a Ronkonese female on one of the blue-white screens.

  'Today on the Happy Homemaker," the cheerful female chirped, "we're pleased to introduce you to the greatest new labor-saving device of the age, the Pervomatic. Just put all your ingredients here on the worktable," she narrated, piling hunks of meat and vegetables together, "place the Pervomatic over them, pound on the plunger, and before you know it, you have a hot and tasty Pervert patty, every time! Your family will love them!"

  "Food chopper," I repeated faintly.

  "Yes," Velda said. "That's what they've been selling them as. But if, as you say, they have the potential to be weapons, then that's a big story! Tell me more. It'll be all over the evening news! You've made my reputation, Mr. Skeeve!"