The Wizardry Quested

TWELVE ANOTHER QUEST

For a minute no one said anything. For a long minute.

"That does not seem terribly practical," Bal-Simba said at last. "A dragon cannot survive where there is no magic."

"Normally no, but I think I have an answer to that. You know how our method of getting into the other world’s telephone system works."

Bal Simba looked at him. "No."

"Basically we use magical energy to influence semiconductors on an atomic level-well, really it’s subatomic because what we’re doing is analogous to actualizing virtual particles out of the quantum froth. You see:"

Moira cleared her throat significantly. It was especially impressive coming from a dragon.

Jerry took the hint "Ah, right Anyway, we have found we can leak a little magic across if the conditions are right That’s how we signal back to this World for a Great Summoning to bring someone through from our world. We can apply the same principle to draw magical energy from this World to support the dragon’s metabolism."

Bal-Simba only nodded. "I will take your word for it. But tell me, are there any other difficulties?"

"Well, one. The magic flow messes up the signaling scheme for a Grand Summoning. There are only a few points on our world where we will be able to signal you that we’re ready to return. Vortex points, they’re called. There’s a big one out in the desert about a hundred and fifty miles north of Las Vegas. That area’s practically uninhabited so we won’t have any trouble getting back through it" He stopped. "There was another one a few hundred miles away in Sedona, Arizona, but they built a McDonald’s on top of it."

Bal-Simba rubbed his chin. "This spell of yours does not sound stable."

"It will hold for a few days. Once we get on the ground that should be all we need to find Taj. Meanwhile it will take the pressure off the Wizards’ Keep." Bal-Simba turned to the dragon. "My Lady, how do you feel about this?"

"I am not sure," Moira said. "This is the first I have heard of such a thing. It seems:" She fell silent for a minute and then the dragon’s head came erect, chin out in a gesture that was achingly Moira. "It seems to me this is our best chance, is it not?" Jerry and Bal-Simba nodded. Then this is what we should do." Jerry felt a sudden pang of conscience. "Uh, I ought to point out this is still experimental. Things could go wrong."

The dragon snorted. "My Lord," Moira’s voice said bitterly, "they could not go any more wrong than they have already."

Another day, another maze, Wiz thought, looking around. In the tight of the magic globe he could see no less than six different tunnels leading off from the one they were in, including one in the roof. The whole area was like that, twisty, turning, branching and rebranching. He had been in the lead with the magic Moira locator for most of the morning as the group picked their way along, stopping every few feet while he consulted the device to see which way to go. It seemed as if they had barely made a quarter of a mile the whole day and Wiz was fuming with impatience.

"I mislike this place," Malkin said quietly over Wiz’s shoulder. She had taken the number-two position to let Wiz guide the party.

"Not my favorite piece of geography either, but what’s your point?" The tall thief looked past him, eyes never still as they talked. "There are far too many openings here. Ideal for an ambush."

Wiz hadn’t thought of that. "Danny hasn’t seen anything on the magic detector." Malkin looked at him as if he was stupid. "Okay, pass the word to close up, and no straggling."

There was a sound behind them, a scuffle and then Danny yelled. They both whirled to see June locked in a deadly embrace with a tall figure in rags. Her knife was flashing as she struck home again and again but the thing kept its grip on her.

There was another sound and Wiz and Malkin whirled again to face a new danger from the front. A figure in black armor was closing, almost on top of them, sword raised.

Like a striking snake Malkin’s rapier darted over Wiz’s shoulder and thrust into the attackers face. The armored figure never flinched and brought his own sword down in a vicious overhead blow aimed at Wiz’s skull.

The cut was clumsily made and poorly aimed. The sword slid along Malkin’s rapier and off past her side. Before the attacker could recover Wiz hit it square on with a lightning bolt and it burst into flames.

Even that didn’t stop it. Slowly, deliberately, it brought its sword back and above its fiery body to strike again. Then it tottered and fell backwards as fire reduced its substance to ashes.

Beyond it there were other figures in the corridor. Wiz didn’t hesitate. He sent bolt after bolt of lightning flashing down the tunnel to consume the others even as they shuffled forward.

And then it was quiet again. There was no sound but the labored breathing of the adventurers and June’s knife, striking again and again into the dismembered body of her foe. Danny went to his wife’s side and gentry pulled her off the still quivering body.

"It’s all right," he said, "it’s dead."

"A long time dead," Malkin amended, studying the body. ’This was not a living man. It’s an animated corpse."

"Zombie?"

"Why not?" Wiz said grimly. The Enemy probably had a lot of corpses to work with here."

"I would suggest," Malkin said with equal grimness, "that we get out of this place as quickly as we can. We do not want to be set upon from all sides at once by things like this."

Night had fallen over the Wizards’ Keep, though its inhabitants needed magic or a sand glass to tell them that. Outside, the unremitting gray fog beat against the castle, pushing, squeezing, trying to insinuate its tentacles into the structure.

The great hall was lit by magical glow lamps. At each of the eight cardinal points stood one of the Mighty, staff in hand. Within the inscribed circle stood two men, a woman and a dragon.

"May Fortuna aid you all," Arianne said to Bal-Simba, Jerry and Moira as she finished giving them final instructions.

"We’ll be all right," Jerry said. "I just hope you can do something on this end while we’re gone."

"The other wizards say that given time they will be able to control this thing, at least here."

Silence fell over the group. Unconsciously they turned to watch the sand trickle out of the glass.

"There is still time, My Lady," Bal-Simba said quietly. Moira shook her head. The big wizard breathed a gusty sigh. "Well, then. I believe we are ready."

"Merry part," Arianne said to them.

"Merry meet again, Lady," Bal-Simba replied.

Arianne stepped out of the circle, being careful not to scuff it. As the sand ran from the glass the wizards threw back their robes to expose their arms and raised their staffs. As the final grains fell to the bottom they began to chant. The world wavered, dissolved and suddenly they were in a narrow alley between blind wooden walls. It took a moment for Jerry to realize the walls were really shipping containers stacked six high.

Jerry and Bal-Simba were dizzy and a little disoriented. Moira seemed to be worse affected. The dragon leaned drunkenly against the crates, making little pawing motions with his front claws.

"My Lady, are you all right?" Bal-Simba asked.

The dragon shook his head feebly, as if trying to clear it. Then he heaved himself upright. For an instant Jerry was afraid he would fall, but the dragon steadied and seemed to draw inner strength.

"How do you feel?" Jerry asked.

"Let us get on with it," Moira said grimly.

Jerry was relieved both at the dragon’s apparent recovery and at Moira’s response. He hadn’t been absolutely sure that Moira would be able to talk to them in this world

"Where are we?" Bal-Simba asked, craning his neck to look at the

three-story-stack of crates surrounding them.

"We’re in a storage area next to an exhibit hall, but I don’t recognize which one."

He looked around trying to orient himself. It wasn’t easy. The view at ground level was completely blocked by the stacks of crates. Beyond the crates on one side was a solid brick wall, perhaps four stories high. Above that were two hotel towers perhaps twenty stories high each. Scanning the horizon over the tops of the crates he could see mountains in the distance and here and there tall buildings, obviously more hotels. The sky above was pale turquoise blue with just a few wisps of high clouds.

"I don’t recognize this at all," Jerry said. This isn’t the Convention Center. It must be one of the new hotels."

"What do we do first?"

Jerry looked at Bal-Simba in his leopard-skin kilt, bone necklace and blue cloak. "First we get some clothes. No, first we get some money."

It took them a while to find their way out of the wooden maze. Finally, with the help of some rather profane instructions from a startled forklift driver who nearly ran over them, they found a gate and stepped into a parking lot dominated by a fleet of semis, trailers and satellite dishes.

"Okay," Jerry said, looking around, "this is the Paladin. That tells me where we are, more or less."

Bal-Simba and Moira didn’t say anything. They were too busy staring. There was reason to stare. Off in one direction a castle raised pinnacled towers to the pale blue sky. In another a giant lion of blue glass crouched, and off to the side stood a glittering black pyramid. A tropical rain forest rose under a glittering dome, a gigantic brightly striped pavilion stood in another direction. Off in the distance there were more spires and domes. That all these wonders were accompanied by nearly identical blocky high-rise towers sheathed in golden glass did nothing to dim the effect on Bal-Simba and Moira,

"Amazing," Bal-Simba said at last. "Moira may have seen its like before, but it is new to me."

"This is unlike what I saw before of this world," Moira told him.

"This is Las Vegas," Jerry explained. "It’s unlike just about anything." He looked around, getting his bearings and then patted the brown suede purse that hung from his belt. "Come on, let’s go around to the front."

They trudged across acres of asphalt crammed with automobiles, threaded their way between the towering hotel block and a multi-story parking garage and finally emerged at the front of the hotel.

As soon as they came around the corner their surroundings changed completely. Jerry led them up a walkway beside a winding drive, past groves of palm trees and stands of giant bamboo springing from an impossibly green lawn. They passed statues in classical poses, acorn-pound holding several white tigers, crossed over a bridge above a pool housing a number of dolphins, passed an artificial geyser at a discreet distance and finally came to the bank of glass doors leading into the hotel proper.

"Moira, you’d better wait outside," Jerry told the dragon. "I’m not sure what their rules are on animals and I don’t think we can pass you off as a seeing eye dog."

"Well enough, My Lord," Moira said. "It sounds excessively noisy in any event."

"I begin to understand why the search will be difficult," Bal-Simba said as soon as they were through the door and out of Moira’s earshot. "This place is larger than I had imagined."

"Oh, this is only one of the places we’ve got to look There are maybe a couple of dozen more this big or bigger. One 01 the problems we’ve got is that the show is spreading out again. For a while they had all the exhibits concentrated in just two big exhibit halls and the Hilton next to the Convention Center," Jerry said "But those overflowed and they’ve had to start using the hotel exhibition space again."

Bal-Simba started forward toward the line of clerks and away from the racket in the casino, but Jerry stopped him.

"No, this is just the registration area. What we want is probably the tellers cage. That’s over this way."

Bal-Simba frowned slightly but followed Jerry out into the maze of the casino. Everywhere there were lights, colors and noise. It took Jerry a minute to realize the casino didn’t have many players.

The casinos hate the show even if the hotels love it," he told Bal-Simba as they maneuvered through the aisles and past the occasional slot player. "Most of the attendees don’t gamble-well, except for the startups and product rollouts on the show floor."

Bal-Simba nodded as if the comment made perfect sense.

The cashier’s office was off at one side of the casino so it only took about ten minutes and three sets of directions from change girls and a guard before they found it.

The cage manager was well-groomed, well-mannered and impossible to surprise. The sight of a couple of characters in Halloween costumes with a bag of gold they wanted to change into money didn’t so much as turn a hair. He laid out the terms for them as if this happened every day. Looking around the casino, Jerry reflected that maybe it did.

Ten thousand dollars maximum," the manager told them. "Market less twenty-five percent." He shook his head. I’ll tell you right now you can do better in most of the pawn shops."

"We need some walking-around money."

The manager shrugged. He led them around the corner, past two armed guards and into a small room where a clerk was waiting for them with a tabletop full of machinery.

The clerk was not as well groomed and considerably less mannered. He took the coins and ten by ten put them in a large piece of equipment in one corner.

"Neutron spectroscope," the manager explained. "We get a lot of Asian customers with gold."

It took time to test the coins and more time to count out the cash. In the process Jerry had to sign a statement saying who he was, that the gold was legal and that he had paid all the applicable taxes. He noticed that the manager didn’t ask them for identification.

"Now do we begin our search?" Bal-Simba asked as they threaded their way back through the casino.

"Now we go get our credentials," Jerry said. "That will take a good chunk of this money."

"Excuse me," said a woman’s voice off to one side. Both men turned and took a blinding light full in the face.

"Thanks," said a shadowy form perfunctorily as she lowered her camera and pushed by them.

Bal-Simba bunked as he tried to get his sight back. "What was that?"

"That was a reminder that we need some different clothes." Jerry frowned. "But that’s going to take more time and:" Then his rapidly returning sight fell on an arcade of shops off beyond the registration area. "Come on. It’ll be expensive, but we need to save time more than we need to save money."

The shopping arcade angled off from the registration area leading to one of the hotel towers. Beyond the frozen yogurt shop, the jeweler’s, the furrier’s and the "art gallery" selling brightly colored paintings whose kitsch was only exceeded by their prices, was the men’s store Jerry had known had to be there. The place had an Italian name that Jerry thought was some kind of sausage, but he wasn’t picky. The interior was all white and old gold and decorated in a way that for some reason reminded Jerry of a tapestry woven of polyester. The salesman was tall, lean and dressed in an extreme version of Italian style. He was also showing a five o’clock shadow.

"May I help you?" he said in tones that indicated he probably couldn’t, but he was going to go through the motions anyway.

"Uh, my friend and I need some clothes."

The man looked them up and down. "I’ll say."

"They lost our luggage and all we have left are our costumes. We need something for street wear."

"Hmm," the man said. "Hmm," he said again. "Hey, Meyer, can you come out here a minute?"

Meyer was a wizened old man with thick glasses set low on his nose. His trousers were dusty with chalk and he wore a tape measure draped around his neck like a shawl.

"They need some street clothes," the younger man told him.

Meyer looked them over with an obviously professional eye. "Come on back into the fitting room and let’s see what we can do."

"He keeps me around for color," the old man confided as he led them into the back. "Pfafh! Like I’m a museum exhibit or something."

Like its inhabitant the back room wasn’t nearly as fancy but looked a lot more businesslike. Meyer whipped the tape measure off his shoulders and began to lay it against Jerry’s body. "My nephew. He should have learned his trade at his father’s knee-God rest him- but instead he goes off and gets an MBA. An MBA! Better he should learn tailoring to run a haberdashery, no? But kids, you can’t tell them anything. So, you want suits or what?"

"Something less formal," Jerry said.

"Hmm," the old man said without stopping his measurements. "Pity. I could do some real good things for both of you in suits." He sighed. "But these days, you don’t get a chance to show off what you know. Well, at least it’s not leisure suits any more."

Museum exhibit or no, Meyer knew his business. With hardly a pause he had both Jerry and Bal-Simba measured and the sample book laid out for them to pick the cloth.

"Here you go. Not a thread of polyester in the bunch. Just show me what you want and in two, three days we’ll have you turned out sharp."

"We were hoping for something today. Something we can wear out of here."

"You want miracles too?"

"We can’t go walking around like this."

"I don’t see why not. You look like a bartender from the Excalibur. That’s a hotel," he added at Jerry’s puzzled expression. Then he nodded toward Bal-Simba.

"Him, he’s a problem."

"It can be just about anything. We’re kinda desperate."

He looked at Jerry. "In that case, you I can fit off the rack, almost. Your friend-" He shrugged. "That’s special."

"How long will it take?"

"So you’re in a hurry too?"

"Look, if it’s a matter of money:" The old man waved him to silence. "It’s a matter of possible. A challenge like this I haven’t had in a long time, but even so:" Again the shrug. Then he brightened. "Wait a minute. I do have something a customer never picked up. I can even make you a price on it"

A few minutes later Jerry stepped out of the dressing room the picture of Las Vegas casual. His polo shirt and slacks fit him beautifully. The clothing felt odd after the loose shirts, tunics and breeches he had worn for so long at the Wizards’ Keep. The shoes were stiff and pinched a little after the soft leather boots of the other world, but he could get used to it.

"Are you ready?" he called into the dressing room where Bal-Simba was changing.

"I believe so," Bal-Simba said, somewhat hesitantly.

Bal-Simba emerged wearing a puffy-sleeved pink shirt open to the navel. A fancy vest fitted tightly over the shirt. Tight tan bell-bottoms stretched across his ample rear. He had left his bone necklace around his chest and a snap-brim hat with a leopard-skin band completed the outfit. Meyer fussed around him, pulling down the vest here and tugging the shirt into position there.

Jerry looked his friend up and down. "We don’t have to guess the guy’s profession, do we?"

The old man shrugged. "So who asks? Now come on up front and we’ll get you taken care of."

Jerry gulped when he saw the bill, but he peeled off hundreds without comment.

"The rest of the stuff, four o’clock tomorrow," Meyer admonished. "I swear not a minute sooner."

They found Moira outside by the dolphin pool, posing for pictures with a family of tourists while a couple of bemused security guards looked on.

"Don’t you need a leash for that thing?" one of the guards asked when Jerry came up to rejoin her.

"Audio-Animatronics," Jerry explained.

"No kidding?" one of the guards said. "Like the showgirls?" Jerry wasn’t sure whether he was joking or not so he just smiled.

There was a covered slideway from the lobby to the street, but Jerry led them down the ordinary sidewalk beneath it. He wasn’t sure how his friends would take to a moving walkway and he wasn’t at all sure Moira would be able to keep her tail out of the gears.

"How do we begin our search for this wizard?" Moira asked as the three made their way out to the street.

"First things first. We gotta get registered. We do that at the main Convention Center."

"Where is that?"

"There." Jerry pointed to one of the towers springing up out of the desert.

"It’s further than it looks."

"How will we get there?"

"Walk. I don’t think they would let a dragon on a shuttle bus. Besides, we don’t have credentials so they won’t let us in either."

Bal-Simba nodded and the strangely assorted trio joined the knots of business-suited convention-goers drifting down the sidewalk toward the distant tower.

You would think that a twenty-foot dragon parading down the main street of a major American city would attract at least some attention. You would be wrong. Anyone who’s been in Las Vegas more than forty-eight hours has found stranger things than that on the breakfast buffet. The only interest came from the occasional gawker in a car stuck in traffic, and truth to tell they seemed more taken with Bal-Simba.

"What is all this for?" Moira asked as they walked along. "Wiz compared it to the Winter Fair once, but I never understood."

"It’s a trade show for the computer industry," Jerry said. "All these people are connected with computers somehow."

"And they are here to buy and sell them?"

Jerry shrugged. "Well, they used to be. Then the distribution channels got better established and most of that business moved elsewhere. Then for a while everybody came to see the new products that were being announced. But the show got so big and there were so many announcements that most of the really big ones aren’t made here any more. Then it was the place to meet people. But now it’s so big you have trouble doing that." He fell silent.

"Then why do people come here?" Moira asked.

"I guess," Jerry said slowly, "because it’s here."

The air was cool and the desert sun merely warm rather than blazing. Even so, Moira was showing signs of stress before they reached their destination.

"I am sorry, My Lord, but this body cannot go much further," Moira told them finally. "It is worn out and I, I am feeling unwell."

The way she said it made Jerry wonder about what happened when a dragon barfed. He decided not to be in front of her if it happened.

That’s okay. I told you it was further than it looked" He glanced down the street. "Look, the Convention Center is right down there. Why don’t I go ahead and you two follow when she can? I’ll have to wait in line for a while anyway." Registration was in a big blue-and-white tent erected in the parking lot at the Convention Center. Jerry breasted his way through the thickening crowds around and inside the tent to get a place in line to register.

"How many?" the woman behind the counter asked.

"Two, no make that three sets."

"Fill out the forms over there and when you get done bring them back here." Secure in the knowledge that no one would pay any attention to what was on the forms until he was away from this world, Jerry indulged in an orgy of mendacity. By the time he was done he was president of his own company, Bal-Simba was

"Wizard In Chief* and Moira bore the title of "Exhibit A."

Since he had signed them all up for the seminars as well as the exhibit halls, the bill was in four figures. So much so that he was momentarily taken aback. What the heck, Jerry thought, it’s only money.

By the time he emerged, the better part of an hour later, Bal-Simba and Moira were waiting for him.

"Here." He handed Bal-Simba a paper bag of literature. "Most of this is junk but we can go through it later."

Next he gave Bal-Simba his badge. "Don’t lose this. You have to have it showing all the time."

The big wizard raised his eyebrows.

"Ifs, uh, a talisman, to get you into the exhibit areas."

Bal-Simba nodded and clipped it to his vest.

"Where shall I attach mine?" Moira asked.

"Just clip it to your: Ah, right. That is a problem."

Then it occurred to Jerry there might be a bigger problem. Even with a badge it would be nard to get a dragon into the exhibit areas.

"Wait a minute," Jerry said, "I’ve got an idea"

Ignoring the thronging crowds, Jerry went over to a banner decorating the side of the building. He quickly cut the ropes and gathered the banner as it fell.

"Here," he said to Bal-Simba, "help me drape this over her." With Bal-Simba holding one side of the sign, he threw the other over her back and crawled under her stomach. He barely missed being decapitated when Moira involuntarily raised a massively clawed hind foot.

"Be careful, will you?"

"Well, it tickles," Moira said.

With a little tugging and trimming he managed to get the cords tied under the dragon’s belly. That left the sign draped like a horse blanket over her sides. As a finishing touch he pinned Moira’s badge to the banner.

In the process Jerry noticed they had gathered a knot of onlookers.

"A dragon?" he heard one of them say.

"That’s the code name for IBM’s third-generation Personal Digital Assistant," announced woman in a serious gray business suit with Raiders shoulder pads and a pale silk jabot tied like a bow tie. "They’re pre-pre-announcing at the show to build momentum."

Her companion, a middle-aged man in a three-piece suit and a pony tail, looked unimpressed. "I think they should have stuck with the Little Tramp."

"I thought Harris was the company that used the dragon," said another bystander.

"See?" Jerry said softly to Moira. "This way everyone will think you’re advertising for a product"

"But the people who own the sign will know she is not with them, will they not?" Jerry smiled up at the dragon. "Forget it. It’s IBM. They’re so big and so confused everyone will just think it’s from another division." He turned to Moira. "If anyone asks tell them you were part of the Lotus acquisition. That’ll really keep ’em guessing."

Dragon and wizard in tow, Jerry made for the main entrance. The closer they got the thicker the crowds became. Although most of the throng was white and in business suits it was a wonderfully diverse group. Perhaps a quarter were women, dressed in everything from business suits to bunny suits (literally-someone had a product code-named "Easter"). There were Indian Sikhs in business suits and turbans, American Sikhs in cotton pajamas and turbans, there were Chinese (both kinds), Japanese and Koreans from the Far East dressed in business suits. There were Chinese-Americans, Japanese-Americans and Korean-Americans, mostly in the American techie outfit of short-sleeved sport shirts and slacks. There were impeccably tailored Europeans and rumpled Americans. There were full beards and pony tails, although both were tending to gray and the pony tails started further back on the head than Jerry remembered-a reminder that the original technically oriented generation was being replaced by the corporate types, which made him a little sad. Here and there you could see the long white robes of an Arab or the rainbow robes of a West African.

They were standing in line waiting for shuttle buses, sitting on the grass eating off paper plates, leaning against the building resting their feet, handing out newspapers, rejecting newspapers, and talking, talking, talking. In addition to English of every conceivable variety, there were French and Spanish, Chinese and Korean, Japanese and Hindi, German and Russian, and a couple of things Jerry wasn’t even sure were languages at all.

He drank it all in in passing and flowed with the current of humanity toward the glass doors that led into the exhibit hall.

Three steps through the door and Jerry was in information overload. The place was not merely packed, it was stuffed. There were thousands of people in every direction, crammed shoulder to shoulder and seemingly all in motion. You couldn’t stand still unless you sought the lee side of an object to protect you from the flow.

"My Lord, I do not think I have ever seen so many people in one place at a time," Moira said in Jerry’s ear.

"Neither have I," Jerry told her. "They’re estimating two hundred and fifty thousand attendees this year."

"I see why you said this would be complicated," Bal-Simba rumbled.

Jerry flicked him a tight smile. This isn’t the complicated part."

Their first stop was the message center, in the hope that Taj had left someone a message saying where he was. Jerry didn’t have a lot of hope for that and he was right. After battling their way through the crowd and waiting in line at a terminal, Taj’s message box contained nothing but a couple of junk-mail announcements.

As they turned away and prepared to press onward, a man stepped in front of them waving his arms.

At first Jerry thought he was a high-tech mime. He had the jerky arm motions and sudden head movements.

"Amazing, isn’t it?" said a voice in his ear. Jerry turned and saw a man standing beside him with an armload of literature. He was trapped and he knew it

"It’s the first completely integrated Cybemautics system," the man said as he pressed a glossy brochure into Jerry’s hand. "There’s a P6 with a graphics accelerator in the backpack, transparent LCDs in the goggles and the gloves are 3-D pointing devices. There’s also a high-bandwidth cellular modem so you’re always hooked up. Right now he’s net surfing, playing Doom n and watching the Browns play the Bears, all at once. The next step is to install the ultrasonic proximity locators and the differential GPS system so he’ll never get lost." In spite of himself Jerry was impressed. The demonstrator continued waving his arms and jerking his head, oblivious to the conversation and the crowd.

"What do you do? Besides hand out literature."

The man looked apologetic. "I’m his guide. Without the ultrasonic locators he keeps bumping into walls."

Suiting his actions to his words, he took the cybernaut’s elbow and steered him away through the swirling throng.

"I think," Jerry said to Bal-Simba, "that’s a concept that needs a little development." Then he was all business. "Now let me see the show guide. Sigurd said Taj was interested in scientific visualization software."

If anything the human mass was thicker and more congealed flowing through the doors of the main exhibit hall. Once inside things opened out slightly and the aisles were merely packed. Their first stop was a "booth," actually a carpeted area cut up by movable walls, about a third of the way in and halfway back. There were oversized television screens showing a dizzying array of images, and workstations on pedestals displaying other images, but not many people. The area on the carpet was relatively uncrowded and Moira breathed a sulfurous sigh of relief. One or two of the employees started to drift toward them but Jerry kept scanning, paying special attention to the feet.

Finally he spotted an attractive blond woman in a tan business suit who had just finished talking to two other employees.

"Excuse me," Jerry said. "I wonder if you could help me."

"That’s what we’re here for. Has, ah:" She gave a quick glance at Jerry’s badge.

"Magic Dragon got a need for visualizaton software?"

"Sort of. I’m Jerry Andrews, CEO of the company, and this is, uh, Mr. Simba. He’s our chief wizard."

"Elaine Haverford," the woman said extending her hand. Then to Bal-Simba she said "Jambo. I like the title. I may steal it."

"Jambo," Bal-Simba repeated, for all the world as if he knew what it meant. "And you are welcome to the title, My Lady, if it pleases you."

Elaine Haverford took the wizard’s polite address for a compliment and dimpled.

"Actually, we were supposed to meet one of our consultants here," Jerry went on smoothly. "E.T. Tajikawa. But we seem to have missed connections."

Taj? He was here yesterday, but I haven’t seen him today. Hey, Henry!" she called over her shoulder, "have you seen the Tajmanian Devil around today?" Then she shook her head at the answer. "Not today. I think he said something about attending the Mauve reception at the Towne Centre, though."

Jerry handed her a card, fresh out of the vending machine in the registration booth. "If you see him could you have him leave us a message on the board saying where he’s going to be? We really can’t move on the visualization software without his advice."

"Sure will," Elaine Haverford said. "Meanwhile, if there’s anything I can help you with," she handed over one of her own cards, "just ask."

"Excuse me, My Lord," Bal-Simba said as they pushed out into the aisle again.

"Why did you ask that person and not one of the others?"

Jerry, an old hand at trade shows, recognized the question as a sign of severe information overload. When you’re overwhelmed, you concentrate on the little things, even the irrelevancies.

"Her shoes."

"But she was not wearing any.""Exactly." Jerry looked smug. "A woman’s shoes are a giveaway at a trade show. See, high heels are murder on these concrete floors and you walk a lot, so the only women who wear high heels are the booth bunnies- hired models-and the low-level employees. If a woman wears flats she’s with the company and probably has some status, an. engineer maybe. Running shoes and she’s probably high-level management. Now she-" he jerked his head back toward the booth. "She was barefoot with her business suit."

"Which means?" Moira asked, intrigued in spite of herself.

Jerry tapped Ms. Haverford’s business card. Dr. Haverford, he saw. "Which means she owns the company."

Moira sighed and shook her head. In doing so she took her eyes off the crowd and nearly collided with an eight-foot-tall man in a gorilla suit. The dragon reared back and hissed in surprise and the man inside the gorilla suit nearly fell off his stilts.

"Forgive me, My Lord:" Moira began.

"Why don’t you watch where you’re going?" demanded the man in the gorilla suit, a former professional wrestler who had been hired for his size more than his temper.

"She said she was sorry," Jerry snapped, but the potential confrontation was cut short by a blaze of light

The news crews at the show were desperate for visuals. Because of its importance everyone felt they had to cover it But for all its importance, the computer show was one of the most relentlessly un-visual of all trade shows. After you had gotten your crowd shots, your geeks-playing-computer-games shots and your booth-bunnies-in-revealing-costumes shots there was almost nothing worth picturing. A giant ape and a dragon together were irresistible. A dozen flashguns and two sets of TV lights zeroed in on the accidental pair. The dragon reared up and let out a steamwhistle hiss, which only brought a new round of flashes and even more TV lights. Except for his tail, Fluffy wasn’t dangerous, but Jerry had visions of thousands of computer types trampled in a panicked stampede-the physical equivalent of what happened every time Microsoft introduced a new operating system. Fortunately, Moira was able to brine tie body under control and they moved away as quickly as they could.

"What’s this for?" asked a blond TV reporter, shoving a microphone under Moira’s nose. The dragon blinked and flinched under the sudden glare of the TV lights.

"The new IBM announcement," Jerry said hurriedly as he stepped between Moira and the crew. "Excuse us, please, we’re late."

"What new: r"

"The kits are in the press room," he called over his shoulder.

Normally TV reporters aren’t so easy to discourage, but the press of the crowd made it hard to follow them and Bal-Simba was bringing up the rear.

"That will be all, My Lady. Please." He emphasized his request with a polite smile.

Since Bal-Simba was about six-foot-eight and decked out like a 1970s pimp, he was hard to argue with. When he smiled and snowed teeth neatly filed to points the TV crew lost all interest in the little group.

Meanwhile the gorilla’s handlers, recognizing a heaven-sent opportunity, buttonholed the reporters, shoved press kits on them and began to explain Gigantopithecus Software’s latest announcement in multi-part high-decibel technobabble.

"What was that about?" Moira asked as they got free of the knot of people.

"Advertising. He’s promoting something." Jerry paused and looked back and squinted to read the sign on the giant’s back." ’Sasquatch.’ I wonder what that is?

"Forgive me if I do not share your curiosity," Moira snapped. "In fact I can think of nothing which is likely to have less bearing on our search."

"Yeah, but still:"

"It is utterly irrelevant. Now please, let us at least find a place where we can rest for a moment."

Jerry looked closely at her. Even though he wasn’t used to judging the moods of dragons he could see she was tired.

"Sure, Moira. Come on over this way."

Off at the edge of the hall was a space between the booths for a fire door. The guard looked at them suspiciously as they made their way through the crowd into the temporary clearing, but since none of them sat on the floor or otherwise blocked the exit she didn’t say anything.

"Hi there." Jerry turned and found himself right across the table from a couple of guys in the booth bordering the fire exit. He was trapped and he knew it, so he resigned himself to listening to a sales pitch.

He smiled as if he might be interested and studied the pair. One was hefty, slicked back and smarmy and the other was skinny, chinless and frenetic. Jerry couldn’t read their badges so mentally he dubbed them "Leisure Suit Larry" and

"The Squirrel."

"Are you interested in imaging?" Larry began. "If so we’ve got the hottest product at the show."

"It’s truly revolutionary," The Squirrel picked up. "They’re cracking down on adult GIF files on bulletin boards, right? Okay, with Peeping Tom’s Inverse Steganographic technology you don’t need a GIF. Any data file of more than two megabytes is displayed as an X-rated picture."

Jerry nodded in spite of himself. "GIF," of course, was a standard encoding method for storing and transmitting pictures for personal computers. He was trying to piece the rest together when The Squirrel went charging on.

"You know about steganography, right? How you can encode a message in a picture file like a digitized TV picture so it looks like noise or just part of the picture?"

"I’ve heard of it"

"Well," said The Squirrel triumphantly, "this is the same thing only backwards. Instead of specifying the encoding scheme and using the picture as the variable- the cyphertext- to get the plaintext, we take the file as the given and apply various decoding schemes until we get the appropriate plaintext-the picture. With Peeping Tom’s Inverse Stenographic technology, combined with our easy-to-use Windows front end, you select the kind of picture you want as an output from our menu and Peeping Tom goes until it finds it."

"Are you saying," Jerry said slowly, "that you can always find a dirty picture, ah, ’adult GIF’ in any data file?"

"Guaranteed," Leisure Suit Larry boomed.

"Assuming the file’s big enough," The Squirrel added. "Over two megabytes."

"And this is going to avoid censorship?"

"Hey," Larry said virtuously. "Can we help it if those files contain dirty pictures?’

"Yeah," The Squirrel chimed in, "we just decode them."

There was a flaw in that argument, but just then Jerry didn’t have the time to go looking for it However his curiosity was piqued.

"How big is the program?"

It takes ten Meg of disk space," the big one said.

Yeah, but how big’s the executable, the main program file?"

"About five Meg," The Squirrel put in.

"What happens if you feed it the executable?" Jerry asked. "You Know, let the program examine itself?"

"We didn’t put any pictures in there," Larry said. "Nothing but code." The Squirrel, however, looked puzzled. "Hmm. I never thought of that. Let me try it and see."

"We’re running a show special," Larry said as his companion began pounding the keyboard. "Just $199 for the basic package. Runs under 3.1, NT and Windows 95 and: "

"Jesus Christ! The Squirrel yelped. "Hey, take a look at this!"

Sales pitch forgotten, his partner rushed to join him at the screen. "Wow," Larry said reverently after a minute. "I mean I’d heard the expression, but I didn’t think anyone could really do that."

Between their heads Jerry caught a glimpse of the screen and blanched. He didn’t know if you could get busted for pornography in Las Vegas, but what was on that screen had to violate some law and he didn’t want to be around when the cops figured out which one. "Come on, folks," he said to Bal-Simba and Moira, "I think it’s time we moved on."

The rest of the day wasn’t much more productive. People at one or two of the booths they visited had seen Taj the day before, but no one had seen him today. Jerry guessed he was visiting one of the other exhibit halls, but that didn’t help much.

The fact was that they could spend the rest of the week at the show and never catch sight of E.T. Tajikawa. Jerry had known that before they came, but the physical reality of the place drove the point home like a pile driver. Not only was it too big, it was too spread out and too crazy. It was going to take either bund luck or a really clever piece of strategy if they were going to find him. He explained all this to Bal-Simba and Moira on a snippet of lawn outside the exhibit hall. The late-afternoon sun was casting lengthening shadows over the lengthening lines of showgoers who were trying to get seats on a shuttle bus back to their hotels. The buses roared in and out of the rank constantly but still the lines grew.

"Basically, we’re going to have one more shot to try to find him tonight," Jerry told the pair. That’s at this reception downtown." He didn’t say what they’d do if they didn’t find Taj there and the others didn’t ask.

"How shall we get there?’

Jerry looked at the dragon and sighed. "I’m sorry but there’s only one way. We’ll have to walk again."

It was a hike of several miles and they took it slowly, resting every few blocks for Moira’s sake. The sun sank, the shadows deepened and Las Vegas lit up for the night

"This is truly a wonderland," Bal-Simba said at one of their rest stops, awed by the explosion of colored lights and rivers of traffic around them. "Your world is indeed a fantastic place."

"Well, this is fantastic even by the standards of our world," Jerry said "Lake I told you, Las Vegas is unique."

"Is it all like this? The town, I mean."

"Oh no. Most parts of Las Vegas are really quite normal. It’s supposed to be a pretty nice place to live, actually."

"Will we go there? The normal parts, I mean."

Jerry looked at the twenty-foot-dragon and the giant black wizard dressed like a 1970s pimp. "Nooo, I don’t think so."

It took them several hours to reach the Towne Centre " hotel in the older

"Glitter Gulch" downtown casino district. By now it was full dark and so late Jerry was afraid they might miss the reception completely. An even bigger worry was Moira, who was obviously getting more and more run down. Even with more frequent rests she was nearly punchy by the time they reached the alley behind the hotel.

"Why don’t you wait out here?" Jerry suggested. Moira just nodded.

"Perhaps I had best stay too while you go inside," Bal-Simba said.

Jerry considered. Anyone who found Moira by herself probably wouldn’t ask questions. Bal-Simba, on the other hand, would be expected to answer them. While Jerry had he was much less sure of his ability to concoct a story that wouldn’t get him hauled off to jail by Las Vegas’ finest. Especially in the get-up he was wearing.

"I think you’d better come with me," he said. "Moira, you stay here. No, over here next to the dumpsters. Stay out of that yellow painted area, otherwise they’re likely to tow you away. If anyone comes by, just freeze like a statue. Pretend you’re not alive. We’ll try not to be too long." Moira nodded and sank down in the space beside the dumpsters.

Bal-Simba’s size and appearance may have attracted attention, but it made it remarkably easy for them to get an elevator. In fact as soon as the door opened on the first car the four tourists in the front row took one look at them and bolted. The other passengers pressed back against the walls, leaving them plenty of space.

They paused just outside the elevators and Jerry briefed Bal-Simba on their mission.

"Okay, this is going to be a little tricky since we’re not on the invite list. So we’ll just have to fake our way in. Act like you belong, smile a lot and be noncommittal."

"Will they not know we do not belong?"

"They’ll know we’re not on the guest list, but they can’t be sure we won’t do them some good. We only need a few minutes to find out if Taj is here anyway. Follow my lead. And remember, smile a lot and say as little as you can." Putting his advice into practice Jerry smiled at the people manning the table outside the door and picked up a press kit as if he was interested. Then they walked into a wall of noise.

If the show floor had been a madhouse, this was bedlam. Up on stage a lounge band was backing a female impersonator belting out torch songs. The place was packed, of course, and everyone seemed to be trying to talk over the band and each other. Along the walls four bars were going and a huge buffet table dominated the center of the room, complete with a melting ice sculpture of what was probably supposed to be an orchid. There were orchids everywhere. Clouds of them. Wreaths of them. Garlands of them. Orchids as boutonnieres, orchids as corsages. Orchids as centerpieces. And where there weren’t orchids there were crepe streamers in orchid purple and white.

Jerry parked Bal-Simba by the bandstand and set out to work the room in search of Taj. Trying to look inconspicuous, he jammed into the crowd around one of the buffet tables and scarfed a handful of shrimp. The crab claws were already gone he saw, so the party had been going on for a while. Meanwhile he scanned the crowd, hoping to see Tajikawa, or at least a friendly face.

He couldn’t see either and the more he looked the less likely it became. This wasn’t the right kind of party. The ratio of suits to ponytails was way too high and there was hardly a laptop open anywhere.

He was still scanning, looking for technical types amid the noise and chaos, when a perfectly coifed woman in a blue suit slid in next to him.

The woman smiled brightly. "Snarf mafoozle gleeber justik," she said.

"I beg your pardon?"

She leaned closer and raised her voice to be heard over the din. "I said what did you think of the big announcement?"

It occurred to Jerry that he was laboring under a severe disadvantage here. Not only didn’t he know what the "big announcement" was, he’d never even heard of Mauve Technology. And hadn’t the faintest idea what- if anything-it made. He thought about opening the press kit and actually reading it but he discarded the notion instantly. For one thing the light was so poor he wouldn’t be able to read anything and for another it would make him suspicious. He decided to play it safe.

"Really something. Pretty ambitious, isn’t it?"

"We have to stay on the leading edge. I’m sorry I don’t recognize your company name. Are you a distributor or a VAR?"

"Uh, we’re kinda a technology partner. Actually I was hoping to meet someone here. E.T. Tajikawa."

"Oh, is he with our West Coast sales office?"

"Uh, not exactly. Your software people know him."

"You wait right here and I’ll go see." With that she turned and dived into the crowd. Jerry made to follow her but before he could take a step, a large man in a suit stepped in front of him and stuck out his hand.

"Perry Jacobs," he boomed, "vice-president of sales." It was both a greeting and a challenge and Jerry was acutely aware of how little he fit with the business-suited crowd swarming around them.

Jerry smiled brightly. "Cantraf colgain esper jokake jon," he mumbled, as if it meant something.

"Glad you’re enjoying it," the other boomed. "Here let me give you one of my cards."

Jerry extended one of his. "Meeper gleeble ranamuck shusur."

"Yeah, I’ve gone through a pack of them, too," Jacobs boomed.

Meanwhile, Bal-Simba was enjoying himself, in a bemused sort of way. The singer, a Judy Garland impersonator, was taking advantage of his size and appearance by playing off him, flirting with him as he sang, flicking him with his silk scarf and vamping outrageously. When the number ended the singer blew Bal-Simba a kiss and scampered offstage. That was the cue for the band to take a break, and for the first time in several minutes Bal-Simba could hear himself think.

"I said, quite a show isn’t it," said a voice at his elbow.

The wizard turned and saw a small man in a bad toupee standing beside him.

"It is indeed," Bal-Simba agreed, which seemed safe enough.

"They’re going all out," his new acquaintance said. They missed the top of the IPO cycle, their quarterlies are off and if this doesn’t fly big they’re probably going to have to gobble up a couple of startups with good stories to save their offering."

Bal-Simba nodded sagely.

The man extended his hand. "Peter Saperstein, of the Saperstein Group. You know, the Saperstein Technology Letter." Bal-Simba nodded again.

"So, who are you here for?"

Bal-Simba took the first name he could think of. "IBM."

"That’s not what it says on your badge," Saperstein shot back.

Bal-Simba realized he had blundered.

"You weren’t supposed to say that, were you?"

If there was one thing the big wizard knew it was when to keep his mouth shut. So he just smiled slightly at his new acquaintance.

"Look," Saperstein went on, "I know you can’t say anything, non-D and all that, but just let me lay a scenario on you."

"I cannot stop you."

"First off, it’s gotta be big if you’re here under a cover name." Saperstein thumped the big wizard on his chest where his badge was pinned. "Your badge doesn’t say IBM. But it does say ’wizard,’ so you’re obviously in software development and you sure as hell don’t work on the AS400 if you’re walking around dressed like that So you gotta be blue-sky and if you’re here, that means edutainment and that," Saperstein concluded triumphantly, "means a partnership arrangement with Mauve."

"That is a great deal of speculation," Bal-Simba said mildly. Anyone who knew him would have recognized the reproof in his voice, but Saperstein didn’t know him and wouldn’t have wanted to spoil a hot story even if he had.

Saperstein craned to look through a random rift in the crowd. "Excuse me, I gotta go talk to someone."

Bal-Simba nodded, not realizing he had not only made his acquaintance’s evening, but saved Mauve Technology as well.

": unique market position with the possibility for strong leverage of our technology through the channel," Jacobs was saying.

Jerry nodded and smiled. So far he’d managed to keep from revealing his ignorance, but it was getting harder. For one thing, since the band had quit playing he’d actually had to talk to Jacobs. For another, Jacobs was angling hard for some kind of commitment. Since Jerry still didn’t have the faintest idea what the company did he couldn’t agree to anything without giving himself away.

"Well," Jerry began, "you nave to understand our position vis-a-vis the market."

"Excuse me." Jerry found himself shouldered aside by a small middle-aged man in an expensive suit and cheap toupee. "Peter Saperstein, of the Saperstein Group. You know, the Saperstein Technology Letter?

What’s this about a joint game venture with IBM’s European division?"

"Where the hell did you hear that?" Jacobs demanded

Saperstein shrugged. "Around. So mere is something to it?"

"No. I mean, I can’t comment even if it was true."

"When are you going to make the announcement? Not at the show, is it? So that means sometime in the next quarter, right?"

"I can’t say."

"A little further out then."

"Uh," Jerry said, "if you gentlemen will excuse me:" But neither was paying any attention.

He was heaving a sigh of relief when someone touched his arm. It was the woman in the blue suit.

"I checked with the software people. They say Mr. Tajikawa isn’t here."

"Oh, well thanks anyway."

She smiled a thoroughly professional smile. "Don’t mention it. If there’s anything else I can do:" and with that she was lost in the crowd.

The band had struck up again and "Judy Garland" was back on the stage, flirting with Bal-Simba as he swung into his first number. Jerry collected his friend and they made for the door.

"Forgive me," Bal-Simba said when they were out in the corridor and could talk in normal tones again, "but is there something peculiar about that woman?"

"For starters, it’s a man."

"Ah," Bal-Simba said mildly, "I see," and seemed to lose interest. Jerry thought about trying to explain and then realized that to Bal-Simba a female impersonator was probably the least peculiar thing he seen had all day. Moira was waiting for them where they had left her. "Well?" she asked.

"No sign of him. We’re going to have to look elsewhere." He frowned. "This isn’t a real good strategy to find Taj anyway."

"What would you suggest then?"

Jerry had pulled out his exhibitor book and was thumbing through it in search of inspiration.

"Look, there are a couple of more companies on the hospitality suite list that Taj has a special relationship with. We can call them and see if they know where he is. It’ll take some calling around to track them down, but it will be faster than trying to hit all these exhibits."

He closed the book and looked up. "Meantime, we can’t stay here. Too public. Let’s get a few blocks away from the casinos and find a place where Moira can hole up and rest for a few hours while we hit a pay phone. It’s getting late enough for that."

"My Lady?" Bal-Simba asked.

The dragon nodded "Forgive me, My Lords, but this body is not as strong as it looks."

"We understand," Bal-Simba said gently.

"Yeah," Jerry added ’The last time I was here I would have collapsed if I’d done half as much walking as we have already."

"Then lead on," Bal-Simba said. Jerry picked a direction and led them off away from the maze of casinos and neon.

Just a few blocks from the downtown casino district the scene changed radically. From bright lights and constant bustle it became a run-down area of progressively cheaper motels and shabby buildings. The character of the people on the streets changed as well. In the next several blocks Bal-Simba’s appearance got them a number of interesting business propositions-both buying and selling.

Bal-Simba and Moira didn’t know enough to see it as unusual, but Jerry was getting progressively more nervous. At six feet three and well over two hundred pounds he was the least physically impressive member of the trio, but even so he did not like the looks of the neighborhood. "There’s a mini-mart down the block," he said finally. "It should have a pay phone."

A small sign informed them that the pay phones were inside.

"Wait here. I’ll see what we can find out." He paused and looked at Bal-Simba.

"No, you come with me. Moira, you wait here." The dragon settled down in a parking space and Jerry and Bal-Simba went into the mini-mart

In the event it took longer than Jerry had expected. The hotels were overworked and the switchboards were glacial. Even when he did find where the companies were staying, the phone would ring forever before someone answered it and it would take somewhat longer to find anyone who knew the Tajmanian Devil and could tell Jerry that he wasn’t there. Jerry kept pumping in quarters, but it was slow.

Meanwhile, things were quiet outside and Fluffy was exhausted. So Moira lay down in the parking space and drifted off to sleep.

Fluffy was big enough to fill up the parking space, but down on all fours he wasn’t visible over the cars on either side. Incautiously the dragon let his tail trail out behind him, making him longer than the parking space. If Moira had thought about it she would have tucked the tail back around Fluffy’s body. But she was dead beat from all the walking, ill from the effects of being a magical creature in a non-magical world, and generally not thinking very well. All she wanted to do was to curl herself into a little ball of misery and let the body relax.

Moira wasn’t the only one who felt that way. The couple in the Mini-Winnie had driven straight through from Los Angeles and the driver wasn’t as awake as he might have been. Besides, he was distracted by the simmering argument with his wife over finding a campground. As a result he didn’t see the thing lying in the parking lot until it was too late.

The motor home ran over the dozing dragon’s tail and all hell broke loose. Fluffy jerked up with a roar of pain and rage. Moira was slow to regain control of the body so, for the first critical seconds, the dragon reacted out of instinct.

Unfortunately the dragons instinct was to lash out at his tormentor. Fluffy’s tail slammed into the side of the motor home again and again, caving in some of the thin aluminum paneling and rocking the vehicle so violently it teetered on the brink of overturning.

Moira quickly discovered she didn’t have as much control over the dragon as she thought, especially when the dragon was frightened or angry. Although dragons are physically tough, the young ones are more vulnerable psychologically. In general they do not take well to new experiences and they are somewhat skittish in strange circumstances. Fluffy had been a pampered pet almost all his life. Again and again the dragon lashed the motorhome with its tail while the occupants screamed and Moira tried desperately to regain control.

Jerry and Bal-Simba came running out of the store into a scene of complete and utter chaos. There was already a small crowd gathered at a safe distance and almost as soon as they stepped out of the store the first police car arrived, quickly followed by two others. The lights and sirens did nothing to calm the hysterical dragon.

Shotguns at the ready the officers advanced to the rescue.

By this time Moira had gained partial control and Fluffy lay panting on the pavement.

Jerry held his breath. If they could just get the situation calmed down, then maybe: An odd corner of his brain wondered what it would cost to bail out a dragon.

He never had the chance to find out.

The cops were understandably nervous. Even lying down, a dragon looks dangerous and there were a lot of civilians around to protect. When Moira suddenly heaved the dragons body back on his feet the logical conclusion was that it was getting ready to attack, especially since the dragon’s open mouth was treating the cops to a spectacular display of fangs.

One of the cops with a clear shot pumped a load of buckshot into Fluffy at close range.

This was a spectacularly bad idea. The shot was #6, enough to drop a deer or a man in their tracks, but only enough to sting the scaled hide of a dragon. The results were equally spectacular. With another steamwhistle roar, Fluffy went berserk, charging directly at the police officers closing in. Two more rounds of buckshot did nothing to stop him. A lash of the scaled tail and the policemen went flying like tenpins. A few of the spectators applauded, it being that kind of neighborhood.

"Get animal control. We need a tranquilizer gun," one of the officers yelled into his microphone.

"Tranquilizer, hell!" one of the other cops shouted. "We need a goddamn tank." One of the officers, with more courage than tactical sense pulled her police cruiser into the parking lot to block the dragon’s escape. Fluffy stopped, hissed in breath, drew back his head and for the first time in his life, breathed flames.

It wasn’t much of a blast by dragon standards, weak and low temperature, but the gout of yellow fire did quite a nice job of igniting the police car. The officer bailed out the driver’s door as the opposite side of the car erupted in fire.

"Act inconspicuous," Jerry hissed "Us they can arrest."

Bal-Simba leaned nonchalantly against the side of the building. The effect wasn’t exactly inconspicuous, but it wasn’t that out of place either. The best thing Moira could think of was to get out of there. Since that accorded perfectly with the dragon’s instincts, she had no trouble commanding the body to run. Moira put her head down and galloped straight at the crowd.

One spectator decided this was the Las Vegas version of the running of the bulls and stepped in front of her waving a jacket with a red lining like a bullfighter’s cape. For his pains he got thrown nearly ten feet by a quick toss of the dragon’s head. No one else seemed disposed to follow, not even the police.

Jerry nodded to Bal-Simba and the two of them drifted off around the other side of the building. Once they were out of sight they ran after the disappearing dragon.

They found Moira in an alley a block and a half away, leaning against a fence, her sides heaving.

"Are you all right?" Jerry asked.

With an effort Moira raised the dragon’s drooping head"I am sorry, My Lord I could not control this body."

Jerry looked back at the glow from the burning police car. "Well, thank God no one was killed. Now come on."

They made their way down the alley and paused in the shadows at the next cross street until there were no cars coming. Then the two men and the dragon sprinted across the street and into the next alley. They did it twice more before they ran out of alley at the blank rear wall of an apartment building.

"I take it we are not yet out of danger," Bal-Simba said as they made their way back to the mouth of the alley.

"They’ll be searching the whole city for us and we’re not exactly going to be hard to spot. We can’t keep walking around, not with the cops looking for Moira."

"Is there someplace we can hide?"

"Well, we could stash her among the life-size animated dinosaurs in the Las Vegas Museum of Natural History, but we’d have to get her there first." Jerry frowned. Then his frown cleared and he looked past Bal-Simba out of the mouth of the alley.

"Wait a minute. I think I see the answer to our problem."

The guy at the truck rental place was remarkably uninterested in his customers. All he wanted was a driver’s license and a cash deposit. Fortunately Jerry’s California license hadn’t expired yet. Gotta find some way to get that renewed, he thought.

"Just make sure you bring it back clean," the clerk said dubiously, eyeing the dragon.

"Don’t worry, she’s housebroken," Jerry assured him. Moira only sniffed. In just a few minutes the contract was signed, Moira was loaded into the back of a twenty-four-foot truck with the slogan "Land of Enchantment" and a picture of New Mexico scenery painted on the side.

"Well, that’s one less problem anyway," Jerry said, as he watched a police car cruise by in the opposite direction.

"Now what?" asked Bal-Simba, who was hunched down on the passenger’s side. Jerry glanced at the time display in front of a bank. "It’s too late to do much tonight. We’ll have to get some sleep and try again in the morning."

"At least this place has many inns," Bal-Simba said as he looked at the row of neon signs stretching away before them.

"Forget it. You can’t get a hotel room in this town this week for love or money." He paused. "Well, maybe for love, but you’ve got to rent it by the hour and, come to think of it, that’s for money too."

Bal-Simba looked at him. "I take it that is not practical"

"Most working girls don’t like threesomes and if we try to bring a dragon into the scene-well, yeah it’s not practical"

The watch commander for the police department was having a hard night as well. Except he knew where he was going to be spending most of it.

Take over," he said to his sergeant as he picked up his hat. "I’m going to the scene."

"What do you want me to do about this thing in the meantime?" his sergeant asked.

"Nothing. We’re not doing anything until I debrief those officers and find out just exactly what the hell we’re dealing with here."

The watch commander knew his men and he trusted them-within broad limits. However, whatever this was pretty clearly went beyond those limits. Obviously something had happened at that mini-market, but equally obviously there was some sort of failure of communication. He was not about to put out an APB for a mythical creature until he’d had a good long talk with the officers and the witnesses.

In the event that proved more difficult than he had anticipated. No one in the crowd would admit to seeing anything, the clerk in the mini-mart could suddenly only communicate in an obscure dialect of Farsi and the tourists in the Mini-Winnie were still hysterical. The physical evidence was impressive enough, what with the burned-out police car and the scorched and dented motorhome, not to mention the scrapes and bruises on the officers who had been knocked around. The testimony of the officers was more equivocal. None of them really liked the idea of what they had seen, or thought they had seen, so they were very careful in their descriptions. The watch commander collected numerous statements about the poor light in the parking lot, the stress of the encounter, the lack of a good view and such. But of the nine officers present not one of them used the word "dragon."

It was nearly dawn when the watch commander decided that the official story was going to be that someone had a large alligator that was causing trouble. That’s the way it went down on the blotter and incident report where the media would see it. Privately and unofficially he passed the word to the next watch commander and left it to him to pass the word privately and unofficially to his officers. It wasn’t the first time that the official version and the truth had differed significantly in this town.

Jerry, Bal-Simba and Moira spent a miserable night parked in a patch of desert a few miles out of town. Moira slept in the back of the truck, Jerry curled up in some old moving pads underneath and Bal-Simba tried to sleep in the cab. Moira was too sick to sleep well and the others were too uncomfortable. The November desert at night is bone-chillingly cold and Jerry kept thinking about scorpions. Wiz and the other humans awoke that morning stiff and sore from another night sleeping on the rocks. At least the humans awoke stiff and sore. Glandurg seemed as relaxed and fresh as ever.

Fresh was definitely something the rest of the party wasn’t. Wiz wondered why dungeon-delving games never said anything about what the participants smelled like after a couple of days of hard work and no baths.

After a quick breakfast of vegetable porridge everyone crowded around Wiz while he checked the locator crystal

"It says we go off this way," Wiz told the others.

"How close are we?" Malkin asked.

Wiz looked back down at the crystal and frowned. "Still a ways to go." Danny looked down at the glowing object in Wiz’s hand "It doesn’t seem any brighter than it was when we started. Shouldn’t it get brighter as we get closer?"

"We still have some distance to cover. These caverns are big."

"Are you sure this thing knows where it’s going?" Danny grumbled.

"It’s set to home in on Moira," Wiz replied with more confidence than he felt. He was developing a nagging suspicion about where the magical compass was leading them. Either these caverns were much bigger than he remembered them or they were being taken on the scenic route. Considering all the stuff they’d run into so far that was a distinct possibility.

Or maybe there’s just a lot more stuff down here, he thought as the party moved along a tunnel as wide as a four-lane highway. I wonder how you estimate the monsters per square kilometer in a dungeon. Or should that be per cubic kilometer because the place has so many levels it’s really three dimensional? The air was getting more humid as they went along. At first there was a nasty, cold clamminess that seemed to ding to them. Then it got warmer until all the humans were sticky with sweat Finally, after two more turnings into smaller tunnels they were surrounded by a thick, warm mist.

"I hear water up ahead," Malkin said softly. Wiz nodded and took a better grasp on his staff.

Suddenly the tunnel opened out into a cavern. The far wall and the ceiling alike were lost in billows of mist. The sound of trickling, splashing water was loud before them.

They paused while Danny surveyed the area with his magic detector.

"No sign of anything," he said at last. "Whatever’s up ahead of us is natural, not magic."

"Natural hot springs," Wiz said. With a gesture he increased the intensity of the light from the magical globe and the party stepped into the cave. They looked around and gasped.

Brightly colored flowstone had congealed like melted candle wax in opalescent patterns. The fog and mist made the place look like a Hollywood soundstage.

"It’s beautiful," Danny said softly. June said nothing, but clung open-mouthed to Danny’s arm, staring wide-eyed like a child on Christmas morning.

"Quite something," Malkin said. Wiz looked back and saw her standing arms akimbo and feet spread. She was also eyeing the scene as if she was trying to figure out how to take the place home with her. Wiz decided that where Malkin was concerned, larceny was the sincerest form of flattery.

"Stay close people," Wiz admonished. "Just because there’s no magic in here doesn’t mean there’s nothing dangerous."

The room was not as big as it had seemed, being much longer than it was wide. The tunnel they had entered from angled in on the long side and in perhaps fifty paces they were across the room.

"Here’s your hot spring," Malkin said, gesturing at a place where the water trickled out of the rock wall. From there it ran along the floor of the cavern and gathered in a series of pools before disappearing through a crack in the floor.

Danny mopped his sweaty brow on his wet sleeve. "Whew, this place is like a sauna."

"Yeah," Wiz said slowly. "Or a hot tub. Come on, let’s see how hot it really is."

The water at the seep was scalding, but by three pools down it had cooled until it was just barely tolerable. Wiz stuck his finger in and nodded.

"Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?" Danny asked.

Wiz just gestured at the pool. "Looks big enough."

"Right," Danny said, dropping his pack and staff and stripping off his outer tunic. Wiz and the other humans followed suit.

Glandurg eyed the water with distaste. "Another of your mortal customs, eh? Fear not. I’ll guard the door while you pollute yon stream." With that he turned his back and disappeared into the steamy fog.

They kept their shirts on for modesty’s sake, but tie thin fabric clung to their bodies as soon as it got wet and the result was more like a wet T-shirt contest than swimming suits. The pool wasn’t even waist deep, but the four lowered themselves into the steaming water with much "oohing" and "aahing" and made themselves comfortable on the smooth flowstone of the bottom.

For several minutes no one said anything, letting the heat and warmth soak into their bodies.

"First time I’ve even been on a quest with a hot tub," Danny said at last. Wiz sighed deeply and relaxed further into the steaming water. "Civilized though."

Malkin ducked under the water and came up with her long dark hair streaming behind her. She was the picture of ease but Wiz noticed she never strayed more than a foot from her rapier. She shook her head vigorously to clear her eyes, splashing everyone else with droplets flung off from her raven hair.

"Jerry told me that in your world you have such things built into your dwellings," the thief said. "Now I see why."

"We ought to put one of these in at the Wizards’ Keep," Danny suggested. Wiz didn’t say anything. He leaned back, rested his head on the rim and let the hot water drain the tension from every muscle.

A fine sifting of dust was falling from the ceiling. Wiz brushed it out of his hair absently and sneezed as the pungent dust tickled his nose. He wet his finger and caught a speck of the dust on the end. His eyes wrinkled at the sharp taste and then widened as he recognized it. Lemon pepper!

A broom-sized bundle of herbs dropped from above and splashed into the pool next to him. "Look out! It’s the lobster again."

There was a mad scramble for weapons and wizards staffs as the pool emptied almost instantly.

"Oh, pshaw!" came a crustacean-accented voice from the misty darkness above. Glandurg came pounding up through the fog, waving Blind Fury as if to decapitate the foe-or someone- with a single stroke. The others moved around to the opposite side of the pool, well out of range.

"What happened?" the dwarf demanded.

Wiz pointed to the bundle of herbs floating in the pot of would-be Cannibal Soup Mix. "The lobster. He must have come across the roof of the cave."

Glandurg looked up and snorted. ’The craven creature was afraid to face my steel. Little did I expect the foe to crawl along the ceiling like some verminous spider. But never fear. I shall be ready if he returns."

Wiz glanced at the pool, already filling the steamy air with the spicy aroma of herbs, pepper and lemon.

"Never mind. I think I’ve had all the swimming I want."

"What now?" Bal-Simba asked Jerry after they had stashed the truck with Moira in it in a hotel parking lot.

"Back to the convention, I guess. We’ll start working the outlying halls. That’s where they put the newcomers to the show and Taj is more likely to be hanging around some of the more innovative startups." He sighed. "This isn’t working very well. I’m sorry."

"There is nothing to be sorry for," Bal-Simba said. "The obstacles are clearly very great."

Thanks, but we can’t keep going like this. Not with the cops looking for us."

"I do not believe Moira can continue here either. She grows ever sicker and weaker. It is well that she can sleep the day away, but even so:" He shrugged.

"Yeah. Okay, let’s try today, and if we haven’t found him by evening we’ll just head north to the power spot and go home."

Even the smaller halls were jammed and, if anything, the crowds were more colorful than at the main exhibits. There was a higher ponytail-and-T-shirt to suit ratio, Jerry noted approvingly, and here and there someone was sitting on the steps or a bench with an open laptop actually hacking code.

Their first stop was the message center, more out of optimism than genuine hope. There was still nothing for Taj, but to his amazement Jerry found a message for him from Elaine Haverford.

Their second stop was the line at a pay phone. After twenty minutes, Jerry paid a scalper twenty dollars to use a cell phone that had been hacked to have a fire marshall’s priority so its calls would get through.

Dr. Haverford answered on the second ring. "Oh yes, Mr. Andrews, I did see Taj last night. He was at the chili cookoff. Were you there?"

"Ah, we were having a hot time of our own," Jerry told her. "Did you talk to him?"

"Only for a minute. He placed second in the relativistic Tetris competition, you know, and he didn’t have much time. But I did find he’s staying with the people from, ah, Bizzareware at the Paladin."

Shit! Jerry thought, right where we started. "The Paladin? Okay, thanks, Dr. Haverford. We’ll get in touch with him right away and set up a meeting with your folks later. Thanks again."

"We gotta do something nice for that company," Jerry said as he handed the phone back to the scalper.

"What now?" Bal-Simba asked. "I believe you told me that everyone is at the show all day and unreachable at their lodgings until evening."

"Most people are," Jerry corrected. "But it’s barely ten. If I know Taj he’s still asleep, especially after a relativistic Tetris tournament. So let’s pick up the truck, head for the Paladin and set up a meet."

"Why not call him from here?"

"Because," Jerry said grimly. "If he doesn’t agree to meet us, we’re going to waylay him in the lobby and kidnap him. I don’t want to take a chance on waking him up and letting him get away before we get there."

It took nearly fifteen rings for someone to answer the phone in the Bizarreware suite at the Paladin. All the while Jerry fidgeted and Bal-Simba merely waited.

"Hello," came a muzzy voice at the other end of the line.

"Is Taj there?’

"This is Taj. Whaddya want?"

"My name is Jerry Andrews, jerry thekeep.org, and I’ve got to see you right away."

"Hey, it’s not even noon yet."

"I know, but this is important."

Taj’s voice hardened. "And you’ll only take five minutes of my time, right?"

"Actually," Jerry said, "it’ll probably take a couple of weeks of your time, but you’ll hate yourself if you don’t meet me."

The voice sighed. "Well, that’s original anyway. Okay, I’ll tell you what. Let me get a shower and some breakfast and I’ll meet you in the lobby, by the bird cage, say, in an hour. Okay?"

"Fine. We’ll be there."

THIRTEEN MAKING A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL

"It has been longer than an hour, has it not?" Bal-Simba asked nearly two hours later.

"Yeah, but don’t worry. If he said he was coming, he’s coming. Probably. It’s just that time doesn’t mean the same thing to him it does to you or me." Bal-Simba nodded. "Elven blood." Jerry didn’t have a chance to respond before someone called out "Mr. Andrews?" and Jerry turned to see the object of their quest.

Seeing him once again Jerry appreciated how he got the nickname Tajmanian Devil."

E.T. Tajikawa was rather over six feet tall and loose-limbed without being gangly. But it was the face that got you. It was thin, with an unusually aquiline nose, high cheekbones, narrow lips and topped by a pronounced widow’s peak of black hair. The only thing that kept him from looking positively satanic was the perpetual expression of bemused interest. "Jerry; please. And this is Bal-Simba." "Cool." Taj shook hands. "Now what’s this big deal?" "Come on out back Part of the problems in a truck." "What are you guys gonna do, kidnap me?"

"Only if we must," Bal-Simba said mildly. "No, no," Jerry put in hastily.

"Nothing like that, but there’s something out there you gotta see." Taj eyed them suspiciously. "Prototype hardware?" "Kinda. Ah, look, have you heard anything about a dragon at the show?"

"Is that you? I’ll say! You guys are causing more of a stir than anything on the show floor. Even Intel’s pre-announcement leak of the Octium-and-a-half."

"Octium-and-a-half?" Jerry asked as he held the door open for Taj.

"It’s a P8 with a couple of extra ALUs, a bigger look ahead cache and another pipeline. Even in simulation the original was a slug, barely 300 MIPS. Anyway," Taj went on without a break, "there are stories about that dragon all over the show. There’s also a bidding war going on for the video game rights. If you guys don’t have an agent:"

"Right now we’ve got bigger problems," Jerry said.

All through this Bal-Simba had been behind Tajikawa, studying his ears closely for signs of points.

"What’s with him?"

"He thinks you’re an elf."

Taj looked over his shoulder at the wizard. "I’ve got some friends who are Radical Faeries. Does that count?"

When they got to the truck, Jerry rolled up the back and Fluffy’s head jerked erect.

"My God!" Tajikawa said.

"Get on in. We don’t want too many people to see this." He and Bal-Simba followed the Tajmanian Devil into the truck and rolled down the back behind them.

By that time Taj was already examining the dragon. "Someone did a hell of a job on this skin," he said. Then he reached out and grabbed Fluffy’s foreleg just above the joint and kneaded the flesh experimentally. The dragon drew back its head and hissed, giving Taj a faceful of sulfurous breath and a close look at a dragon’s dental equipment.

Taj didn’t so much jump back as levitate retrograde. "My God!" he yelped. "It’s real!"

"I’m sorry, My Lord," Moira said contritely. "I am not always the master of this body’s reflexes."

"But you’re a real dragon!"

"Actually," Moira said sadly, "I am a witch, trapped in a dragon’s body."

"That’s part of the problem," Jerry said. "But only part of it."

"So? Don’t you need a wizard or something to handle this, not a programmer." Jerry jerked his head at Bal-Simba. "Actually he’s a wizard. But where we’re from a programmer is also a wizard. That’s part of the problem as well." Taj cocked his head and Jerry congratulated himself. The trick had always been to get Tajikawa to buy into the deal once they found him. So far that part was going nicely.

"I know you’ve been up to something," Taj said. "There are all kinds of rumors about you and Wiz Zumwalt flying around the net." He looked behind Jerry at the twenty-foot dragon. "But I guess the rumors didn’t have the half of it."

"We’ve got a really weird problem."

Taj looked at the dragon again. "I’ll bet."

"No, I mean really weird. And we need help."

"No kidding?" Taj sounded intrigued. "Tell me about it."

"It’s so weird I can’t even describe it to you. You’ve got to experience it."

"No kidding," Taj said again.

Jerry tried to keep a poker face but he was smiling inside. Gotcha! Blue eyes crying in the rain:

Michael Francis Xavier Gilligan concentrated on the way the neon lights reflected off the ice in his highball. It hadn’t been raining when they had parted, but Karin’s blue eyes had been full of tears. So had Gilligan’s. A smattering of computer chatter drifted over from the group in suits at the next table. That was the other thing. The whole damn town was full of computer types.

Lines were terrible, traffic was more than normally awful, there were no rental cars to be had and hotel rooms were at a premium.

It was too damn early to be drinking, he knew, but what the hell else was there to do in this place? What I get for volunteering to come in a week early, he thought sourly.

Gilligan was in Las Vegas on business as well. Next week, after the computer show ended, was the Western Air Show. The aerospace company he joined after leaving the Air Force had needed someone to come in early and get things set and ready. It seemed like a good idea at the time. An extra week in sunny, exciting Las Vegas at company expense plus an opportunity to visit some of his old Air Force buddies stationed at Nellis.

It hadn’t worked out that way. Not only was the town jammed, but it wasn’t as exciting as he remembered from his last tour here. Half the people he had known at Nellis were gone, assigned to other bases scattered halfway around the world. But worse than that was the gulf that had opened between him and the other pilots. Oh, they still liked him well enough, but he didn’t strap his ass into a high-performance jet every day and let it hang out. He wasn’t a member of the fraternity any more and that left an awkward hole in the relationship. After a couple of painfully clumsy visits, Gilligan had begun avoiding the base and his old friends.

Blue eyes cryin in the rain:

That left him nothing to do but drink, and brood Las Vegas was a great town for doing both, he was discovering.

He hadn’t been much of either a drinker or a brooder before, not even when his marriage broke up. But then he’d drawn a mission out over the Bering Sea, come out on the short end of a dogfight with a dragon and met Karin. He couldn’t stay in mat world, but he had promised to return as soon as his tour in the Air Force was finished. The programmer/magicians there had even given him a phone number he could use to call them when he was ready.

Well, he got ready. Then the number hadn’t worked! When he tried to use it he got a visit from a couple of very serious FBI agents who questioned him about possible involvement in telephone fraud.

So here he was, left with nothing but memories. Nothing to do but remember, and drink. God, he hated himself when he got maudlin like this.

Blue eyes cryin’ in the rain:

The security guard wasn’t looking for dragons. In fact he was checking for people sleeping in their cars in the parking lot.

With hotel rooms completely unavailable it wasn’t unknown for Comdex-goers to live out of their cars. Cars were fairly easy to spot on regular rounds, as were motorhomes. Vans were special objects of attention.

As the guard came closer he heard several voices coming from the back of the rental truck. So naturally he jumped to the obvious, and wrong, conclusion.

"Hotel security. Open up in there."

He yanked the back of the truck up and was promptly trampled by a panicked dragon.

"Ah, Mick."

Gilligan looked up from the remains of his drink to see Ivan Kuznetsov standing at his table. He didn’t really feel like company, but he waved the Russian to a seat anyway.

Kuznetsov was a bit of a character. According to rumor he had defected from the Soviet Union a couple of years before it fell apart. Now he was using his connections in both the former Soviet republics and the West to put together aviation-related "deals" of much import but vague content Their paths crossed repeatedly on the air show circuit and Mick had found him a more congenial drinking partner than most of the executives he met.

"You have an interest in dragons, yes?" Gilligan nodded, vaguely recalling a drunken conversation one night in Brussels.

"Then you might want to look out front. Police are chasing a dragon around the building."

Jerry, Taj, Bal-Simba and the dragon had ducked through the first open door they could find. Unfortunately that led right into the main casino.

"Oh, shit," Jerry breathed. "Just act natural and head out the other side." As casually as they could, the three men and the dragon strolled across the casino floor. The slot players paid no attention, of course, but the guards started grabbing for their radios and moving toward them.

The magic field that kept Fluffy alive had some rather interesting effects on the laws of probability. The dragon waddled through the casino leaving a string of jackpots in his wake. In fact every slot machine he passed suddenly started paying off.

The effect was as instantaneous and predictable as gravity. The machines were mobbed by slot players determined to cash in on the sudden bounty. Since in Las Vegas "monomaniacal slot player" is a redundancy, not one of the converging crowd was willing to let a little thing like a dozen cops stand between them and riches.

The leading guard nearly fell over a tiny blue-haired woman in pink shorts who was making for a dollar slot still pouring out coins. She didn’t even look as she elbowed him expertly and sidestepped his falling body to beat out a Chinese man for the machine by perhaps one pace.

The guards behind fared even worse as the crowd congealed, blindly determined to reach those machines.

The police weren’t so much thrown back by the determined gamblers as they simply bounced off the writhing mass of humanity. One officer shouted into his walkie-talkie, trying to make himself heard above the din of the suddenly bountiful slot machines.

Never ones to question the dictates of fortune, Jerry, Bal-Simba, Taj and Moira made for a side door. They had barely turned the corner when they found themselves face-to-face with a wall of casino security guards, all looking very determined.

"Stand aside," commanded the guard in the lead and the phalanx swung around them without a second glance, intent on reaching the chaos on the casino floor. Jerry looked at Bal-Simba and Taj and shrugged. Then the four bolted out the door and dashed for their truck. In the distance the sirens were getting louder. Moira and her companions had barely gotten out the door when a mob of police erupted around the corner. The group did a fast 180 and ran the other way, cut off from the truck in the parking lot.

"Hey! Over here," a voice called as they rounded the corner ahead of their pursuers.

Jerry saw a man holding a side door open and beckoning them.

What the heck? Any port in a storm. The group made a mad dash for the door and Fluffy’s tail disappeared through it just as the first police were coming around the corner.

"Quick, this way," Gilligan said to the oddly assorted group. He led them down a corridor and stopped at one of the hotel’s freight elevators. Taking a key from his pocket he used it to summon the elevator. As soon as the door opened he piled them all in.

"We’re setting up exhibits on the third floor and I tipped a little extra for my own key," he explained to the others. "Once we get there we u make for the passenger elevators. You can hide in my room for a while."

There were several workmen in the exhibition area, preparing for the next show. They stared incuriously at the four men and the dragon who emerged from the freight elevator and headed down the hall.

With most of the rooms taken by show attendees and almost all of them at the show, the hotel corridors and elevators were deserted. It took two cars to get the parry up to the twentieth floor where Mick’s room was, but they met no one on the way.

Thanks," Jerry panted as soon as they were inside and the door was locked. "But why: ?"

"Let’s say I have an interest in dragons," Gilligan told him. "And the people who associate with them."

"Hey, Mick, open up," came a Slavic-accented voice. The others started, but Gilligan motioned them to be calm and opened the door. There, in addition to Kuznetsov, was his friend and business associate, Vasily.

"How’d you know where to find us?"

"You are not very good at this game," Kuznetsov told him. "Too predictable."

"Great," Gilligan muttered

"You had better think of something fast," the Russian added. "They are already starting to search the hotel."

Gilligan looked around "I don’t suppose that dragon can fly?"

Too young," Jerry said.

Before Gilligan could think of anything else there was another knock on the door. "Hotel security," a voice called. "Open up, please."

Like most Las Vegas hotel rooms the bathroom and dressing area were next to the door, forming a short corridor and shielding the beds from direct view of the door. While everyone else crowded around the corner, Gilligan pulled his shut from his pants, kicked off his shoes and went to the door, rumpling his hair as he went

"Yes?" he said trying to sound sleepy, as he opened the door a crack There was a man in a hotel blazer and two armed guards on the other side.

"I’m Mr. Masterson, the assistant manager," the man in the blazer said. "Have you seen anything, ah, unusual in the last few minutes?

"I’ve been asleep."

"Yes sir. Do you mind if we come in and check things out? Just as a precaution you understand."

"What’s wrong?"

"Please open the door, sir," one of the guards said firmly.

"Who is it, honey?" came a sleepy female voice from inside the room. An amazing voice, oozing sex and promise.

"Ah, it’s the hotel," Gilligan said, managing to keep his wits about him.

"Oh, what do they want?" Now there was a note of sultry disappointment. "Can’t you get rid of them and come back to bed?"

Gilligan looked at the manager and shrugged. "This is really inconvenient, you know. My wife, she’s just joined me, and:"

"Oh come on, honey," came the steam-heated voice. "Just tell them to go away." The manager, who didn’t believe this stuff about a dragon anyway, jerked his head. "Sorry to disturb you, sir. If you see anything please call the desk." The guard glowered, but moved back from the door.

"Sure, sure," Gilligan said as he shut the door. Then he leaned against it and let out a deep, heart-felt sigh.

"Okay people, they’re gone."

"Thank you for rescuing us, My Lord," the dragon said in an everyday version of the voice that had gotten rid of the searchers.

"Uh, you’re quite welcome," Gilligan said. A talking dragon, he thought numbly, a talking dragon with a voice made for phone sex. Of course.

The dragon’s eyelids dipped demurely. "I did not think they would be so base as to disturb a couple intimately engaged."

"Ah, right," was all Gilligan could manage. "By the way, I’m Mick Gilligan." He looked closely at Jerry. "I think we met once before, just briefly. Ah, someplace else."

Jerry looked at him and his mouth dropped open. The fighter pilot! Right, I remember you."

"And I am Ivan Kuznetsov."

From somewhere Gilligan remembered that "Kuznetsov" meant "Smith," so the Russian’s name translated as "John Smith"-a fact which reinforced Gilligan’s speculations about the man’s background. Jerry didn’t seem to notice. He shook the man’s hand vigorously. "Pleased to meet you."

The other Russian was older and leaner, with the leathery skin of someone who had spent most of his life outdoors and the studied, unobtrusive manner of someone who preferred not to be noticed. For some reason he reminded Gilligan of the instructors at Air Force survival school.

"This is Vasily Gregorivich, my associate."

Jerry put out his hand. "Pleased to meet you Mr. Gregorivich."

"Vasily," the man corrected, taking it.

"Gregor is his father’s name, so Gregorivich is his patronymic," Kuznetsov explained. Gilligan realized he had never heard Vasily’s last name. He wondered what it was, but Vasily didn’t seem inclined to volunteer the information and besides, he suspected it would probably turn out to be the Russian equivalent of

"Jones."

"I am called Bal-Simba." The wizard extended a meaty paw.

The Tajmanian Devil waved. "Taj."

"And I," the dragon said, "am called Moira. I believe we also met before, but I was in my proper body then."

Gilligan looked hard at her.

"Normally she’s a redhead with green eyes and freckles," Jerry explained."

"Oh! Right The Sparrow’s wife."

"Even so," Moira said sadly.

"Now," Gilligan said "Suppose you tell me just what the bloody hell is going on around here?"

The explanation took several hours.

FOURTEEN FUDWARE, FANTASY AND AREA 51

They broke for lunch in a cul-de-sac with a convenient jumble of rocks to serve as table and chairs. The fare was the usual cracker bread and dried meat with magically heated herb tea.

"Okay, people," Wiz said as they waited for the tea to brew, "strategy session. So far we’ve only been reacting to what we’ve encountered. I think we need to start taking the initiative."

"Meaning what?" Malkin asked.

For starters let’s look back over what we’ve run into down here and try to see the pattern to it all"

"Well," Danny said slowly, "leaving aside the lobster, we haven’t run into the same thing twice."

"I think the lobsters a special case," Wiz said. "So the similarity is that they’ve all been different."

"There is something else," Malkin said quietly. "They haven’t ganged up on us. Usually the first time you have a run-in with a guard his fellows come running. So far it seems we have faced only those things we have encountered by chance."

"And that’s not good news?" Danny asked. "That we haven’t been mobbed?"

"I mislike it"

"They fear our steel," Glandurg said confidently.

Somehow Wiz didn’t think that was the answer.

There’s another possibility," Danny said. "Maybe these things all have separate patrol areas they won’t leave. That’s the way a D&D game is set up. Most of your monsters are tied to their rooms, or a stretch of corridor, and there’re only a few roamers."

Malkin rubbed her chin. "It would keep all the guards from being drawn off by a distraction, but it still seems a strange way to protect something."

"Whoever’s running this show does a lot of strange things, so think about it and see what you can come up with," Wiz said. "Anyway, there’s another implication to that strategy."

The thief looked at him questioningly.

"In a D&D game the monsters get tougher as you get closer to the treasure."

": so anyway," Jerry finished. "All we’ve got to do now is get to this place in the desert where we can make the jump back to our world." Jerry spread out a Nevada road map. "It’s a couple of hours north of here." He put his finger down.

"Right here on this dry lake bed."

"Oh boy!" Gilligan said almost reverently.

"Boshemoi!" Kuznetsov added.

Jerry looked up from the map. "Now what’s wrong?"

"That’s part of Nellis Air Force Base," Gilligan said. "Restricted area."

"Worse than restricted," Kuznetsov said. That is Area 51, Groom Lake. Top-secret testing area for F-119, SR-25 and other aircraft your government swears do not exist. That is most tightly guarded piece of land in whole country. Almost as tight as places in Soviet Union-when there was a Soviet Union."

The Russian looked over at Gilligan. "He cannot tell you this because of agreement he signed when he left Air Force. Me, I signed no such agreement."

"Well, we don’t have to come in through the front gate. It looks pretty deserted out there and we’ll be gone within a couple of minutes of reaching the power vortex."

Gilligan kept a poker face. Kuznetsov just grinned. "As soon as you set foot on land they will be after you.

Whole place is loaded with sensors. They get lots of experience chasing tourists who come to watch secret aircraft flights."

"Not to mention Soviet spies," Gilligan added.

Kuznetsov’s grin grew wider. "No need for Soviet spies to sneak in that way. Anyway, it is too far to go- before they grab you." He quit smiling. "The guards are also authorized to use deadly force."

"But we’ve got to get in there! It’s the only way we’re going to get back." Kuznetsov considered. "Okay. Only one thing to do. We fly in."

"That’s nuts!" Mick Gilligan protested.

"Maybe nuts, but here," he stabbed his finger down on the map, "is close enough we can maybe get in and land before we are stopped." He considered. That is if they do not shoot planes down without warning for trespassing."

"That was your trick," Mick said sourly. Kuznetsov was beginning to wear and the whole conversation was making him profoundly uncomfortable.

"So we have to get three people and a dragon into this super-secret base in an airplane."

"Four," Gilligan said. "I’m going with you. All the way back." He looked at them. ’That’s my price for helping you."

"You know you may never be able to return," Bal-Simba told him.

"I thought of that."

The wizard looked at him closely and then nodded. "Very well. You are welcome."

"We," Kuznetsov said with a gesture at Vasily and himself, "will go with you." Gilligan scowled. "Why?"

"Technical expertise. You need someone who knows the area-" he glanced at Gilligan significantly "-and will tell what he knows." Then he shrugged.

"Besides, thumbing your nose at authority is a Russian thing. You would not understand."

Mick shook his head. ’This particular nose-thumbing is gonna get you thrown out of the country-or worse."

Kuznetsov grinned broadly. "That is why it is Russian thing. It is no fun thumbing nose at authority unless you can get in big trouble for gesture." Then," Mick predicted, "you’re gonna have more fun than you’ve ever had in your life. You may even the laughing."

The Russians only grinned.

"Okay, so we’ve got to get six people and a twenty-foot dragon in there and land on a dry lake bed. That’s going to take a pretty special plane."

Vasily, who had been leaning up against the wall spoke for the first time. "I think I know where."

"So far the buzz is positive." Mark Toland gestured toward the Hilton suite’s window and the Convention Center beyond with a wave of his champagne glass.

"Everyone’s impressed and no one’s quite sure what we’ve got." He smiled broadly. "FUDware at it’s finest."

Toland had coined the term FUDware in a speech to an industry conference several years ago and he used it whenever he could. In this case he was justified. Gigantopithecus Softwares pre-pre-beta technology direction disclosure of its new API had sown Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt-FUD to connoisseurs-among potential customers, technology partners, retailers and VARS. FUDware was the equivalent of a rolling artillery barrage on the computer battlefield. Its purpose wasn’t so much to cause casualties as to pin everyone down while the attackers moved in for the kill. The software being shown in another suite here at the Las Vegas Hilton was packed with nifty features. Better, it was far enough along that it might be the prelude to a real product. Then again, it might not, and that was better yet.

As a result Sasquatch was performing its intended job of paralyzing the market, exciting the trade press, and making buyers hold off committing to a competitor and stretching everyone’s acquisition cycle.

Keith Malinowski slumped down on the couch and grunted. He was wearing his "Save The Sasquatch" sweatshirt over his hand-tailored sport shirt. His champagne was going flat.

"The beauty is we caught Microsoft and IBM/Lotus in mid-FUD cycle," Angela Page, his marketing VP put in. "It will be at least eight weeks before they can counter with FUDware of their own."

"But when are we going to release it?" asked Joe Kroeber from the suite’s bar. He was head of software development, and pouring the drinks for everyone was part of his job at these things.

"Second quarter of next year," Page told him. "It’s in the briefing sheet we use to leak to reporters."

"No, I mean when are we really going to have it ready?"

Page and Toland looked at Kroeber like he’d farted. Malinowski ignored them. I should have stayed behind and gone sailing, he thought. Three years ago he would have been bouncing up and down like a miniature poodle at an industry coup like this. Now it was flat as his champagne. Even the knowledge that he’d put the screws to Microsoft, his former employer, just didn’t thrill him. The millions more this would add to his net worth were even less important. These days Malinowski thought of himself as a cryptozoologist more than a software entrepreneur. Ever since he was a teenager he had been convinced the planet was teeming with undiscovered animals, from Sasquatch in the Pacific Northwest and as far south as Arizona to dinosaurs in central Africa to serpents in the seas.

The zoologists of his acquaintance thought he was a nut, but that didn’t bother him in the slightest. Like a tot of people in the computer industry, Keith Malinowski had spent his whole life being the smartest person in the room, and like most of his fellows the experience left him with a rather high opinion of his opinions.

With his newfound wealth Malinowski also had the ability to back his beliefs with more than on-line arguments. In the last two years he had sponsored expeditions to places all around the world, provided computer and technical support for the people who claimed to have seen something or thought they might have gotten something on film or tape.

The ringing phone at his elbow jarred him out of his ruminations and nearly made him spill his flat champagne. Before he could focus, Toland grabbed it like the well-trained subordinate he was. He listened for a second, then put his hand over the mouthpiece and turned to his boss.

"It’s Al Benedict. He wants to talk to you."

"Who?"

"Al Benedict, the guy who’s handling on-floor PR. He insists on talking to you." Malinowski frowned. Jesus, what now? He knew from experience that a call from the show floor usually meant he was going to have to pay out a lot more money. But that didn’t bother him as much as having to fight another fire at the behest of someone he didn’t even know. There was a time when he knew all his employees by face and name. Now he couldn’t even tell which building they worked in. What the hell, he decided, it’s better than sitting here watching champagne go flat. He nodded and reached for the phone.

"Keith?" The voice on the other end was high-pitched with excitement and nearly drowned out by the combination of background noise and a lousy cellular connection. "It’s me, AL" Vaguely Malinowski remembered a frenetic little fox terrier of a man with a rusty beard and an exaggerated interest in his boss’ hobby. "Listen, we, uh, ran into something on the show floor."

"Yeah?" Keith said flatly.

"No, not like that. Or not really anyway. This was two guys with a dragon. A real dragon!"

Suddenly Keith was like a beagle sniffing on a hot trail. He was up, he was excited, he was alive! FUDware and the eternal Darwinian software struggle paled to insignificance. This was important.

"You’re sure this wasn’t some kind of robot?" he demanded.

"It was definitely real. It’s not real tame either. It nearly knocked our guy off his stilts."

"Old Cheng was right! They do still exist. This is fantastic!"

"I think it’s genetic engineering of some sort," Keith’s informant added, but Keith was gone in transports of ecstasy. Suddenly life had meaning again!

"We’ve had reports from remote areas of China."

"Yeah, well:"

"There’s even a rumor that a top-secret Air Force project in Alaska got a picture of a dragon in the air a few years ago. But to find one, and here of all places. It’s just unbelievable."

By this time Page and Toland had figured out the subject of the conversation and they exchanged looks. "Unbelievable" was the word they would have chosen all right, but obviously their boss did believe it. They had been sounding out major investors about replacing Malinowski for a couple of months because of his diminishing interest in the business and growing weird-ness. If they handled this right it could be the capper for their campaign. Meanwhile, he was still the boss and they had to act like this was important.

"Anyway," the voice on the phone went on, "I checked and found out more. The authorities have known about it for a couple of days and they’re keeping it quiet. Meanwhile, the police are hunting for it."

"The police?"

"Yeah. They want to kill it because it’s dangerous."

Malinowski unfolded off the couch as if it had exploded under him.

"We can’t let them do that! Angel, get our lawyers on the phone. Joe, use the phone in the other room to call Bill Reeves at Interior. We’ve got to protect this thing."

"You really think you can get the government to move on this?" Toland asked. Keith paused, phone in hand, to look at him. "They’d better, after all I did for that twit in the White House." Malinowski had been one of the high-technology business leaders the incumbent had paraded during the election to support his

"new technology vision for America" Like a lot of them, Malinowski had been sorely disappointed with the results. After the election they discovered their guy thought high technology meant anything with a lot of blinking lights and he couldn’t use his computer consistently because he kept putting floppy disks in upside down. His computer problems got significantly worse after his teenaged daughter went back to school.

"Maybe that dope will be good for something after all," Malinowski said as he reached for the phone.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully, if not smoothly. By dint of a little fast talking, steadfast denial of any knowledge of anyone in the truck and a firm promise to get it off the hotel grounds immediately, Jerry was able to recover the vehicle. By waiting until the hotel corridors were packed with Comdex attendees, shielding Moira in the back of an elevator behind himself, Taj,

Bal-Simba, the Russians and Gilligan, and employing a few other expedients, they were able to get Moira out of the hotel and into the truck a few hours later. Then he and Bal-Simba made arrangements to meet Vasily’s friend with the airplane that evening and drove off with Moira safely in the back, hidden behind a stack of boxes salvaged from the dumpsters.

Jerry was getting a headache.

They were sitting in a lounge off the casino at the hotel. Perhaps a hundred tables were packed into a space big enough for fifty. Each table would have been small for two normal people and, while Mick was a little on the short side, Jerry definitely was not and Bal-Simba was huge. As a result things were decidedly crowded. The Russians were sitting at the table just over Jerrys shoulder, and when he leaned back he bumped heads with Kuznetsov. Moira was waiting in the rented truck.

It was early evening and the other tables were mostly occupied. Occasionally a burst of laughter or a snatch of conversation would rise over the level of the general racket, but mostly it was just noise with a country-western beat. The band may not have been good, but they fulfilled one of the primary requirements for any lounge act by being loud, almost loud enough to drown out the unrelenting cacophony from the slot machines on the other side of the railing.

"My head hurts," he muttered.

"Best place for a private meeting," Kuznetsov told him. "Noise drives listeners crazy and even digital signal processors have trouble picking out one conversation."

"How do you know that?"

The Russian just smiled. "Heads up everyone. Here comes our contact." Jerry turned in his seat and saw a man pushing his way through the crowd. Save for bushy white eyebrows and an enormous white mustache there wasn’t a hair on his head. He looked like a walrus, if you can imagine a sunburned walrus wearing aviator sunglasses and an orange flight suit decorated with a wildly improbable collection of patches. Jerry saw insignia from everything from the 23rd Fighter Squadron to something called Miz Lai’s Cottontail Ranch and Sporting Club. He looked over at Gilligan.

"I don’t know and I don’t want to know," Gilligan muttered.

The man nodded to the Russians and pulled a chair over to the table where the others sat. "Charlie Conroy,’" he boomed, extending a paw that was sunburned as pink as the rest of him. "My friends call me Cowboy."

As Jerry shook the preferred hand he saw the wrist was decorated with a watch the size of a can of snuff, with dials and buttons and hands galore. Almost as soon as Charlie sat down a waitress wearing not much, and that black and slinky, slithered up to take his order.

"Honey," he boomed, "bring me over one of those Tanqueray and tonics. Make it a double." The waitress reflexively avoided a pat on the rump and swivel-hipped off through the tables.

He turned to the Russians. "Vaseline you old commie, how’s it hanging?"

"Okay, sky pirate. Burned any babies lately?"

"Naw, I got out of that end of tie business. How about you, Ivan? Still doing them dirty deeds?"

"I get by," Kuznetsov said with a slight smile. Jerry got the impression he wasn’t nearly as charmed by Conroy’s antics as his partner. Gilligan was obviously un-charmed, but he was keeping his mouth shut.

"Hell of a crowd, ain’t it?" Cowboy boomed to Jerry and Bal-Simba. "Between the tourists and the computer geeks, whole damn town is packed. I ain’t seen anything like it since the fall of Saigon."

The waitress returned with Charlie’s drink and Jerry paid for it. Charlie emptied the gin and tonic in one gulp and held up the glass. Fill’er again will you, darlin’?" Obviously he had never heard of the "twenty-four hours from bottle to throttle" rule either.

"Now," he said, setting the glass on the tiny table, "I understand you boys want to make a little excursion."

"Yeah," Jerry said, glancing around the table. "Four of us and, ah, some cargo. About five hundred pounds of it. We need to make one trip to a place about a hundred and fifty miles from here."

"No problem," Charlie said. "But there are some conditions." He leaned forward and put his meaty forearms on the tiny table. Gilligan grabbed his drink just as it was shoved off the edge.

Their guest was oblivious. "Now understand, I don’t smuggle dope. Leastways not for strangers. And I won’t stand for murder on my airplane. Beyond that-" he shrugged. "I don’t see nothing and I don’t hear nothing."

That, Jerry reflected, was probably going to be the most important

characteristic of all.

"Where are we gonna make pickup and will it be a day or night flight?"

"You can pick us up at the airport," Jerry said. "Day is probably better than night. It’s the destination that’s a little tricky."

"Where you going?"

"Uh, Groom Lake, Area Fifty-One."

"Just outside inner fence toward the end of runway," Kuznetsov added, leaning over from his table.

Charlie looked at the Russian narrowly. "This cargo don’t explode does it? ’Cause as a patriotic American and a veteran of four wars I don’t hold with blowing up US air bases."

"It doesn’t explode," Jerry assured him. Then he thought of the Las Vegas police car. "Well, not unless you get her angry."

"Her?"

"The cargo’s kind of livestock."

"I may charge you boys extra for mucking out the airplane. Can this thing be trusted to use a sick sack?"

"Well, she’s a flying creature anyway," Jerry said, "so I don’t think she’s subject to airsickness."

"What the hell is this critter?" Charlie roared, just as the music ended and there was a lull in the casino racket "A five-hundred-pound canary?" Suddenly half the people in the bar were looking at them.

Jerry turned beet red under the attention. "Uh, something like that," he whispered.

Charlie grinned and leaned back in his chair. "Boys," he boomed, "I think I’m gonna enjoy this little trip."

Looking at their pilot, Jerry wasn’t so sure he would be able to say the same.

FIFTEEN BIPLANE BYE-BYE

The morning was bright, cold and crystal clear. The mountains on the other side of the airport looked like they were only a mile away.

When the truck pulled up to the gate on the general aviation side of the field, Jerry and Taj were in the front seat as the least conspicuous of the group. Moira, the Russians, Taj and Bal-Simba were in the back.

The guard came out of the shack huddled in his flight jacket, his breath leaving little puffs in the frosty air. He kept his hands in his pockets until he needed one to hand the clipboard under his arm up to the cab.

There was a sign by the gate informing them that all vehicles were subject to search when entering and leaving. For an instant Jerry was afraid the guard was going to ask to look in the back of the truck, but he only nodded as he retrieved his clipboard.

They’d be more likely to check them on the way out, Jerry decided. But that didn’t matter.

Jerry pulled the truck into a parking space in back of a row of tan metal hangars. Although there were a number of cars in the parking lot, the place looked deserted. Then he remembered that pilots liked to take off at dawn. Those cars probably belonged to people who were already airborne.

Quickly Jerry and Taj rolled up the truck’s tailgate. ’Okay- We’re here."

"About time," Kuznetsov said as he hopped down. "The dragon is getting carsick." Moira followed him out, gulping deep lungfuls of air and looking decidedly green around the gills, even for a dragon. "I am sorry, My Lord. I am not used to riding in closed conveyances and this body is unwell."

"No harm done," Gilligan assured her.

"But five minutes more:"

"Never mind that," Jerry cut the Russian off. "Let’s go find our ride." Just at that moment Charlie came around the corner of the hangar wiping his hands on a rag. In the light of day his orange jumpsuit looked even gaudier than it had in the cocktail lounge. He saw Moira, did a double take and got his composure back.

"You folks ready to go?" he asked, staying well clear of the dragon.

"All set," Jerry assured him.

Charlie eyed Moira. "Don’t you need a leash for that thing?"

I am quite under control, thank you." Moira said with a sniff.

"Holy shit! She talks! Uh, no offense ma’am."

The dragon nodded. "None taken."

"Well, come on then. I got her gassed, oiled and pre-flighted. She’s right around here."

Charlie led them around the hangar and pointed proudly. Although the ramp was occupied by the usual gaggle of Pipers, Cessnas and Mooneys it was obvious to all of them what he was pointing at.

It was a biplane. A very big biplane with an enclosed cabin, a radial engine and a dull-green paint job. Next to the civilian registration numbers on the body was a large red star. "AN-2 Colt," Charlie announced proudly.

"That’s a Russian plane!" Gilligan almost shouted.

"This one’s Polish, actually," Charlie told him. "Design’s Russian though." Mick groaned. "We’re going to fly into a restricted area in a Russian plane." He looked over at Kuznetsov. "Why -didn’t you get us a Mig 29 escort while you’re at it?"

"No Mig 29s in town until air show next week," the Russian deadpanned. "Besides, we cannot get dragon into a Mig 29."

Mick just shook his head and turned away.

"Be reasonable, Mick," Kuznetsov said. "There are not many planes that can carry all this and still land in dirt."

"Reasonable?" Gilligan yelped. "You’re asking me to be reasonable?"

"Ivan’s right," Charlie said cheerfully. "These babies were made for hauling cargo in and out of rough fields. She’ll land on a dime and give you back a nickel’s change."

"Besides, I don’t think we’ve got much choice," Jerry said. "There’s no time to find another plane and we’re probably going to have company faster than that." Gilligan looked at the others and his shoulders slumped. That thing’s got a radar cross-section like a bam door."

Charlie grinned appreciatively but Gilligan just snorted. "What about you?" he asked Charlie. "Are you gonna come all the way?"

"They don’t have airplanes in this place?" Charlie asked.

"No," Jerry told him. "Just dragons."

"Dragons, hell!" He nodded to Moira. "Uh, no offense ma’am but it don’t sound like my kind of place. I’ll just drop you folks off." He took a map from tie leg pocket of his flight suit and unfolded it on the ground, nailing a corner of it with his knee.

"Okay," he said as the others gathered around, "our best shot is to head north to about here." He stabbed a finger down on the map. Then we drop to minimum altitude, pop over that ridge and run straight for the target."

"How fast can they intercept us?" Jerry asked.

"Fast," Kuznetzov put in. "Once they see us, first fighters arrive in three point five minutes."

Gilligan looked at the Russian oddly, but he was oblivious.

"Now the way I figure it," Charlie went on, "we can get to this place with, oh, two-three minutes to spare." He looked at Gilligan and his friends. "But son, this dingus of yours had better work because there’s no way in hell we are gonna get back out."

"How are you going to explain this?"

"Simple. I’ll tell them I was drunk and I did it on a bar bet." He smiled broadly. "No way in hell they won’t believe me. You people were just sightseers who were along for the ride. You didn’t know what I was gonna do until I did it"

"You know you’re going to lose your license over this."

The old man’s grin faded. "Son, I’m gonna have to give it up when I take my physical next month anyway. When this is over I’ll move to Costa Rica or someplace where they don’t have all these pissant rules for pilots." There was also an excellent chance he would go to jail, but Gilligan didn’t mention that.

"Don’t worry, it will work out." He glanced over Gilligan’s shoulder toward the rear of the plane. "As long as that talking lizard isn’t around. I’m a good bullshitter, but I’m not that good."

That’s okay," Jerry told him. "She won’t be there when the cops arrive and neither will we."

"Well, let’s do it people," Charlie said. "I hear sirens and I don’t think they’re fire engines." He looked at Gilligan. "You take the right-hand seat with me. The rest of you get in the back.

That ground isn’t that smooth," Gilligan said as Charlie refolded the map.

"We’re gonna land pretty rough."

"Nahh, don’t worry," Charlie said. They built these things in a tractor factory."

"Actually tank factory," Kuznetzov told him. Tractor factory was cover story." The sirens were getting closer. Jerry looked back toward where the truck was parked.

"Now what?" Kuznetsov demanded.

"I was just thinking. We really should turn the truck back in. Or at least call them to tell them where they can pick it up."

"Jerry."

"Yeah?"

"Shut up and get in the damn plane."

As Jerry scrambled aboard and Vasily slammed the door behind him, Charlie reached down and hit the starter. The big Kuznetsov radial chuffed two or three times as compressed air from the starter tank turned it over. Then one cylinder caught and fired, then two more and then the aircraft was filled with the roar of the engine.

Slowly, the plane turned out of its tie-down spot and started down the taxiway. Charlie used the rudder pedals to wiggle the nose from side to side so he could make sure the way was clear. From instinct Mick swiveled his head to check for possible interference. The older man was talking into his headset, obviously communicating with the tower, but Mick couldn’t make out the words over the engine.

They reached the turn-in and Charlie ran up the engine while standing on the brakes, scanning the gauges as he did so. Satisfied, he backed off on the throttle and turned the plane onto the runway.

"Okay folks, here we go," Charlie bellowed over his shoulder and shoved the throttle forward again. The engine noise rose to a crescendo and the big biplane began to gather speed. Out his side window Mick could see a couple of police cars coming out onto the field with their red and blue lights flashing. If those damn police cars don’t interfere, he thought.

It occurred to Mick, who hadn’t had so much as a parking ticket since he sold his sports car, that he was now involved in about half a dozen felonies. He found it was an odd sensation. He also realized he didn’t much care, not if it got him back to Karin and a place where magic and dragons ruled the skies. The police never had a chance. In what Mick thought was a suicidally short distance, at what he was sure was an insanely low airspeed, Charlie hauled back on the wheel and the plane swooped into the air, hanging on the big prop. Lift and thrust battled drag and gravity and for a stomach-churning instant Mick was sure gravity would win. Then the plane seemed to find itself, steadied, and began to climb like a contented cow on a hilly pasture. Now the only way to stop them was to shoot them down, Mick thought.

Then he remembered that could very easily happen.

SIXTEEN LORD OF THE FLIES AND THE LORD OF THE FLIERS

It was the flies, Peter Hanborn told himself. I’m being punished for the flies. He was a thin, serious man with intent brown eyes behind heavy spectacles. He was not yet thirty but his increasing baldness made him look ten years older. Just now he felt about a hundred years older.

Well, damn it, an endangered species is an endangered species. And the Southern Nevada Garbage Fly was certainly endangered. He still didn’t regret his attempt to get the fly listed under the Endangered Species Act, despite the hundreds of editorials, two Congressional inquires and thousands of angry letters which had deluged his department as a result. To this day he didn’t accept the taxonomists’ opinion that his proposed endangered species was really just a sub-population of ordinary house flies with a slightly different distribution of characteristics as a result of generations of breeding in a landfill in the middle of the desert.

But that didn’t mean he was looking forward to this. He glanced over at McWilliams, the government’s counsel for the petition. The older man seemed as cool and unruffled as if this were an ordinary case instead of this, this travesty. At least I had solid population data when I made my proposal, Hanborn thought. This thing wasn’t even supported by a headline in the National Enquirer.

Not mat there wouldn’t be headlines in the Enquirer, not to mention the Weekly World News and every fringe publication from here to London. Twisting around to look at the half-dozen spectators on the hard wooden benches he wondered which of them was the stringer for the tabloids.

The state was opposing the motion, naturally. They considered it such an open-and-shut case they sent their newest attorney, a kid named Sculley, to handle it. It didn’t help that Sculley looked and acted like Jimmy Olsen from the old Superman comics.

Hanborn was so sunk in his own misery he missed the bailiff entering the courtroom and had to scramble awkwardly at his announcement.

"All rise. Court is now in session. The honorable Judge Margaret Schumann presiding."

Judge Schumann was a tall, slender woman with iron-gray hair and a demeanor to match. "Be seated."

It had to be Maximum Mazie, Hanborn thought miserably as he sagged back in his seat. Now there was a very real possibility he would not only be a

laughingstock, he would go to jail as well. He slumped even further until he was almost sitting on his shoulder-blades.

Judge Schumann was oblivious. "Counsel ready?" she asked, flipping through her copy of the petition. Both lawyers rose and nodded. "Let’s begin then. Now the government," she gestured at McWilliams, "wants an injunction to protect a new and possibly endangered species. The state opposes, is that correct?"

"It is, your honor," Sculley said. "We feel:"

"We’ll get to what you feel in a minute, Mr. Sculley." She kept her attention on McWilliams. "Doesn’t the Endangered Species Act have provisions for emergency listing of a species?"

"It does your honor," McWilliams said, "but we are asking for protection for this animal until the emergency provisions can be invoked. We have reason to believe that the few surviving members of the species, perhaps the entire remnant population, is in immediate and dire danger."

"Your honor," Sculley cut in. "The state contends that if this animal does in fact exist there is absolutely no evidence to show that it is entitled to protection under the Endangered Species Act. Further, the thing, if it exists, is dangerous and the state must be able to protect its citizens."

Judge Margaret (Maximum Mazie) Schumann hadn’t made it to the federal bench without a finely tuned set of antennae. These endangered species cases were tricky. They usually meant someone was trying to build something someone else didn’t like. In Las Vegas, where development was nearly as big an industry as gambling, that usually meant a lot of money was at stake. It was even worse when you were asked to issue an injunction for an animal that wasn’t even officially listed as endangered. Besides which she recognized the clown sitting beside the government’s lawyer as the nut who tried to get the flies at the local landfill declared an endangered species.

"Someone trying to build a golf course?"

"No, Your Honor. The species is being hunted to possible extinction by the Las Vegas police."

"What is this thing? King Kong?"

A couple of spectators chuckled.

"It’s, uh, a reptile," the plaintiffs council said. He looked at his Fish and Wildlife expert for support.

"A large reptile," Hanborn added miserably.

For the first time the judge looked interested. "What kind of reptile?"

"Uh, if Your Honor will just read Exhibit A attached to the petition you’ll find a description."

Judge Schumann flipped through the document Reptile, large, species unknown. Wings:

Maximum Mazie Schumann jerked her head up and slammed her gavel down. "Court’s in recess." She glared down at the counsels’ tables. "I want to see the parties in my chambers. Now."

Mazie Schumann had started out as a dancer in the Las Vegas shows. While she was strutting it by night she went to college by day and then to the University of Nevada law school. When she graduated she traded feathers and beads for a gray wool suit and a job with the Clark County District Attorney’s Office. Thanks to her abilities, drive and political skill she eventually wound up on the Federal District bench. If she was not a towering legal scholar, she was smart, politically savvy, and a hard-boiled no-nonsense judge who retained a streak of the theatrical. The media loved her, lawyers respected her, criminals feared her and nobody, but nobody, trifled with her.

Just now Maximum Mazie felt she was being trifled with.

"Now," she demanded as soon as her clerk closed the door to her office. "What the hell is this? A publicity stunt for a casino?"

"No, Your Honor," McWilliams said smoothly, "it’s not a publicity stunt. It’s:"

"Crap," Judge Schumann finished. "That’s what this is. Mr. McWilliams, do you know how long it takes to bring a civil case to trial in this district?" McWilliams knew almost to the day, but he also knew when to shut up and take his licking. "No, Your Honor."

"Nearly two years. Two blessed years to get a serious case to trial and you come marching in here wasting this court’s time with crap. I know a load of crap when I see it And this," she said, tapping the petition with a blood-red fingernail,

"is prime-cut, table-grade crap."

"Precisely, Your Honor," Sculley said. "That has been the state’s contention:"

"Don’t gloat, counselor. You’re as much a part of this as they are." Sculley went from gloating to wilting in one smooth transition.

Judge Schumann cocked an eye at McWilliams. "Anything from the petitioner?" McWilliams was more experienced than Sculley and he knew when to keep his mouth shut Hanborn shrank into his chair and devoutly wished he was somewhere, anywhere, else.

"All right I’m going to grant this petition. That makes it a matter of public record. And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the newspapers don’t get hold of this." She glared at Hanborn and McWilliams. "As a judge I can’t comment on the matter to the media. That means you two will have to explain this pile of horseapples to the taxpayers."

Sculley shifted in his chair. "Ah, Your Honor:"

"Mr. Sculley, you are trying my patience. That is the second time today and no one has ever done it a third time. Now get back out there, all of you, and let’s get this farce over with."

They were still in the traffic pattern when Charlie got a radio call that obviously displeased him. He reached over to the microphone jack and wiggled it firmly. "Say again tower, you’re breaking up. Over." Thanks to Charlie’s fiddling the transmission was nicely garbled.

The old pilot chewed his mustache for an instant as he listened to the transmission, then he reached down and switched off the radio. "Pissants," Charlie yelled to Mick.

Charlie did not waste a lot of time gathering altitude. While they were in the tower’s control zone he made a pretense of staying above the FAA minimums. As soon as they were beyond visual range of the tower and over the open desert he pushed the wheel forward.

As an ex-fighter jock, Mick Gilligan was a member of the high-and-fast school of flying. Charlie, on the other hand, belonged to the "low and slow" school. Gilligan had no objection to flying low-within reason. But he considered having to pull up to get over barbed wire fences decidedly unreasonable. A couple of times Gilligan saw puffs of dust where the Colt’s wheels had touched the ground. After that he tried not to look.

Back in the cabin the other passengers had their own problems. Flying sideways is unsettling, the noise and vibration were terrible, and the humans were sharing the space with a dragon who’d never been in an airplane before. Fluffy didn’t get airsick, but he wasn’t a very good traveling companion. Although he was too young to fly the dragon had the reflexes of a flying creature, which meant he kept trying to use his body to control his "flight." Moira tried valiantly to keep the body under control, but with very mixed success. Every time the plane lurched, Fluffy instinctively tried to spread his wings. After being smacked in the face a couple of times, the occupants of the seats learned to duck when the plane lurched.

"They’re not responding," the air traffic control supervisor told his visitors. Lake most air traffic controllers, the supervisor had a strong sense of what was proper. In his book having a bunch of police and other gawkers invade his control center was highly improper. However, as an ex-Air Force controller he was disinclined to argue. The best he could do was keep them out of his people’s hair, be civil to them and hope they would get out of his control center soon.

"Isn’t that illegal? Ignoring air traffic control?" asked one of his visitors, a blocky middle-aged man in an expensive suit. The supervisor had already sized him up as the one who was running this show. The police captain and other officers, as well as the gaggle of civil servants from federal and state agencies, didn’t seem to count for much.

"Maybe their radios are out," the supervisor said, more to annoy his unwanted guests than out of any belief. Charlie had only been in town for a couple of weeks on this visit, but already the controllers knew him and his plane.

"Where are they going?"

The supervisor glanced over a controller’s shoulder. "North and a little east."

"Didn’t they file a flight plan?"

"Yeah, but they’ve already deviated from it. Besides, according to the plan they’re coming back here."

"Well, stop them," the suit snapped. The supervisor just looked at him until he realized now stupid that was and reddened.

It’s easier dealing with the DEA, the supervisor thought.

"I mean, can you alert the airports within range and have them report when it lands?" the suit asked in a lame attempt to cover himself.

"If they land at an airport. From the looks of that plane it can set down on any strip of flat desert from here to Idaho."

The suit clearly didn’t like that. The police captain, on the other hand, seemed less concerned. Clearly he was just glad to get the problem out of his jurisdiction.

"Well," said the civilian, obviously trying to control his temper, "can you follow them on radar?"

"For a while. But they’re descending rapidly. If they get right down on the deck we’ll lose them in the clutter."

"How fast can you get a plane after them?" one of the lesser suits asked. The supervisor shrugged. "Ask the police, or maybe the DEA. Or you may have to rent something."

The suit turned to look at the police captain.

"We’ve got an air unit that can follow them for a while," the cop said.

"Don’t worry about following them too far," the supervisor told the visitors.

"They’re headed into restricted airspace. If they don’t change course pretty soon the Air Force will take care of them."

"What will they do?" the suit asked.

"If they don’t break off? Then they’re going to overfly Area Fifty-One. The Air Force is real touchy about uninvited visitors there."

The suit looked apprehensive. "But what will they do about it?"

"Intercept them. Try to get them to land." The supervisor shrugged. "In the worst case they’ll blow them out of the sky."

"We are getting close," Kuznetsov yelled in Mick Gilligan’s ear.

Mick didn’t recognize the terrain, but he didn’t need the Russian to tell him where they were. They’d crossed the highway some time back, pulling up so they didn’t collide with any cars or trucks and scaring the heck out of a couple of tourists. By now they had to be inside the restricted airspace that surrounded the base and soon they’d be over the line on the base itself.

The Russian leaned over Mick’s shoulder and pointed at a nondescript building on top of a nearby mountain.

"Radar station," Kuznetzov shouted over the noise of the engine. "Normally would have been eliminated by speznatzм, but no speznatzм, so:" He shrugged. Gilligan turned in his seat to look at him closely. "What in the hell are you?" he yelled.

"I told you," Kuznetsov shouted back, "I am a businessman."

"Yeah, but what did you used to be?"

"Used to be businessmen were parasites and enemies of people. So I was good Communist like everybody else."

"Heads up!" Charlie called. "Here comes company."

It only took Mick an instant to pick up the two dots headed toward them. They quickly grew and resolved into the gray shark shapes of a pair of F-16s. This is a nightmare, Mick thought I’m going to wake up soon and find out this whole thing is just a nightmare. But the F-16s kept coming.

I should have gotten out back in 1978 when I was still a captain, Major General Paul Manley thought as he stared at the radar plot. Outwardly everyone in the command center was cool and professional, but you could feel the tension rising. Right now the tensest place in the room was the pit of General Manley’s stomach. Unusually for the Air Force, General Manley was not an experienced combat pilot. Even his tour in Vietnam had been spent pulling pilots out of the jungle with Air Rescue rather than dropping bombs. For the first time in his career as an Air Force officer he was probably going to have to kill someone.

"Break off, you damn fools," he muttered at the dot on the scope. But the point of green light kept coming straight for the smear of the mountain range and the base beyond.

One of the problems with running the most highly secret military base in the United States was the tourists. Groom Lake was so secret it was regularly written up in national magazines. So naturally it drew military buffs, peace protesters, flying saucer fanatics and assorted religious cranks, crazies and general-issue looney-toons like a magnet draws iron filings.

That in fact was one of Groom Lake’s functions. While there was some very secret work done here, the focus of developing the next-generation aircraft had shifted elsewhere. General Manley knew that the next generation was really being developed in an industrial park in Los Angeles by a weird mix of civilian engineers, "retired" military officers and science fiction fans, most of whom thought they were working for a private foundation running on a shoestring. There was also the "agricultural experiment station" up in northern Idaho where the really secret work was done. That was so highly classified the general could hardly bear to think about it. While the work went on there, all the flak came to Groom Lake, and it was part of General Manley’s job to catch it. The most dangerous of the groups were the military buffs who prided themselves on collecting every scrap of information about programs they were supposed to know nothing about. By combining everything from chance sightings to seismic records of sonic booms they had pieced together remarkably detailed pictures of several of the craft that actually existed at Area 51, as well as equally detailed pictures of several that had never existed, including one that had started out as a practical joke in the Nellis AFB officer’s club.

Those people the general could almost sympathize with. The most irritating ones, and the most persistent, were the space nuts who kept insisting that the government had a flying saucer hidden in one of the hangars. Their latest tactic had been to file a lawsuit claiming the saucer’s force fields were making people sick for miles around. Lawyers for the saucerians had been combing the sparsely populated desert around the base seeking people with illnesses, real or imaginary, that they could blame on the presence of the alien spaceship. The next step would be a class action suit against the government with all kinds of discovery motions.

Was this more saucer folk, General Manley wondered, or was it another camera crew from a tabloid TV show? Using a Russian airplane would appeal to those bozos.

Whoever it was was in for a big disappointment even if they lived to get here. The truth was there was nothing to see. The plane was so slow the base had plenty of time to get anything sensitive under cover-a well-practiced maneuver because of Russian spy satellites. Besides, nothing interesting happened outdoors in the daytime.

Off in the background a phone rang. The general gritted his teeth and wished he hadn’t quit smoking.

If he thought that plane represented a threat to his command he would have ordered it shot out of the air without hesitation. But unless there was a nuclear weapon on board there wasn’t a damn thing it could be carrying that would seriously hurt this base. He knew it, everyone in the command center knew it and the one also knew the standing orders. The fact was he’d need a damn good reason not to shoot that plane down.

"General," the lieutenant holding the phone said hesitantly. She was young, fresh-faced and buxom even through her flight suit. She reminded the general of his daughter, who was also a lieutenant training at fighter school at Luke Air Force Base.

"Sir, it’s the XO."

General Manley glared. "Sir, he says it’s urgent," the lieutenant offered. The general sighed and extended a hand for the phone. "Sir," the XO said, "I’ve got a lawyer on the phone. And I’ve got the Pentagon on the other line telling us to cooperate with him ’to the maximum extent feasible.’"

Oh Jesus, the general thought, what now?

Wiz was still wondering about it when the scenery changed again. This section of tunnel was neatly floored and walled with blocks of worked stone. Columns stood along the walls supporting groined vaulting overhead. After all the different kinds of tunnels they had seen, Wiz wasn’t particularly surprised, but he was reminded of pictures of the crypts under a Gothic cathedral.

Just to be sure he motioned to Danny. The younger programmer swept his magic detector back and forth across their path and then shook his head. No magic before them.

Wiz took three steps before Malkin grabbed his arm.

"Freeze," she commanded

"What’s wrong?"

"Your trusting nature, for a start," the tall thief said.

"But there’s no magic here."

Malkin looked amused. "Do you think that’s the only danger we face? Look at this place. Why do you think it’s built like this?"

To hold the roof up?"

"Perhaps. But why here and nowhere else we have seen? Give me more light, if you can." With that she picked her way ahead, studying the floor before her intently and occasionally poking and prodding with her rapier.

She got perhaps a dozen steps beyond Wiz before she stopped dead and looked around. Finally she reached into her pack and pulled out a rock the size of her fist. She tossed it underhand at a perfectly unremarkable section of stone floor a couple of steps ahead of her.

As soon as the rock struck there was a creak and a section of the floor swung downward, leaving a gaping blackness beneath. Far below Wiz thought he heard the sound of rushing water, but he heard no splash from the stone. Then there was another creak and the stones swung back into place, leaving the floor looking as perfect as before. Malkin looked smug.

"How did you know that was there?"

The stonework was too regular," she told him, leaving Wiz to try to determine why that section of the paving was any more regular than any other.

"Now listen," she said. "I’m going to go ahead to find the traps. I’ll mark the safe path and then you come through one at a time. No more. We want as little weight on this floor as we can."

As Wiz and the others watched, Malkin picked her way over the stone floor. Twice more she marked hidden traps with a bit of charcoal stuck on the point of her rapier, and once she skipped neatly out of the way as a blade swung down from the ceiling on a long rod.

"All right," she called back as the blade slowed. "The place is so big we’ll have to do this in stages. The first one of you follow my path to here. The next one come to that white stone just in front of the second trap." Wiz picked his way forward and Danny followed. By the time he had reached the now-still blade, Malkin was up ahead, dodging in and out of the forest of columns.

They watched intently as she spotted another trap, then she stepped behind a pillar and they couldn’t see her anymore.

"Hey!" they heard her yell. "What:"

With that Wiz and Danny were off and running. They stayed on the safe path Malkin had marked for them but they were almost side by side when they reached her.

They gasped when Malkin stepped out in the light. Her entire right side was splattered with blood. Gore was matted in her hair and dripped down one side of her face. But she strode toward them strongly, rapier in hand, apparently unaware of the extent of her injuries.

"We," she announced, "have got to do something about that lobster." Shock, thought Wiz numbly. She’s in shock. He and Danny rushed to meet her and half-carried her back to the others. Malkin was apparently too dazed to appreciate their help. She struggled and protested all the way back.

"Will you to let go of me!" she demanded as they laid her down on a cloak. Danny managed to get her rapier and Wiz tried to hold her down so June could work on her. Malkin was having none of it. She pushed and shoved and tried to knee Wiz in the groin.

"Have you run mad?" she demanded.

"Take it easy, you’ve lost a lot of blood."

"What blood? The thing never touched me. I’m fine I tell you."

Wiz looked more closely. In spite of the amount of clotted red all up and down her side there was no sign of fresh blood. He dropped his arms to his sides and stood up.

"You’re all right?"

"Of course I’m all right. I came around the corner and the damn bug squirted me with something."

"But it’s red, and it’s:" Wiz extended a finger to touch Malkin’s gory torso. He drew it back, rubbed the red substance between his thumb and forefinger and sniffed it. "Cocktail sauce," he concluded.

Wordlessly, June produced a hand mirror and held it up before Malkin.

"Oh Fortuna!" the thief exclaimed at what she saw in the mirror. "And you thought I:" She broke up laughing and Wiz, Danny and June all joined in.

"I’m going to kill that lobster!" Malkin growled. Try to serve me up with cocktail sauce, will he?"

"I never did like lobster," Wiz said. "Always gave me gas."

June handed Malkin a cloth and she began wiping the sauce off her face. "I think I’m developing a taste for lobster." She looked down at the red-smeared cloth.

"If I can watch him boil," she added savagely.

Danny was still laughing. "Hey, what’s the matter? I heard you like being smeared with stuff."

"That was honey," Malkin said with some dignity. "And it was completely different. Besides, it was Jerrys idea."

"You what?" General Paul Manley roared into the receiver.

The lawyer on the other end was unperturbed by Manley’s rank or his command bellow.

"That aircraft is carrying a member of an endangered species," he repeated. "We have a federal court order protecting it. Under the terms of that order you cannot harm it."

"What?"

"Specifically," the lawyer went on, "you can’t shoot it down."

That’s the biggest goddamn load of bullshit I’ve ever heard in my lifer General Manley roared. He went on in that vein for several minutes. Then he slammed down the phone.

"Order the CAP not to fire," he said to the controllers. "We’ve got orders from Washington not to down that plane." The controller turned back to her radio to relay the message and General Manley grinned. Then he caught the lieutenant looking at him and scowled again.

"Get the ready squad loaded and in the air," he growled. "If that turkey lands I want him surrounded and arrested."

The Colt roared over the mountains so close Gilligan could have reached out and touched the rocks. Ahead lay a flat tan plain dotted with occasional greasewood bushes. Almost lost in the distance and the dark backdrop of mountains was a cluster of low buildings including several hangars and a control tower. As soon as they were over the ridge line Charlie pushed the wheel forward and sent the plane into a sickening swoop, sticking so close to the mountainside that, for an instant, Mick thought he was going to set down on the slope. Gilligan decided to look up instead but the view wasn’t any less menacing. The F-16s came flashing over the mountain at a much more reasonable altitude, then banked sharply to come around toward them.

General Manley studied the approaching speck through his binoculars. That was a bit of an affectation since he could have gotten a much better view from the optical sensor displays on the console. Heedless of the F-16s buzzing about, the lumbering biplane droned on like a bumblebee on a summer’s day.

"Alcatraz," General Manley growled.

"Sir?" the lieutenant asked.

"When I get that pilot I’m gonna send him to Alcatraz for the rest of his miserable life."

"Sir, they closed Alcatraz prison years ago."

"We’ll reopen it," the general growled, clamping the field glasses to his eyes.

"When I get done with him, that bastard’s never going to see daylight."

"Okay folks, almost there." Charlie chopped the throttle and the big biplane settled toward the desert floor at an unnerving rate. Gilligan resisted an urge to close his eyes.

The lake bed was flat and the Colt was made for rough-field landings. Charlie took full advantage of the plane’s ruggedness and brought them in steeply and hard Gilligan’s teeth rattled and Jerry lost his grip and landed in a heap against Moira.

Charlie was unfazed "I’m going to taxi right up against the thing," he yelled over the engine noise. "As soon as we get there everyone get the hell out." With that he stood on the rudder pedal and gunned the engine to send them bouncing over the desert at a speed that threatened to ground-loop them at any instant. Off in the distance Gilligan could see columns of dust rising where vehicles left the pavement and raced toward them. He looked sideways at Charlie, but the old man seemed oblivious to the approaching danger.

There!" Jerry yelled in Charlie’s ear, pointing past his head to an utterly unremarkable spot in the desert. Charlie nodded, kicked the pedals to bring them around and gunned the engine for one last burst of speed.

Then he stood on the brakes, chopped the throttles and the Kuznetsov radial died in ear-shattering silence.

"Everyone out folks," Charlie called back into the cabin. "Come on. We’re gonna have company in just a couple of minutes."

Gilligan was out of the seat and back into the cabin in a flash. Jerry fumbled with the door until Vasily reached past him and opened it with a practiced twist. Then the dragon, wizard, programmer, pilot and Russians all piled out onto the dusty lake bed.

The desert was chilly, but the glare from the bare soil was disconcertingly bright and the dust kicked up by the prop stung their eyes and skin.

"Is this the place?" Gilligan asked. "If so, do it quick."

Coming over the lake bed were three Blackhawk helicopters painted in green camouflage. Squinting, Gilligan thought he could make out door gunners. Two more columns of dust marked where vehicles were speeding toward them across the desert.

"Stay where you are!" the loudspeaker on the first helicopter blared. "Put your hands up and stay where you are."

"Everyone ready," Bal-Simba boomed.

"My Lord, the circle:" Moira began.

"No time," Bal-Simba said, raising his staff. "Stay close," he roared. The group huddled together at the sound of his voice.

As the F-16s circled and the helicopters flared for a landing, the wizard raised his hands and began to chant.

The security forces, mistaking Bal-Simba’s gesture for surrender, barreled in. They couldn’t hear his voice rising and falling and when the air around the group began to twist and shimmer it looked like heat rising from the desert floor.

As they dropped lower the helicopters kicked up clouds of fine, powdery dust. Even before the wheels touched, the combat-equipped Air Police were jumping from the ships to secure their prisoners.

By the time the dust cleared there was nothing in the desert but a dozen bewildered Air Policemen with M-16s at the ready.

SEVENTEEN HOMECOMING

The world twisted, darkened and lightened again, leaving the party dizzy and blinking. Instead of the brilliant desert sunshine there was the softer light streaming through the windows of the Great Hall.

At the eight points of the compass wizards gaped at them. Behind them, a crowd of castle folk gaped too.

There was plenty to gape at. Unfortunately, the summoning spell wasn’t precise without a physical circle to delimit it. Fortunately, the great hall of the Wizards’ Keep was very large. Fortunate because when Bal-Simba looked over his shoulder he saw he had brought Charlie, biplane and all, with them. As the castle folk gaped at the arrivals, most of the newcomers gaped back.

"Boshemoi!" Kuznetzov gasped.

"Holodeck City," Taj said, looking around. "Awesome."

"Son of a bitch," Charlie said softly. "Son of a goddamn bitch."

Mick Gilligan didn’t say anything. He had done this before, after all. Instead he craned his neck, searching for a familiar head of blond hair.

Arianne advanced across the now-useless circle to greet them.

"Merry met, My Lord," she said to Bal-Simba. "Was your quest successful?"

"I believe so, My Lady." He turned and gestured. "This is E.T., the one we sought."

"Stunned," said the Tajmanian Devil.

Arianne dropped a graceful curtsy.

"Charmed, too," he added.

"Forgive me, My Lord, but we were not expecting so many." Arianne was doing her best to ignore the airplane and Bal-Simba’s rather improbable outfit.

"Things became a trifle complicated," the big wizard said dryly.

"Karin?" Mick called into the crowd gathered behind the wizards.

"Mick! Oh, here Mick."

A blond woman in dragon rider’s leather detached herself from the crowd and threw herself into his arms.

"You came back! Oh, you came back."

"Hey, I told you I would, didn’t I?" Mick Gilligan said softly. "Just took a little longer."

"Have the shadows come back?" Bal-Simba asked his assistant.

"Somewhat. But we have better spells to hold them off, thanks to the time you bought us."

"Any word from the others?"

His assistant shook her head.

"Well then." Bal-Simba sighed. "We had best get our new guests settled and then decide how to proceed."

"I will have their quarters prepared immediately," Arianne said, gesturing the seneschal forward. Then she paused.

"My Lord, just one other thing."

"Yes?"

"How are we going to get this," she asked, gesturing at the airplane, "out of the hall?"

Bal-Simba pursed his lips. "That may pose a problem," he said at last. It was a wonderful, glorious morning when Mick Gilligan awoke after a wonderful, glorious night. The sun was well up and the whole world was so perfect Gilligan thought his heart would burst.

He propped himself up on one elbow to admire Karin beside him. She responded by snuggling closer, a wisp of straw-blond hair falling across her lightly freckled cheek. He leaned over and gave her a wake-up loss. A long, fingering wake-up kiss.

"Hmm," said Karin, stirring beneath him and kissing him back. Then her eyes popped open and she broke the clinch.

"Good morning, beautiful."

"What time is it?" she responded. "Oh, I’m sorry Mick." She gave him a quick Kiss. "I’ve got to go look after Stigi. I should have been down to the aerie long ago." She threw the covers back and swung her long legs over the side of the bed, giving Mick a wonderful view of her trim, athletic back.

"Oh," said Mick, deflated in more ways than one. "I’ll wait here for you then." She turned to look at him and the view from that side was even better. "Oh, come along. This won’t take more than a few minutes." She searched briefly on the floor before finding the chemise she had dropped there several hours before. Yeah," Mick said, "but Stigi doesn’t like me. I think he’s jealous." He didn’t add that the feeling was mutual

Karin pulled on her flying breeches and cinched the buckle. "Pooh. Stigi didn’t dislike you. Besides, I’m sure he’s forgotten all about you. Dragons aren’t very smart, you know."

"You don’t have to be smart to dislike someone and that dragon doesn’t like me."

"Come on, get dressed. I’ll show you how wrong you are."

As he hunted up his clothing strewn about the floor Mick remembered how his ex-wife used to make jokes about being jealous of his F- 15. Mick was beginning to suspect that those jokes had been more pointed than he knew.

Wiz was dreaming of Moira. She was with him again and they were back in their chambers at the Wizards’ Keep, all tangled together in the big bed with the feather comforter. Moira was in his arms and she was kissing him all over. As she covered his body with warm, wet kisses Wiz smiled and groaned in his sleep. He knew it was a dream, but he didn’t want to wake up from it, ever. It was so real, so vivid. He could not only see Moira and feel her moist tongue as it stroked his flesh, even the smells were real.

Especially the smells. In fact Moira smelled like she’d had spaghetti with a particularly aggressive marinara sauce. She reeked of garlic.

Something tickled his nose and he opened his eyes to sneeze. The first thing he realized was that Moira wasn’t there. The second thing he realized was that the lobster was. In fact, the lobster was basting him with garlic butter. Wiz let out a yell and rolled away from the lobster.

The noise woke Glandurg, who threw off his cloak and grabbed Blind Fury in a single motion. Unfortunately the cloak landed on Wiz so he was temporarily immobilized.

The dwarf sprang to his feet, brandished his weapon and charged.

"Die, vile crustacean!" he yelled, just as he stepped in the puddle of garlic butter and went flying. He landed flat on his back and the lobster vanished into the darkness.

"Run, you damned bug!" the dwarf yelled after the fleeing shadow. "You’ll taste my steel yet!"

"My, don’t we smell delicious?" Malkin said as she came hurrying up. Wiz glared.

"There’s a pool back that way," she continued. "You better wash that stuff off before something comes wandering by and decides you’re good enough to eat."

"Hmpfl" said Wiz, and worked his way carefully to his feet.

The aerie was an enormous gloomy cavern that stank of dragon and reminded Mick irresistibly of the hangar deck of a medieval aircraft carrier. Men and women in the plain tunics of keepers and the leathers of riders bustled about caring for their charges. Occasionally the silence would be punctuated by the scrape of a manure shovel on rock, or the bass rumble of a dragon, but for the most part the place was quiet. Even the soft leather boots of the riders made no sound on the rocky floor.

"Why do you keep it so dark?" Mick asked, thinking of the brightly lit hangars of his own experience.

The dragons prefer it," Karin told him. "And keep your voice down. They don’t like loud noises either."

They skirted three harnessed dragons on the great central floor of the aerie, keeping well clear of the powerful tails. Their riders stood by the dragons’ heads petting and talking to the beasts. Mick noted the ready patrol was spotted so the dragons were well separated. Probably to keep the dragons from fighting, he decided.

Karin took something that looked like an iron rake from a rack and hefted a leather sack from the row of similar sacks beneath it.

"Currying iron," she explained. "Stigi likes to have his back scratched."

"Do you do this every day?"

"Unless I am ill or we are in the field. Contact helps build the bond between dragon and rider. Now, walk to the outside, away from the stalls. Dragons prefer those who are familiar to them."

"How long will this take?"

"Oh, not long, love. A day-tenth or so. Then I shall be free for the rest of the day." She gave him a sultry look past lowered eyelashes. "I’ve made arrangements with my squadron leader."

She led him along the far edge of the chamber, past the shallow caves that served as stalls for the dragons.

"We’re almost here," Karin told him. "I’m sure Stigi has forgotten all about you. You’ll see."

They stopped in front of a stall no different from any other. Dragon tack hung next to the entrance, clean, oiled and ready for instant use. From within came the sound of gentle snoring-loud gentle snoring. Through the gloom Mick could see the dragon curled up like an enormous house cat.

"Oh, Stigi," Karin called gently.

At the sound of his rider’s voice, the dragon stirred lazily and opened one eye. Then he saw Mick. His head jerked erect so fast it slammed into the roof of the stall and he let out a roar that made the cavern ring. Alarmed, other dragons took up the challenge until the place echoed and re-echoed with the steam whistle bellows of upset dragons.

"He remembers you," Karin shouted over the chaos.