With a flourish she reached under the big table and produced a palm-wide cylinder with a plunger on top.
"Signature chop?" Monishone asked.
"Half right," Niki grinned, hitting the knob on the top. Businesslike little blades dropped out of a concealed mid-section. "It chops. It purees. It mixes. Put it down on top of raw food and it makes a meal out of it. Automatic safety doors so idiots can't stick their fingers in the blades or the heating element."
"Technology?" Monishone snorted.
"Don't knock it. I think it'd sell in more places than your stupid toy. It doesn't use electricity, it doesn't need magikal energy to run. All power is provided by piezoelectric contacts. It's very simple technology. Even a moderately smart monkey can operate it."
"So the Wuhses will have no trouble making them?" Charilor said, pointedly.
"The one thing I can't fault these sheep on is manual dexterity," Niki assured them. "We've got the capacity for mass production. I've already had our concealed shop stop making the glasses. Crom knows what we'll do with six thousand unsold units. We can't break them down en mass. The magik released would probably blow up the castle. We were lucky there were no accidents on Scamaroni."
"We'll find something to do with them," Vergetta assured them. "If we have to let them go at a loss to the Deveels, well, that's life."
"In the meantime, we need to make it a priority to find that damned D-hopper!" Loorna ordered.
"All in favor?" Vergetta asked, putting up her hand. "Ten in favor. None opposed. The motion carries. Go get 'em, ladies!"
"What about the Wuhses?" Nedira inquired, concerned.
Vergetta waved a hand. "They're fine. Every single one of them got blipped back to his or her home. About now they're discovering that they can't get out the door, the window, or even up the chimney. They can all sit in tonight and think of their sins. Tomorrow morning the magik seal will release, and the Wuhses will be free to go to work as usual. The minute they're back home again, wham!" She smacked her palms together. "They don't go home, they find themselves there anyhow. A few nights of early curfew might remind them that they've got responsibilities, too, so they should act like adults and stop getting in our way. As for their bellwether," she raised a clear glass globe off the table and shook it, causing the small object inside to go tumbling through the liquid that filled the interior, "he's going to spend his time-out with us for a while."
Sadly, Zol, Tananda, Bunny and I returned to the inn. Gleep's drooping ears and scales pretty much defined the mood of all of us. We were in complete and utter shock. I was numb. I kept tripping over paving stones, never even feeling the bruises on my legs and shins.
"I never thought they'd react so brutally to a challenge," Zol repeated for the sixth time. "It's… genocide. Wiping out a crowd of protesters so callously, well, it just goes to prove that I know very little about Pervects. I can see why other races do refer to them once in a while as Perverts."
"I'm almost ready to call them that myself," I agreed, hardly able to believe what I had seen. "Poor Wensley!"
"Maybe he got the D-hopper back," Bunny suggested. "Maybe he just blipped out of here." But she didn't sound as though she believed it.
"Who's going to explain to Montgomery what just happened?" Tananda asked.
I straightened up. "It's my job. Wensley hired me to come in and help him. I'll have to inform his fellow committee heads." I sighed. "I should have listened to Aahz. He told me that I was out of my league on this mission. He was right. I wish he was here."
"You did the best you could," Bunny assured me, coming up to take my arm. "Wensley did this on his own. You didn't tell him to, and you weren't here when he made his plans. Look at it this way: what would Uncle Bruce do if one of his lieutenants went off and got himself killed because he was underprepared?" "I suppose he'd still pay for the funeral," I offered glumly.
"I doubt it," Bunny retorted crisply, though her large eyes were full of tears. "But I'm sorry for Wensley."
"It was a hero's passing," Zol intoned solemnly.
Montgomery was cleaning glasses behind the bar when we entered. "Evening, Masters and Mistresses," he greeted us blithely. "I wouldn't presume to tell you your business, but may I suggest a nice glass of wine, or something stronger? If I looked like one of you, I'd tell myself that I needed it."
"We do," I agreed, sliding into the booth that we had more or less come to regard as our own. "Master Montgomery, I don't really know where to start. We have some bad news for you. The revolution…"
"… Went all wrong," the innkeeper finished for me. "I know it. Ragstone, my potboy, told me all about it."
I peered at him, wondering if I had heard him incorrectly. "It went worse than 'all wrong,'" I stated. "It was a total failure. There were no survivors. Where was Ragstone watching from?"
"Oh, he was in the thick of things," Montgomery declared.
"He was on the drawbridge?" I asked.
"He was up the stairs on the way to the Pervects' big room," Montgomery replied, looking around at all of our puzzled faces. "He said they never had a chance. One minute he was about to break down a door with my best barrel-rolling stave, and the next minute there's a big flash of light and he's back here."
"Here?" I echoed.
"Aye, in his room. Which he shares with Coolea, my stable lad. Both of 'em as puzzled as a crossword. You've never seen such faces," the innkeeper chuckled.
"They're alive?" I demanded. "But we thought the Pervects had killed them all." "I bet the boys wondered if they was dead," Montgomery grinned. "Finding themselves at home looking at the ceiling. We're all surprised, too. I thought like you did, that they might put down armed resistance with force, but maybe the Pervects are more merciful on us poor misguided souls than we would've been on them."
Zol's eyes danced. "This is more material for my study," he asserted eagerly, pulling out his notebook and tapping in several lines. "What a fascinating turn of events."
"And your employees weren't harmed at all," I pressed Montgomery.
"Well, except none of 'em can go out and about. I was right surprised to see you come in. I thought it didn't work. We've all tried to go out, but it's as if there's no door there."
"That," Tananda announced, once we had all gotten over the shock, "is one powerful group of magicians. Two couldn't have done such a mass working by themselves. Not even ten of them could have. What we saw them do the other day to combine their power has to be unique. I feel outgunned and outclassed."
"And yet they temper their actions with mercy," Zol muttered, writing furiously. "Intriguing."
I thought for a moment. "It doesn't sound like mercy so much as a warning. They don't want to destroy their workforce. They'd have to train thousands of new Wuhses to do the work."
"But what about our revolution?" Montgomery said.
Zol gave a rueful smile. "And with such a demonstration of power, will you refuse to do your work tomorrow?"
"No!" the innkeeper exclaimed, his slitted pupils wide. "No, I'll get up early! I'll work late. Providing we can all get out of here in the morning, that is."
"What about Wensley?" I asked.
"Oh, he don't live here, Master Skeeve. You ought to try his house. And on the way past, if you'd be so kind to drop in at Carredelest's delicatessen? He lives above his shop. There's not a bite to eat on the premises, and I can't get out of here to pick up my order."
"Sure," I agreed, absently. "Where does Wensley live?"
TWENTY
"There's something funny going on here."
— g. carlin
"I'm sorry," responded a petite female Wuhs with dark curls, through the window of a pleasant blue house several blocks from the inn. "My mate is not here."
"That's strange," I murmered, almost to myself. "Everyone else was returned to their homes."
"He could be with his parents," Kassery suggested apologetically. "They are not well. He is there as often as he is here. I applaud his eagerness to b
e a dutiful son."
"Hmm." I nodded slowly. "That might explain it. Could you tell us how to get to their home?"
"They don't live in Pareley," Kassery offered. "I could send them a note… if I could leave here, but at present I am finding it difficult… very difficult. Is it possible that I might be allowed an explanation of my temporary indisposition? Not that I am upset about it, of course," she added hastily.
As quickly as I could I told her what had happened. "No, no, no," the female shook her head disbelievingly. 'This is not my Wensley. It couldn't be." Following Kassery's instructions, we traveled out a few days' journey into the countryside to a small village in Rennet, in the midst of a great forest just beyond the borders of Pareley. Gouda and Edam, Wensley's mother and father, the local apothecary and schoolmaster, were as puzzled as we were.
"He hasn't been here in some weeks," Gouda explained, serving us tea in a scrupulously clean kitchen. She was a plump little woman, with soft, very deft hands. "He said he's involved in a project for the common good. I might make a guess, though you can tell me if I'm wrong, and I probably am, that you are involved in that project?"
"I think we are the project," I explained. "It's just that we've lost track of him." I glanced at the others, and they nodded. No sense in worrying them, when they could do nothing.
"I thought as much. It's clever of him to bring demons to enrich our local Wuhs culture, when all the others he knows are bringing back inanimate souvenirs. Why, they can't talk, can they?"
I knew plenty of knickknacks that could talk, and more, but I didn't believe then was the time to bring that fact up. "He definitely had… has a purpose for us," I said, hastily correcting myself. I had to stop talking; my concern for the missing Wensley was making my tongue trip over itself, and it really didn't need the help. "We're trying to live up to his expectations."
Gouda smiled. "He's such an intelligent boy, so curious, though I probably shouldn't brag about him to you… but would you care to see some pictures of him as a child?" "He's still not here," Wensley's wife informed us, when we called upon her on our return to the capital. She regarded us with wide-eyed fear and hope, the latter of which I hoped we could justify by discovering his whereabouts and restoring him to his family.
"He'd surely be returned nightly, if he was still around," Montgomery told us, as he escorted us upstairs to our rooms. "We're all still having to have our secret meetings in the daytime. Once the sun sets, bang! It's cutting something fierce into my trade. But on the other hand, my lunch business is going very well," he added, talking loudly to the air.
"Are you being spied upon?" I inquired.
"Never be too careful," the innkeeper replied. "The Pervects seem to be here, there and everywhere these days."
We joined one of the secret lunchtime meetings, held with great ceremony in the back room of a tavern owned by a Wuhs named Crozier not far from the central factory. The situation had clearly worsened. Everyone was going a little stir crazy at having been under house arrest for a week. The Pervects had succeeded in intimidating them into compliance with every whim, no matter how trivial. Not that the Wuhses need much intimidating, mind you.
"We're all going to work," Gubbeen admitted to us over a mug of beer, "but we're not enjoying it. That's putting things strongly, I know, but it isn't only my opinion. I wouldn't say such a thing myself, not unless I was assured of wide support from my friends and co-workers, that is."
"The Pervects have to go," I declared, causing most of my listeners to dive underneath the table, and emerge only when it became apparent that the ceiling wasn't going to fall in on them. "But the problem is that there's no easy vulnerability that we can exploit to get them to leave. We still have to find where they're weak, and push on it."
"But they are not weak!" Ardrahan, the female commit- teefriend exclaimed, and confided to the ceiling, "They are all powerful and strong!"
"More Wuhses than ever are being taken in for extended personal conversations," Gubbeen whispered. The Wuhses who worked as janitors nodded their heads vigorously, but were afraid to say anything aloud. They had been sitting and listening to us with their mouths clamped tightly shut except to eat.
"Where are they being held?"
"In the, er, basement apartments," Ardrahan stammered, with a glance at the silent cleaning staff for corroboration.
"Is Wensley down there, too?"
"He is not… there, good Master Magician," said one of the janitors, a female with silver scattered through her black curls. "The only ones that we are, er, hosting, are those whom our visitors wish to speak to under conditions where they… aren't interrupted."
"I know about the interrogation chambers," I burst in, making them dive underneath the table again at my direct phrasing. "Is there anywhere else in the building where he could be?"
"We are fairly certain that we ought to be able to state with some degree of certainty…" one of them began.
"YES OR NO?"
"Uh, er, no." They looked taken aback that I forced them to provide a one word statement. I tried to remember that Wuhses were generally nice people, and that the frustration I was feeling was my own.
"And he's not in anyone else's home? Then he must be in a public building. Like, one of the factories, for example."
"I don't see how any of the missing Wuhses could possibly be concealed in the factories, Master Skeeve," Gubbeen protested. "Our workers clean every facility every day. The Perverts see to that." Here he gave me a hard look.
"It's not my fault they managed to come back," I retorted. "I know how disappointed you are but I did my best to make sure they stayed out of your dimension. They're tough. You knew that. I have a lot of respect for Pervects' abilities, both magikal and otherwise. They're fantastic negotiators. If I hadn't been thinking wishfully I might have guessed that they would have gotten themselves out sooner or later. I'm sorry it was sooner."
Gubbeen grumbled to himself, but he didn't say anything. I intimidated him, too, and I'm one of the least terrifying people I've ever run into, but Wuhses terrify easily.
"All right," I offered in a soothing voice, "you're probably right. How could anyone live in a factory? I'm only trying to look in all the corners, hoping to find my friend while we try to figure out what the Pervects are up to now."
I had to admit that it was a setback to have the eight turn up again so soon. Zol was at a loss to explain their reappearance.
"I don't understand it, Master Skeeve," he had stated apologetically. "I gave my testimony to the judge. In my opinion the perversion of minds is one of the greatest crimes in existence. They should have remained in custody for at least thirty days. Per victim."
But it hadn't happened. We were still dealing with ten Pervects instead of two. If I hadn't given Wensley my word, I would have been back at my studies. No, that's not true: I was worried about his disappearance, and while it had only offended me at first that the Pervects had gone from contract employees to de facto rulers of their country, now that I had seen them in action I was incensed at their callous disregard for the Wuhses.
"So we have to go back to the drawing board and formulate a new plan. Does anyone have any ideas?" I asked.
"N-n-nno," the assembly bleated.
I didn't think so. I felt sorry for them. I just wished that they wouldn't keep looking at me for leadership. But I guess it went with the territory. If Wuhses were capable of making strong decisions, they wouldn't be in this mess.
Being under the yoke of the Pervects, even by proxy, made it hard for me to think. I was going back daily to Klah to check on Buttercup. The war unicorn did fine on his own, grazing in the fields behind the inn and putting himself in his stall at night, but I could tell he was getting lonely. I brought Gleep back with me so the two of them could play while I thought. I was eager to resume my normal life, but I had a job to finish.
"All right," I sighed. "May I take a look in the factories?"
Gubbeen lowered his eyes. "I regret, Master S
keeve, that only authorized personnel may be admitted during business hours. For safety reasons, you understand."
"Really?" I asked, looking from one Wuhs to another in mock surprise. "What happened to the legendary Wuhs hospitality? All I want is a tour."
"Oh!" Gubbeen's mouth dropped open. "I apologize, Master Skeeve. How terrible of me to misunderstand you! I am so ashamed you had to ask. We would be so pleased… No one has ever wanted a tour before. Of course!"
Parrano, a lanky male with a full head of thick, pale curls, bustled ahead of us importantly. "This is so rare, to have visitors," he told us eagerly. "Normally only our directors come here. They are most particular. We have strict standards of quality."
As in every place the Pervect Ten had held sway, the building was ridiculously clean. The structure itself, a plain square of stone blocks, had none of the charm of the Wuhs town. Built by the Pervects not long after they had arrived, it had been plunked down in what had been a park, convenient walking distance from several residential areas. A few pleasant lawns with formal flower beds and clusters of bushes were maintained at the perimeter, but as one got closer to the structure itself, the ground was covered by flagstones polished to a gleam. I noticed, and Tananda could not have failed to observe, that every approach could be covered by a single person standing opposite any comer at a distance of less than a hundred yards. The factory was more easily secured in an emergency than the castle.
A couple of Wuhses in boiler suits followed us from the door, sweeping and polishing the floor where we had walked. I could have been offended, but I didn't want to attract any attention from the Pervects, and I did not want to get my hosts in trouble. All I wanted was for us to investigate and see if we could guess what the Ten were up to next.
The wooden door that Parrano led us through seemed unusually heavy for its size. I sent a pinging thread of power into it, and discovered it was a sandwich of metal concealed in between planks of wood. I followed Tananda's eyes to the ceiling overhead as we entered the showroom. A pair of disembodied eyeballs bobbed in the corners, one turned toward the door through which we had just come, and the other aimed at a smaller door at the rear of the room. There were frames on the walls with swags of curtains, but the windows in them were fake. It did look as though they were hiding something, but what?
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