by Rick Cook
"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 d
o 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."