The Wizardry Quested w-5

by Rick Cook

  "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.

&nbs
p; "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.