Myth Alliances

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

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

She knew he was going to be trouble from the begi

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

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

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

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

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

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

If her master's program in marketing at the Perv Academy of Design hadn't been enough to teach her her business, a full century at Bushwah Tomkins and Azer had certainly cemented her reputation as an i

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

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

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

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

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

TWENTY-FOUR

"Interesting place. Wonder what they sell here?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bu