Myth 13 - Myth Alliances Asprin, Robert (top 100 novels .TXT) 📖

you fell for it. But you're just a kid. What'd you pay for them? A silver piece? They're not worth more than a copper or two, and usually they come with a free banana inside each one.”

“Four gold pieces a pair,” the boy managed to get out.

“Aaagggh!” Tenobia shrieked, waving her fists. Coolea fled behind the chair for shelter. She pounded on the table. “Every junk seller in all the dimensions must be looking out for you morons, to unload the most useless trash they've got!” She gestured angrily at the others. “I feel like locking him up and throwing away the key.”

“No,” Oshleen smirked, grinning widely enough to make the Wuhs sway with fear, “send him back and make him ask for a refund.”

“The Deveels?” the boy gasped. “No! No! Oh, please, good dames, spare me! Not a refund!”

“Good idea,” Nedira agreed with her allies. She grasped Coolea by the shoulder. The two of them disappeared.

“Slippers!” Tenobia pointed a finger at the glass sphere on the table. “You people make me so furious I could eat you, except your lily livers would give me indigestion! Af?ter all we've done for you!”

The little figure in the snow globe on the table looked thoughtful.

“All right,” Vergetta grunted. “Let's try and get some business done.”

Myth 13 - Myth Alliances

TWENTY-THREE

“It's so good, it practically sells itself!”

FROM THE PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL

FOR THE EDSEL

A shaggy-​coated herdbeast bleated in my ear. We were sit?ting among them in the shadow of the king's statue in the park at the other end of town from the castle, on the energy line that supplied power to the Pervect's computer. I had disguised the four of us as beasts to blend in.

Unfortunately, that was earning us some unwanted at?tention, Tananda especially. Whenever I used an illusion spell to make us look like the denizens of a dimension, she always insisted on being made a beautiful whatever-​it-​was. In this case, that meant she was the prettiest ewe in town, and every ram in the field was doing his best to get her attention.

Bunny was less enamored of sitting in the middle of a smelly feed lot, and didn't care what kind of a herdbeast she looked like. Normally she would be neck and neck with Tananda, insisting on the current standard of beauty, but at the moment she was watching Zol avidly as he linked his little notebook to the Pervect's magik mirror. I

noticed that Bytina having touched Zol's computer, now had exactly the same pictures appearing in her little look?ing glass. It seemed that infinite links could be made very easily.

“The ironic thing,” Zol began, as his long fingers flew over the button board, “is that the easiest way into a system is through its security gates. The least safe mode for a com?puter is when it is operating.”

“Stands to reason,” I replied. Though I knew nothing about computers, I knew something about systems. “When you're in the midst of a mission, the last thing you have time to do is watch your own back.”

That was why I had partners. At the moment I was in the “back-​watching” position, and Zol was gathering the infor?mation we needed.

Zol gave me a luminous smile of approval. “Precisely, Master Skeeve! I never ceased to be amazed by your ca?pacity for comprehension.”

I smiled back, a little uneasily. Not that I didn't enjoy basking in the little gray man's fulsome praise, but after having to pry compliments out of my former associates with a crowbar I mistrusted someone who threw off acco?lades whenever ... he felt I'd earned one. He seemed just a little too easy to please. He didn't seem to notice my discomfort.

“Now, by looking at the active components, the open books on the desktop, so to speak, we can see what they have been doing today. Hmm ... they have a weather-​prediction program ... that one they are using hasn't got the latest updates. The prognostication section has a flaw. It foretells firestorms when it means light rain. It's given rise to panic in some dimensions, as you might guess. Yes, see here?” he pointed at the center of the mirror. “ 'Partly sunny, with widespread devastation toward evening.' There's a partial letter home... and the operator has played over five hundred games of solitaire, with a 7:1 win-​lose ratio.”

“Whew!” I whistled. “I'd have liked to hire her as a dealer for the casino our partnership once owned. She must have very fast fingers.”

“Oh, they aren't physical cards, Master Skeeve; they're magikal projections. You can play hundreds of different card games on a magik mirror like this. Unfortunately, in everything but solitaire, your virtual opponents tend to cheat.”

“Just like real players,” I nodded.

“But among all of this detritus they are working on plans,” Zol said, his huge dark eyes reflecting the light coming from the small square mirror. “We are in the envi?able position of being able to monitor their every move. See this? Men, machinery, logistics, principles of general?ship ... They must be out for empire-​building. This is big?ger than I ever dreamed possible. Marvelous!”

“Marvelous?” I echoed.

Zol beamed at me. “Yes, seeing how the minds of Pervects work. Released from the ease of their own dimen?sion's comforts, they set their sights on spreading then-​influence across the multiverse. What an opportunity to observe! Untrammeled ambition! How the two halves of their nature intersect! They seek to Pervert the course