"Zol Icty and four visitors," he announced, beaming at us. "Excuse me. Five visitors." He winked at Gleep. A humming sound erupted out of nowhere. I felt as if someone was touching me on the back. When I jumped around to see who it was, the touch moved to my front, but no one was there. Gleep swiveled his long neck to peer over his back and under his belly. By the expression on their faces Bunny, Tananda and Wensley had also felt it. Only Zol looked calm. He gestured as the translucent panel slid sideways. It was a door.
"This way," our host directed us. He led us down an immaculately clean, white-walled corridor. Oddly, this surprisingly clean place reminded me of the Bazaar, because loud, unintelligible noises, music and shouting poured out of every door. Tananda, Gleep and I stuck close together, on guard in case anything jumped out at us. Bunny walked with Zol, hanging on his every word. "I confess I am a trifle peckish after all that work. Would you like something to eat while I and my friends analyze the map?" "Yeah!" I replied avidly. Zol smiled and pushed through one of the identical doors. The room beyond was filled with Kobolds, all staring into screens like his and playing upon keyboards as though they were pianos. At the far end of the room was a long table filled with brightly colored packages.
"Help yourselves," he offered. "The amount of nourishment in each bag is approximately equal to one-sixth of a Kobold's daily needs, therefore Master Skeeve will need twelve, Mistress Tananda nine, and Mistress Bunny eight. Gleep can have as many as he likes."
The packages were easy to tear open. The food inside was mostly what was sold in taverns at the Bazaar as snacks to eat with beer: sweet or salty, crunchy morsels. I munched on golden twists that smelled faintly of meat. Gleep ate the packages wrapper and all, licking his chops happily. Tananda picked through the packets and chose bags of tiny cookies and some pork rinds. Bunny waited and selected what Zol did.
"Take as many as you like," Zol invited, tearing open a bag of cheese pretzels. "And here! Have something to drink."
He filled mugs for us from a keg set in a cradle at the end of the table. I took a deep draught, and nearly choked. The beverage looked like ale, but tasted sweet and fizzy, filling my nose, lungs and stomach with bubbles. I lowered the tankard in a hurry, and let out a tremendous belch. I smacked my lips, waiting for the familiar sensation of warmth and well-being. It was not forthcoming.
"Not very strong, is it?" I asked.
"Oh, this isn't liquor," Zol explained. "Liquor is consumed on Kobol, and it's very good, but you cannot do complex mathematical calculations if you are drunk. We wait until after we log out."
My mother had taught me the basics of arithmetic when I was a child, and I'd picked up a lot about bookkeeping, percentages and commissions in my years working in and around the Bazaar, but nothing I had ever done or seen remotely resembled the work I observed going on around me.
"What are they doing?" I inquired.
"They are helping to maintain our reality. Field agents such as I gather up factual information. These analysts translate it into formulae that we are working on to explain how everything fits together. They help us decide what crops to grow, what professions to take up, what parcels of land to develop… oh, everything. We call it the Unified Field Theory."
I gazed around me. All the noise I had noticed coming in was not coining from the Kobolds, but rather from the computers. While line after line of tiny characters spun out on the shining surface of some, other Kobolds were using their mirrors to spy upon the actions of travelers such as my own companions. Where those travelers encountered opposition, say meeting up with other-dimensional beings, bloody battles always seemed to ensue. None of the parties I saw ever tried to avoid conflict, instead drawing sword or raising wand against one another immediately. I watched being after being die, until I was nearly weeping for the unnecessary loss of life.
"Don't worry," Zol assured me, touching my arm sympathetically. "Those aren't real. They are only make-believe characters in a game. Kobolds use such things to relax their minds when they are not working. It's only a game."
"A game?" I reiterated, shocked. "Why don't they play a real game, like dragon poker?"
"Too easy," Zol shrugged. "The odds are fully calculable, and that's not relaxation to a Kobold."
"Too easy?" I sputtered.
"Why don't they just go and relax… when they want to relax?" Bunny said, her eyes fixed on the busy Kobolds.
"They seem to like it," Tananda commented. "Look, they're all smiling. They get pleasure from these devices." She eyed the nearest Kobold up and down with a speculative eye. He was grinning vacantly at his code. His fingers seemed to stroke the buttons on the board sensuously. Tananda moved closer to him.
"Mistress Tananda, I have always said that the folk of Trollia understand physical sensation better than any other dimension," Zol smiled, admiringly. "It is true. And the computers enjoy the contact as well. Kobolds become one with their machines, joined at the fingertips. The more a Kobold interacts, the better the computer understands him or her. There is an important symbiotic relationship between us and our computers. In fact, we can't leave them for long, Master Skeeve. If one doesn't pay a great deal of attention to one's unit, it becomes lonely, in extreme cases taking its own life. The others mourn, and sometimes suicide in sympathy. And a Kobol left alone after its computer dies is a sad and terrible thing. It takes intervention by such social researchers as myself to bring them back and introduce them to a new unit. Still, you never forget your first computer." Zol sighed reminiscently.
A fetching unit with a red case alone on a table started blinking its screen at me. I moved closer to look. In the mirror I could see my reflection, only my image's hands reached out and started to fondle the button board. Hypnotized, I began to follow suit.
"Don't do that!" Zol ordered. I halted, my fingers in mid air. The screen signaled frantically. "Not unless you're planning to make a lifetime commitment to it."
"A lifetime…? Oh! Like attaching a dragon." Gleep, hearing the word, trotted over and leaned his head against my leg. I moved my hands away from the keyboard to pet him. A sad face appeared in the screen.
Zol shook his head. "No, much more comprehensive than that. You two wouldn't be able to live without one another." "Me and a machine?" I was aghast. The face in the mirror became even sadder.
"It's a natural symbiosis. Your creativity interacting with the computer's. It's really very fulfilling. We've been interactive for centuries."
"What about marriage?" Bunny asked, curiously. "Don't men and women marry on Kobol?"
"Oh, of course! When a couple of Kobolds have compatible systems, they can have a long and happy life together," Zol explained. "Computers don't interfere with personal relationships. They can enhance them."
"It would make accounting a breeze," Bunny murmured, looking at the red-cased computer. The face didn't look at her. In fact, it cut her dead. Occasionally, when it could catch my eye, it gave me dreamy looks like the ones with which Bunny favored Zol. "Can it be adapted to work in an all magikal environment?"
"Naturally," Zol replied. "Mine is fit for travel. It's a dual-power system. When lines of force are available, it uses them. When only electricity is to be had, well, then, it plugs in." He smiles. "I can see it intrigues you."
I frowned as she regarded the author with adoration. 'Td love one!" she cooed.
"Bunny, I don't think you ought to… er, get involved… with anything strange."
She turned to me. "Why not? Zol wouldn't let anything hurt me. Would you?"