She gestured to the "hot seat," where a tall, pale-haired Wuhs sat with Tenobia's knee across his thighs.
"An old lady told us that you took a couple of Klahds through the factory,” the torturer hissed. "Confess!"
"But madam," Parrano protested. "Tours are not against the rules."
"They saw our special project!"
"W-w-what special project?"
With a questioning tilt to her head, Charilor held up an eggbeater.
"Never mind the small stuff," Tenobia growled. "Bring me the gumbo!"
This Wuhs had already heard the stories from Gubbeen and Coolea; he was babbling out his entire life story and apologizing for every misdeed, minor, major and imagined, that he had ever committed. Sweat poured down his silly face as he tried to scramble away from the purple goo in the bowl. "I'm sorry! I'll never do it again! I swear to you, ladies, I swear!"
"All right, all right, all right!" Vergetta exclaimed, pushing Tenobia away from her victim. "I believe you."
That declaration was little consolation to the Wuhs, who had passed out cold at the sight of the pseudopods of bubbling stew pulsing out of the bowl at him. Niki slung him over her shoulder and trudged downstairs to put him into a cell to recover his wits. Charilor picked up the gumbo and a spoon. "No sense in wasting good food," she commented.
"But if that gibbering fool didn't show them the Pervomatics," Oshleen pointed out, "then this Skeeve saw through the concealment wards. Damn, but this Klahd must be packing some fierce firepower. His reputation must be true."
"As strong as ours?" Nedira asked.
"Well, it would have to be," Vergetta agreed.
"I'll pit my wards against anyone's magik!" Monishone protested.
"Then how did he figure out where we were going? What we were making? The Pervomatic hasn't been anywhere but the factory and Ronko!"
"He wouldn't have to have seen them at the factory," Caitlin spoke up. They all turned to the littlest Pervect. She pounded her hands down on her keyboard. "He hacked us. I've got a power signature on my computer that came in not too long before the trouble started on Ronko."
"He's got a computer?"
"Why not? He's got a credit card. I found his credit history on line between Deva, Klah and Perv."
"How'd he get into your system?"
Caitlin avoided the eyes her elders, ashamed to be caught off guard. "My bad. I didn't think I'd have to put locks on the back door to this thing, not since this is the only computer in the entire dimension, but it seems I was wrong."
"Wow," Charilor scoffed. "She actually admits she was wrong about something."
"I think all these Wuhses have been lying to us," Loorna growled. She threw a hand at the glass prison on the table. "That one claims that they hired him to get rid of us. I think they brought the Great Skeeve here to bankrupt us so that they can keep us here forever."
"I want to go home!" Oshleen wailed.
"Right," declared Vergetta, putting her hands down decisively on the table. "This means war. He can't be in too many places at once, no matter how tough he is. We'll have several fronts. If he shuts one down, then we'll have the others. He can't cover every dimension. We'll diversify, get into places before he knows that we're there. And we'll shut him down. We are the Pervect Ten. The second he comes back here, he's history."
Oshleen raised a slender eyebrow. "What makes you think he's coming back?"
Vergetta picked up the snow globe and shook it. "We've got his friend."
TWENTY-SIX
"What do you say to a little revolt?"
"In a paperweight?" I repeated, not for the first time.
"In a crystal sphere," Kassery said, huddled with us behind the statue. "I couldn't say if it was used to hold down paper or not. Many of those invited by the Pervects to… to go and converse with them… claim that they have seen him."
Trust a Wuhs not to be able to make a straightforward statement about anything. "Are you sure it's him, not an illusion?" I said.
"Well, I would hesitate to doubt such upright members of the community," Kassery waffled, "but I have also heard Coolea say something similar. He claimed that he saw my mate standing before our tormentors, then was whisked away."
"I believe that would confirm that it is he," Zol suggested. "If the Pervect Ten meant to frighten their interviewees with the thought that they, too, could become a permanent guest they would leave him on display. Pervects are not subtle people."
"That's true," I agreed. "All right, that's it. I've been feeling guilty because I believed I had driven Wensley to a suicide attack. That had me stuck for a while, but I'm not stuck any longer. We're going to get him out."
"How?" Tananda asked, reasonably.
"The only way to do it is to beat the Pervect Ten into submission," I insisted. "We strip away their strength and put them at our mercy."
The looks on my friends' faces ranged from astonishment to open pity. Even Gleep wore a puzzled expression.
"Ten Pervects at our mercy?" Bunny asked.
"Are you sure you are feeling all right?" Kassery inquired, with tender solicitousness.
"I'm fine," I informed her. "I'm better than I have been for ages. I'm not crazy. I know how we can do this," I think. "We can't beat them if we go at them head to head, but we're not going to; we're going to hit them where they live—literally."
Tananda watched me carefully. "It sounds like you want to commit organized suicide. Mind letting us in on your plan?"
"It's not organized suicide, or suicide of any kind." I looked her squarely in the eyes. "A good general never wants to go into battle. I learned that from Big Julie. But when you have to, you go in to win, one way or another. Where you can't win openly and honestly, you win any way you can, because the enemy is going to do the same thing. Right? And you know me. I don't want any of us to get hurt, not even the Pervects, if I can help it. To do that I need your help. All of you."
Tananda's moss-green eyebrows climbed her forehead. "I'm not sure I like the way this is going. Excuse me for being skeptical, but I signed on to watch your back, and I will. I'll do anything you need me to, but I'm not even a little sure what you want to do is possible."
"Trust me," I pleaded. "You might like what I'm going to suggest. At least I'm hoping you might. At least, I'm hoping you won't throw me through a wall for suggesting the first step I want you to take. I need you to go back to Scamaroni and look up your friend Scootie."
A half-grin appeared on her face, and her shoulders shifted unconsciously as she considered it, not unfavorably, I thought. "And ask him what?"
I whispered in her ear. She let out a long giggle, took my face between her palms and gave me a big kiss right on the lips.
"See you later, handsome," she waved. There was a loud bamf as she vanished into thin air.
"What can I do?" Bunny asked eagerly.
"Nothing right away, but I'll need you and Bytina to help with negotiations with the Ten."
"Why Bytina?" Bunny asked, with wide eyes.
"Access," I grinned. "With what I have in mind we may not be able to speak with them directly. Bytina may be the only way we can communicate with them. I'm going to trap them inside their own fire spell."
"How?"
I waggled my eyebrows. "Tanda's gone to get the means. I hope."