"Don't you dare," I said, and then, because it was literal minded, I added a simple, "No."
My boss had the habit of making changes and then going back and deciding she'd rather have things the first way after all. Yes, I know it's a female cliche, but she really was a woman and she really was like that. Judy, now, Judy is more decisive than I'll ever be..
After the spirit promised it would indeed remember both versions of the report, I waited for it to finish setting down the new one. When that finally wafted over to my desk, I read it through to make sure all the alterations were accurately transcribed, then set it in my boss' in-basket for the next round of changes. And then, it being about the time it was, I went out to my carpet and headed home.
I took with me the list of firms that used the Devonshire dump. I left behind the forms that showed what they'd dumped there; those would be more secure behind the office's wards than the cheap ones my block of flats uses. But I figured I could do some useful work at the kitchen table, just grouping the firms by type. That would also give me at last a start on knowing what sort of toxic spells were in there.
After a dinner I'd rather not remember - certainty nothing to compare to the lush Hanese spread I'd enjoyed with Judy the night before - I piled dishes in the sink, gave the table a couple of haphazard wipes, took out a sheet of parchment and inked a pen, then buckled down to it The first dung that hit me was just how many defense firms dumped at the Devonshire site. All the big aerospace consortia that have kept the Angels City economy booming for decades used the place: Confederated Voodoo (it's Convoo these days, what with the stupid and paranoid mania for clipping consortiate names into meaningless syllables: who'd waste time with name magic against as diffuse an entity as a consortium?). North American Aviation and Levitation, Demondyne, Loki (I wondered if byproducts from Lola's famous Cobold Works were trying to trickle through the wards around the dumps; some of them might be very bad news indeed), all the other famous names.
Along with them were a host of smaller outfits, subcontractors mostly, that nobody's ever heard of except their mothers: firms with names like Bakhtiart Precision Burins, Portentous Potions, and Essence Extractions, Inc. I looked at that last one for a while, trying to figure out in which square it belonged: my transmogrifled list had evolved into a chart. Finally I stuck it in almost at random: with a name like that, it could have done just about anything (another modem trend I despise).
Along with the defense outfits were several of the Hollywood light and magic companies. When I thought about it, that made sense; Hollywood has always been a magic-intensive business. I wished I remembered which outfit had made the St. George epic that had snarled traffic this morning - I might have been tempted to try some name magic on it myself, more because I knew it would be useless than for any other reason.
I was a little more surprised to find how many hospitals were on the list Layfolk see only the benefits medicine brings; they don't think much about the costs involved (except the ones that come from their purses). But healing bodies - and especially working with diseased souls - takes its toll on the environment like any high-tech enterprise.
There's only one major carpet plant left in Angels City - the General Movers looms in Van Nuys. They dumped at Devonshire, too. The GM plant wasn't high on my list of probable culprits, though. For one thing, I had a solid notion of the kinds of spells it used. For another, it's likely to close down in the next year or two: too much competition from less expensive Oriental rugs.
And what was I supposed to make of outfits called Gall Divided, Slow Jinn Fizz, and Red Phoenix? Until I got back to the office to see what they were dumping, I was as much in the dark about what they actually did as I was with Essence Extractions, Inc. They sounded more interesting, though, I must say.
After a moment, my eyes came back to Red Phoenix. I underline the name, just on the off chance. The phoenix was a bird neither Judy nor I had thought of the night before. It would be worth checking out, at any rate.
I started to call Judy to tell her about it, then remembered Wednesday was her night for theoretical goetics. She's only a couple of classes away from her master's initiation. One day before too long I expect her to be writing grimoires instead of copy-editing them.
Having done as much on the list as I could do, I tossed it back in my attache case, read for a while, and then got ready for bed. Through the thin wall of my flat, I heard the fellow next door howling with laughter at whatever ethemet program he was listening to.
One of these days soon, I figured I'd break down and buy an ethemet set for myself. They're based on a variant of the cloning technique that's put telephones all over lately. In the ethemet, though, they clone thousands of imps identical to a few masters. Whatever one of the masters hears, each done repeats exactly-provided you've chosen to rouse that particular imp from dormancy.
You can buy plug-in imp modules that let you choose from up to eighty or a hundred different ethemet offerings at any one time. More and more people all over the country are listening to the same shows, admiring the same performers, telling the same jokes. Unity isn't bad, especially in a country as big as the Confederation, and I don't deny the advantages of being able to pass on news, for instance, quickly.
So why didn't I have an ethemet set of my own? I guess the basic reason is that too much of what they spread is, pardon my Latin, crap. Not to put too fine a point on it, I'd sooner think for myself than get my entertainment premasticated. Go ahead, call me old-fashioned.
When I got to the office the next morning, the wizard was still working on the elevator shaft. No, I take it back; more likely, the wizard was working on the elevator shaft again.
What with everybody's budget being tight these days, the government isn't enthusiastic about overtime. I walked up to my office. Yes, I know it's good exercise. It also wasted the shower I'd taken just before I left home.
And on my desk waiting for me, just as I'd known it would be, was my second draft of the report on the spilled load of fumigants. I gave it a quick look-through. Not only had my boss changed about half of her revisions back to what I originally wrote, she'd added a whole new set, something she didn't often do on a second pass. And on the last page, in green ink that looked as if it would be good for pacts with demons, she'd written, "Please give me final copy this afternoon." I felt like pounding my head on the desktop. That cursed silly report, which could have been and should have been two words long, was going to keep me from getting any useful work done that morning. Then the phone started yelling at me, and the report turned into the least of my worries.
"Environmental Perfection Agency, Fisher speaking," I said, sounding as brisk and businesslike as I could before I'd had my second cup of coffee.
Just as if I hadn't spoken, my phone asked me, "You are Inspector David Fisher of the Environmental Perfection Agency?"-and I knew I was talking to a lawyer. When I admitted it again, the fellow on the other end said, "I am Samuel Dill, of the firm of Elworthy, Frazer, and Waite, representing the interests of the Devonshire Land Management Consortium. I am given to understand that yesterday you absconded with certain proprietary documents of the aforesaid Consortium."
Even through two phone imps, I could hear that capital "C" thud into place. I could also hear Mr. Dill building himself a case. I said, "Counselor, please let me correct you right at the outset. I did not 'abscond with' any documents. I did take certain parchments, as I was authorized to do under a search warrant granted in Confederal court yesterday."