"Okay, I believe you," Jerry said. "But it’s not going to be as simple as you think."
"Pizza’s ready," Mario called from the counter.
"Excuse me, I’ll get them."
Moira fidgeted until he returned with the two steaming pizzas and paraphernalia. He set them down and shook a dash of red pepper flakes onto his.
"Want some?"
Moira looked at the shaker and liberally lashed her pizza with them.
"Careful, those are hot."
The hedge witch frowned and shook some flakes into her palm and popped a hefty pinch into her mouth.
"So they are," she agreed and added some more to her pizza.
Jerry sighed and took a bite of his own pizza. A couple of slices of pepperoni fell off the heaped toppings and onto the table.
"What is that?" Moira asked, pointing and wrinkling her nose.
"That’s pepperoni," Jerry said. Here," he picked a slice off his pizza, "taste it."
The hedge witch drew away. "Thank you, no. It smells spoiled. I do not mean to be discourteous, My Lord, but I do not see how you can eat that."
Jerry eyed Moira’s anchovy, onion, garlic and feta cheese pizza and said nothing.
They ate in silence for a few minutes, Jerry devouring about half his pie and Moira finishing her first slice.
"My Lord," Moira asked finally, "would you be willing to help us?"
"Oh sure. My deal with ZetaSoft is about through. But it isn’t that simple."
He took another enormous bite of pizza and dribbled sausage crumbs and a piece of mushroom back onto his plate.
"If what you say is true you’re going to need a lot more than me," Jerry said around the mouthful of pizza. "You’re talking about taking a one-man program and turning it into full production software, with documentation, a bullet-proof user interface and probably a suite of programmers’ tools as well."
Moira regarded him seriously but uncomprehending.
"Now, I presume there’s some sort of deadline on this thing?"
"We need it as quickly as possible."
"Okay, that’s do-able, but not with just one more programmer. We’ve got to have more people. We need a full team."
Moira helped herself to another slice of pizza. "Can we get them?"
Jerry considered. "There are some problems. For one thing it will be expensive."
Moira set down her slice of pizza. From the folds of her skirt, she produced a leather pouch. She opened the drawstring and tipped it up. A ringing cascade of golden coins rained out between the hot pepper flakes, grated parmesan and napkin dispenser. One or two of them rang tinnily against the pizza pans.
Behind the counter, Mario continued with his baking, oblivious to the fortune that had just been poured onto one of his Formica table tops.
Jerry stared and licked his lips, tasting pizza grease. Conservatively this redhaired space cadet had just put about $25,000 on the table—literally.
"Will that be enough?" Moira asked innocently. "I can get more, but it would mean another Summoning."
"Lady, for that kind of money we could buy a couple of software startups, programmers and all!" Jerry said fervently.
Then he stopped and frowned. "But that’s only half of it. We’ll have to recruit them and that’s not going to be easy. You need the people fast, right?"
Moira nodded.
"You also need them good. They’re going to have to pick up on a new language and a whole new operating environment and charge right into work. This is not gonna be a job for BASIC bozos or COBOL drones."
Moira nodded vigorously. She didn’t know what BASIC or COBOL were, except that Wiz said they caused brain damage in those who used them.
"Now there’s another thing. This has to be done secretly, correct?"
"We have no objection to telling those of your world how you aided us. Bal-Simba and the Council would not be so mean as to deny them credit."
"The Council?"
"The Council of the North. The wizards who oversee our land. They would gladly provide testimonial."
Jerry thought about what a letter of recommendation from a council of wizards would look like in his resume file.
"Totally secret," he said firmly. "And we need to find the people in a hurry."
"Is there some guild hall or chantry where we might go to find people?"
Jerry considered while he polished off another slice.
"Well, the headhunters are out, that’s for sure."
"I should hope so! We need these people alive."
"That’s not what I meant—although with the kind of candidates headhunters turn up it can be hard to tell if they are alive."
"You make sport of me."
"A little, maybe. But it’s going to complicate things." He reached for the last slice of pizza on his plate.
"So what we need," he summed up, "are people who are good enough to do the job, who are available and who can be made to believe you." And, he added silently, who are crazy enough to come along on something this dangerous. "That’s not a common combination."
Jerry’s eyes fell on one of the handbills tacked to the bulletin board. Even from this distance he could see the picture of the man in full armor and the woman in a long dress.
"I think," he said slowly, "I know just the place."
Jerry took Moira home with him for the night. "There are no motels close by and I live near enough to walk," he explained as they trudged the deserted streets.
Moira simply nodded, unconcerned by the proprieties.
She was yawning behind her hand by the time they reached his apartment. He offered her his bed but she would not hear of it. So he settled her on the couch in his cluttered living room with a blanket and pillow.
"Tomorrow we’ll get an early start," he told her. "The place is about an hour and a half from here and it may take us all day to find the people we need."
"Good night, My Lord," Moira said, drawing the blanket over her.
Jerry left her and headed into the bedroom. If she’s not here in the morning I’m not going to believe any of this! he vowed to himself.
Thirteen: Recruiting Drive
If you eat a live toad first thing in the morning, nothing worse will happen all day long.
To you or the toad.
well, most of the time anyway…
Wiz spent a cold, miserable night in the freezing pit. With the dawn his prospects didn’t look any brighter. If he didn’t get out of here he was going to die of hunger and thirst. Actually, he’d probably die of the cold before he could die of hunger or thirst.
Face it, he told himself as he looked around for the hundredth time, the only way this could get worse would be for the sorcerers to find you.
Up above there was a scraping, as if something was clawing at the cover of the pit. With a groaning of hinges the cover moved aside and a shaft of sunlight streamed down into the depths.
Wiz looked up and saw a huge scaled head peering down at him. The dragon cocked its head to one side and ran its forked pink tongue over its ivory fangs.