The Wiz Biz II: Cursed & Consulted (22 page)

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eee-eh heh heh, eee-eh heh heh
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As Wiz watched, the creatures disappeared through an open inspection panel into the guts of the computer. The last one, evidently realizing it was being watched, waved gaily to Wiz before it dived after its fellows.

"Uh, folks," Wiz said just a shade too calmly. "I think we've found our problem."

For a moment no one said anything. For a long moment.

"What in the World was that?" Jerry demanded finally.

"I have seen their like before," Moira said. "The mill in my village had one. How the miller would curse when the thing played tricks on him! He had me down there nearly every new moon to try to rid the mill of it."

"I take it you didn't have much luck?"

"No. Sometimes it would quiet down after I came. Sometimes not. Once it dumped near a barrel of flour on the miller and me as we left the mill after the exorcism."

She paused and shrugged. "I do not know what to call them. They are so rare they do not have a name."

"Gremlins," Wiz supplied. "We have gremlins in our computer. Wonderful."

"Gremlins?" Moira asked.

"Little magical creatures that live in machinery and cause trouble." He jerked a thumb at the infested computer. "You know, gremlins."

Moira frowned in the especially pretty manner she had when she was confused. "Love, how is it you have names for these things if they do not exist in your world?"

"They didn't exist so we had to make them up."

Moira raised an eyebrow. "That makes less sense than most of what you say."

"That's because you've never worked around complicated equipment. Believe me, it's enough to make you believe in gremlins even when you know they don't exist."

The hedge witch sighed. "I will take your word for it."

"The real question is, how do we get rid of them?" Jerry asked.

"I do not know. I was not very successful with the one in the mill. Perhaps one of the Mighty will know more."

"What can you tell us about them?"

Moira pursed her lips and tried to think. "Not a great deal, I fear. They are very uncommon."

"You said there was just one in the mill," Wiz said, "I just saw seven of them go into the computer."

"That is very unusual. I have never heard of more than one at any place."

"I'm surprised you don't have them around the Capital with all the magical apparatus there."

"Only mechanical things attract them. Aside from that," she shrugged, "I know only that they are somewhat like the other Little Folk, the ones you call Brownies."

"Wait a minute," Wiz said. "Do you think Brownies could give us some pointers on handling these pests?"

Moira considered. "I do not know. We have no Brownies here to ask."

"No, but there are Brownies at Heart's Ease. Lannach and his people, the ones I rescued in the Wild Wood."

The hedge witch nodded. "They are in your debt then. It is worth a try, yes."

The brownies arrived the next day, brought along the Wizard's Way by Malus.

"We are here, Lord," Lannach said, hopping down from Malus's pack onto the table and bowing deeply.

Wiz bowed back to the little manlike creature. "Thanks, Lannach. If you can help us we'd really appreciate it."

Behind Lannach, Breachean, Loaghaire and Fleagh jumped down to the table. Then Meoan climbed out of the pack and Brechean and Fleagh helped her down.

Wiz's eyebrows went up. "Meoan too?"

The little woman looked up. "Am I unwelcome then, Lord?"

"No, not at all. I just thought you'd stay at Heart's Ease with your baby."

"Lord," Meoan said gravely, "we owe you our lives. Small we may be, and with scant powers. But we do not forget our debts."

"Well, if you can keep these little bleeders under control you can consider the debt paid in full."

" 'Twere best we were about it then," Lannach said.

While Wiz and the others watched from across the computer room, Lannach knelt by a ventilation grill in the base of the console. He called out in a language that sounded like an excited mouse. Then he cocked his head and listened intently.

Although Wiz heard nothing, Lannach apparently got a reply. While Wiz and the other humans fidgeted Lannach conducted a long and seemingly involved conversation in mouse-squeak. Finally he stood up and dusted his hands on his moleskin breeches.

"Your device is inhabited, Lord," he reported, hopping up on the table next to Wiz.

"We know that."

"They thank you most gratefully. They say they have never seen a more fitting home for their kind."

"So we've got seven of them living in there?"

The brownie's tiny face creased in a frown. "Seven? Oh no, many more than that, I think."

"We only saw seven."

"Ah, well they are shy creatures so doubtless you did not see them all. Besides, they multiply quickly when they are in a place to their liking."

"Look, we don't mind them living here, but we can't have them interfering with our work. Is there any way to keep them in line?"

The little creature shook his head. "We can try, Lord. But they are flighty and chancy beings. They will not keep their word even if they can remember from one minute to the next what they have sworn to."

"I don't suppose a repulsion spell like
ddt
would do any good?" Wiz asked hopefully.

"Little, I fear," Lannach said. "As you may know, Lord, non-mortals differ in their susceptibility to such things. These are especially resistant. They are hard to dissuade and they would even be hard to kill by magic."

"Great," Wiz muttered.

"We can do this, Lord. If my kin and I work together we can probably dissuade them from their worst mischief."

"That would be something anyway," Wiz sighed. "Okay, Lannach. Do your best. Meanwhile Moira will show you your quarters and fix you up with something to eat."

"We have a place for you in the kitchen," Moira said as she led the gaggle of brownies out the door, "and bowls of milk for you all."

"Wonderful," Wiz said as the brownies left. "We got cockroaches. Insecticide-resistant cockroaches."

"Just think of it as working with beta version hardware," Jerry said helpfully.

Wiz glared at him. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"No, it just puts the problem in perspective."

Wiz groaned.

Ozzie Sharp drained the last of his cold coffee and paced down the line of radar and communications operators. He briefly considered going forward and getting another cup, but his tongue felt like it had grown fur, his stomach was starting to go sour and the combination of the coffee and the cabin noise of the aircraft was making his bladder twinge already. Better save it until he needed the caffeine.

He looked for a place to set down the cup, but most of the flat, stable surfaces in an AWACS aircraft are for work. He kept the cup clenched in his brown fingers and turned his attention back to the radar displays.

Ozzie wasn't a big man, but he was built like a fireplug. There were traces of gray in his curly black hair, but he still moved in a way that suggested that if there was a brick wall between him and where he wanted to be it was too damn bad for the wall. Like the crew, he wore a dark blue Air Force flight suit. But there was no insignia of rank on Ozzie Sharp's flight suit because he had no rank.

"Anything?" he asked the operator at the end of the line.

"Not a thing," the operator said, never taking his eyes off the screen. The operator didn't add "sir" and Sharp understood the significance of that perfectly.

Well, fuck 'em. Ozzie Sharp had been sent here from Washington because he was one of the best trouble shooters in the agency. This was trouble and he meant to get to the bottom of it.

So far he was just a passenger. The general had set this operation up before he arrived and all Ozzie had to do was ride along. The general might be content to command from the ground, but Ozzie Sharp wanted to be where the action was.

The AWACS was further west than usual. Whatever was out there was tricky. Moving the plane out over the Bering Sea made it easier to burn through the jamming and pick up the weak radar returns.

Orbiting nearby were two F-15 Eagles with conformal fuel tanks for extra range and Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles to deal with whatever they encountered. Perhaps more importantly, the fighters also carried a variety of sensors including special video cameras to record what they found.

Back at the base were more Eagles, two KC-10 tankers on alert, and another AWACS, ready to take up station when this group reached the end of their endurance. They had been doing this for four days now, but no one was getting bored.

The operator, a skinny kid with a shock of dark hair, turned to his passenger and tapped his screen. "Ivan's out in force today."

"What's that?"

The radar operator grinned. "Our opposite number. An Illuyshin 76 AWACS."

"Observing a test?"

The operator shrugged. "Maybe. But if I had to guess I'd say they're looking for something in that fog bank—just like us."

"With just the AWACS?"

"Nossir, that's not their style. But they like to hold their interceptors on the ground until they've got a target and then come in like gangbusters. Their birds are probably faster than ours but they don't have the range."

Sharp nodded. It was a well-known fact that the Soviets were years behind the West in jet engine technology. What the Americans achieved by sophisticated engineering and advanced materials, the Russians got by brute force at the cost of higher fuel consumption.

But high-tech or low-tech, the effect was the same, Sharp reminded himself. When those interceptors came they could be damn dangerous.

"Make sure our people know about this," he told the operator.

"Already done," the operator replied, pleased he had anticipated the civilian.

The operator turned back to his screen, scowled at it, then reached over and fiddled with the controls.

"Hello, hello," the operator said to himself. "Looky here." Then he thumbed his mike.

"Okay, we've got contact. Bearing 231 and range approximately 220 nautical miles. Height 500."

The pilot's voice squawked in his earphones. "Five thousand?"

"Negative. Five hundred."

"Understood," the pilot came back. "Five hundred feet."

"Eagle Flight," the flight controller's voice came on the circuit, "you are cleared. Now go!"

"Eedyoteh!" Go!

Senior Lieutenant Sergei Sergovitch Abrin of the PVO—the Soviet air defense forces—eased the throttle on the Mig 29 Flanker forward. The plane rolled down the rain-slick runway gathering speed as it came. In his rear view mirror he could see his wingman behind and to his right. He was vaguely conscious that the second pair of his flight was taking off on the parallel runway several hundred meters to his left.

The weather was abominable, fog and occasional flurries of snow and rain. But that was nothing out of the ordinary and Senior Lieutenant Abrin had nearly a thousand hours flying out of this base.

As they passed the critical point, he eased back on the stick and the powerful interceptor lunged into the air. Even as he climbed into the overcast, Sergei Abrin ran another quick check of his systems.

A Mig 29 had the range for this mission and no Soviet interceptor carried a more powerful or sophisticated radar than the one in the nose of his Flanker. Whatever those things were they were damn hard to pick up on radar and he would need all the power he had.

Satisfied, he watched the altimeter wind up and considered what he and his men were heading into.

For weeks now the powerful warning radars along the coast of Siberia had been getting anomalous and faint returns from out over the narrow sea that separated Russia and Alaska. Recon flights had shown nothing and previous attempts to intercept these things had failed. After the usual dithering and indecision, Moscow had decided to make a serious effort to discover what was happening on this most sensitive of borders.

An early warning aircraft had been assigned and interceptor squadrons were given permission to depart from their regular training plans to investigate in force the next time something was sighted. They were also fitted with long-range fuel tanks and given full loads of fuel—a departure in the defection-conscious Soviet air force. If that wasn't enough to convince the pilots how serious this was, the KGB showed up and installed a number of very black boxes in each aircraft.

Senior Lieutenant Abrin thought of himself as a man of the world, as befitted the son of a medium-high party official. He had his own theory about this thing.

It was no accident that nearly invisible aircraft were flying along the US-USSR border. Obviously the United States intended this series of provocations as a tactic to wring further arms concessions from the Soviet negotiators in Vienna.

Well, they would learn the folly of their ways. For longer than Sergei Abrin had been alive, the men and machines of the PVO had stood between the Motherland and the Capitalist aggressors. If they wanted to play games over this narrow sea they would find that the Red Air Force could play also—and far better.

Still, he thought as his interceptor raced out over the ocean. This was a bitch of a day to be flying.

"Go!"

Patrol Two kneed the dragon and pulled on the reins. In response the beast swept into a wide, gentle turn. He was obviously happy to be going home and so was Patrol Two.

The squadron leader's instructions had been explicit. Head out on this track for four day-tenths, then reverse course and return to the temporary base the dragon riders had established on one of the small islands. Each rider had set out alone on a slightly different course to cover as much of this strange new world as they possibly could in the least amount of time. The squadron leader didn't want to stay on the island too long for fear of discovery and for once Patrol Two fully agreed with him. They would pause another day to rest their dragons and then they would leave this ill-begotten place.