Myth 13 - Myth Alliances by Asprin, Robert (ebook reader online free .txt) 📕

carry it, to show what a good little boy I was, then yelled at me when I broke something.”

'There is no harm in giving you a standard to which they wish you to live up,“ Zol lectured, sternly, ”but it is never fair to exceed the physical abilities of the person one is teaching."

“They meant well,” I defended them faintly, but to be honest I was thinking not just of my female relatives, but of my friend, mentor, teacher and partner Aahz.

He always pushed me to the levels that he knew I could reach, even though at the time I was certain he must be wrong. He had tried to dissuade me from undertaking this mission, and I had ignored his advice. Had he known that I was overstretching myself? I hoped not. I found myself both missing his company and dreading our next meeting at the same time.

After some urging Parrano had taken us on a tour through the shop floor section of the factory. My first view of a thousand Wuhses embroidering was nearly enough to make me turn tail and run back to Klah. It was the most spectacularly boring enterprise I had ever seen. The hands holding the needles rose and fell, rose and fell in a spiky tidal motion. You could literally hear a pin drop as occa?sionally one of the sewers dropped a fastener on the ground.

This was the main support of the Wuhs economy? If I hadn't already known that the Pervects had another con?cern going somewhere, I would have thought they were in?sane relying upon what Aahz called “tchotchkes” and “schmattes” to provide a livelihood for thousands of fami?lies, not to mention turning a profit for the Ten.

Row after row of workers, stitching by hand or running a length of cloth through a pixie-​powered machine, turned out pile after pile of white, cream, pink and yellow tea tow?els. I didn't think there was that much tea served anywhere in all the dimensions.

We looked in every door and under every single thing in all of the rooms we visited, but there was no sign of Wensley. Many of the people knew him, but no one had seen him since the day of the riot. Everyone was convinced he was dead. I didn't want to believe it.

Some of the goods the Wuhses made were for sale in the cafeteria. Bunny and Tananda went eagerly to look over the

offerings while Zol and I got some refreshments. We sat down at a table full of Wuhses, and I tried to draw them into conversation.

“So what do you do?” I asked for the forty-​third time, no longer caring if I got an answer.

“I tat lace table runners,” twinkled a little white-​haired granny, her hands going together and moving as if she was holding a shuttle and spool. I always noticed that when you asked someone how they did something, they would tell you verbally and describe it through body language. She bit off an invisible knot, then her horizontal-​slitted eyes peered at me sharply. “You look like you could use some decent table linens, visitor. Look for my name on the tags, and you'll be sure of the most basic quality.”

“Thanks,” I smiled, trying to sound appreciative, though lace table runners would be as useful to me as water-​soluble handkerchiefs.

“How about you?” I inquired of a blunt-​faced male with a pot belly. He took in a breath suddenly, as though my question had called his mind back from far away.

“What?”

“What do you do here?” I inquired.

“I embroider tea towels,” the Wuhs intoned dully. “I sew daisies and jonquils. I like yellow.”

His hands started to go through the inevitable display of his art. I watched curiously, as instead of the motions of drawing a needle up and down, he seemed to be stacking various items on top of one another, stretching overhead and dragging down a pencil-​like device to touch the items then letting it go. Next, both hands reached to his left and came back holding an invisible cylinder which he set down over the parts already before him, screwing it down and fi?nally hitting an unseen plunger a couple of times with the palm of his hand.

“What kind of tea towel is that?” I asked Zol.

“I like purple,” uttered the Wuhs next to him, mechani?cally. “I do very fine lilacs and lavender sprays.” But the

motions he went through were the same as the blunt-​faced male.

“Do you know, Master Skeeve,” Zol replied, after a few moments study, “it's no kind I've ever seen before.”

“I sew roses,” a third Wuhs began.

“I make leaf motifs.”

“We missed something,” I muttered to Zol. “We have to go back in there and find out what is going on.”

Tananda leaned over my shoulder at that moment. She had an armful of linens, and pretended to display one for me.

“The spy-​eyes are all turning this way, handsome. Should we do something about them?” I started to turn to look, but she gripped my shoulder with iron fingers. “Don't look this way. Not with your own face on.”

I felt icy fingers running down my back. Hastily, I reached out with my mind for the nearest energy line. For?tunately, there was a strong one running through the build?ing, a possible reason the Pervects had chosen to build on this site. There was no time to warn Bunny. I saw the look of puzzlement on the face of the Wuhs serving her at the kiosk