Rick Cook - The Wizardry Quested

If the show floor had been a madhouse, this was bedlam. Up on stage a lounge band was backing a female impersonator belting out torch songs. The place was packed, of course, and everyone seemed to be trying to talk over the band and each other. Along the walls four bars were going and a huge buffet table dominated the center of the room, complete with a melting ice sculpture of what was probably supposed to be an orchid. There were orchids everywhere. Clouds of them. Wreaths of them. Garlands of them. Orchids as boutonnieres, orchids as corsages. Orchids as centerpieces. And where there weren’t orchids there were crepe streamers in orchid purple and white.

Jerry parked Bal-Simba by the bandstand and set out to work the room in search of Taj. Trying to look inconspicuous, he jammed into the crowd around one of the buffet tables and scarfed a handful of shrimp. The crab claws were already gone he saw, so the party had been going on for a while. Meanwhile he scanned the crowd, hoping to see Tajikawa, or at least a friendly face.

He couldn’t see either and the more he looked the less likely it became. This wasn’t the right kind of party. The ratio of suits to ponytails was way too high and there was hardly a laptop open anywhere.

He was still scanning, looking for technical types amid the noise and chaos, when a perfectly coifed woman in a blue suit slid in next to him.

The woman smiled brightly. "Snarf mafoozle gleeber justik," she said.

"I beg your pardon?"

She leaned closer and raised her voice to be heard over the din. "I said what did you think of the big announcement?"

It occurred to Jerry that he was laboring under a severe disadvantage here. Not only didn’t he know what the "big announcement" was, he’d never even heard of Mauve Technology. And hadn’t the faintest idea what- if anything-it made. He thought about opening the press kit and actually reading it but he discarded the notion instantly. For one thing the light was so poor he wouldn’t be able to read anything and for another it would make him suspicious. He decided to play it safe.

"Really something. Pretty ambitious, isn’t it?"

"We have to stay on the leading edge. I’m sorry I don’t recognize your company name. Are you a distributor or a VAR?"

"Uh, we’re kinda a technology partner. Actually I was hoping to meet someone here. E.T. Tajikawa."

"Oh, is he with our West Coast sales office?"

"Uh, not exactly. Your software people know him."

"You wait right here and I’ll go see." With that she turned and dived into the crowd. Jerry made to follow her but before he could take a step, a large man in a suit stepped in front of him and stuck out his hand.

"Perry Jacobs," he boomed, "vice-president of sales." It was both a greeting and a challenge and Jerry was acutely aware of how little he fit with the business-suited crowd swarming around them.

Jerry smiled brightly. "Cantraf colgain esper jokake jon," he mumbled, as if it meant something.

"Glad you’re enjoying it," the other boomed. "Here let me give you one of my cards."

Jerry extended one of his. "Meeper gleeble ranamuck shusur."

"Yeah, I’ve gone through a pack of them, too," Jacobs boomed.

Meanwhile, Bal-Simba was enjoying himself, in a bemused sort of way. The singer, a Judy Garland impersonator, was taking advantage of his size and appearance by playing off him, flirting with him as he sang, flicking him with his silk scarf and vamping outrageously. When the number ended the singer blew Bal-Simba a kiss and scampered offstage. That was the cue for the band to take a break, and for the first time in several minutes Bal-Simba could hear himself think.

"I said, quite a show isn’t it," said a voice at his elbow.

The wizard turned and saw a small man in a bad toupee standing beside him.

"It is indeed," Bal-Simba agreed, which seemed safe enough.

"They’re going all out," his new acquaintance said. They missed the top of the IPO cycle, their quarterlies are off and if this doesn’t fly big they’re probably going to have to gobble up a couple of startups with good stories to save their offering."

Bal-Simba nodded sagely.

The man extended his hand. "Peter Saperstein, of the Saperstein Group. You know, the Saperstein Technology Letter." Bal-Simba nodded again.

"So, who are you here for?"

Bal-Simba took the first name he could think of. "IBM."

"That’s not what it says on your badge," Saperstein shot back.

Bal-Simba realized he had blundered.

"You weren’t supposed to say that, were you?"

If there was one thing the big wizard knew it was when to keep his mouth shut. So he just smiled slightly at his new acquaintance.

"Look," Saperstein went on, "I know you can’t say anything, non-D and all that, but just let me lay a scenario on you."

"I cannot stop you."

"First off, it’s gotta be big if you’re here under a cover name." Saperstein thumped the big wizard on his chest where his badge was pinned. "Your badge doesn’t say IBM. But it does say ’wizard,’ so you’re obviously in software development and you sure as hell don’t work on the AS400 if you’re walking around dressed like that So you gotta be blue-sky and if you’re here, that means edutainment and that," Saperstein concluded triumphantly, "means a partnership arrangement with Mauve."

"That is a great deal of speculation," Bal-Simba said mildly. Anyone who knew him would have recognized the reproof in his voice, but Saperstein didn’t know him and wouldn’t have wanted to spoil a hot story even if he had.

Saperstein craned to look through a random rift in the crowd. "Excuse me, I gotta go talk to someone."

Bal-Simba nodded, not realizing he had not only made his acquaintance’s evening, but saved Mauve Technology as well.

": unique market position with the possibility for strong leverage of our technology through the channel," Jacobs was saying.

Jerry nodded and smiled. So far he’d managed to keep from revealing his ignorance, but it was getting harder. For one thing, since the band had quit playing he’d actually had to talk to Jacobs. For another, Jacobs was angling hard for some kind of commitment. Since Jerry still didn’t have the faintest idea what the company did he couldn’t agree to anything without giving himself away.

"Well," Jerry began, "you nave to understand our position vis-a-vis the market."

"Excuse me." Jerry found himself shouldered aside by a small middle-aged man in an expensive suit and cheap toupee. "Peter Saperstein, of the Saperstein Group. You know, the Saperstein Technology Letter?

What’s this about a joint game venture with IBM’s European division?"

"Where the hell did you hear that?" Jacobs demanded

Saperstein shrugged. "Around. So mere is something to it?"

"No. I mean, I can’t comment even if it was true."

"When are you going to make the announcement? Not at the show, is it? So that means sometime in the next quarter, right?"

"I can’t say."

"A little further out then."

"Uh," Jerry said, "if you gentlemen will excuse me:" But neither was paying any attention.

He was heaving a sigh of relief when someone touched his arm. It was the woman in the blue suit.

"I checked with the software people. They say Mr. Tajikawa isn’t here."

"Oh, well thanks anyway."

She smiled a thoroughly professional smile. "Don’t mention it. If there’s anything else I can do:" and with that she was lost in the crowd.