He fidgeted uncomfortably. “Well, it’s a long story. I … I’m not sure where to begin.”
I suddenly remembered that non-Pervects tend to get nervous at the sight of Pervect teeth and dumped the smile.
“Why don’t you start at the beginning? How come you’re having money problems? You seemed to be doing all right the last time we were here.”
“That’s when it started,” he sighed, “the last time you were here. Remember how they used to settle who was going to be the government around here? With the Big Game?”
Actually I hadn’t thought about it for years, but it was starting to come back to me as he talked.
“Uh-huh. The Big Game between Ta-hoe and Vey-gus each year would decide who would get the Trophy and be the capital for the next year.”
Quigley nodded vaguely.
“Right. Well, that’s all changed now. When you guys won the game and took off with the Trophy, it stood the whole five-hundred-year-old system on its ear. For a while there was a faction that maintained that since you had the Trophy in Possiltum, that’s where the capital should be for a year. Fortunately, wiser heads won out.”
It was nice to know that there were some hassles that passed us by. I noticed that in spite of himself, Skeeve had perked up and was listening as Quigley continued.
“What they finally decided was that a Common Council should run the government. The plan was put into action with equal representation from both city-states, and for the first time in five hundred years the government of the dimension stabilized.”