Now, however, I was confronted by an entirely new situation.
Everyone in the crew was hanging around the castle . . . with the exception of Tananda, who was minding the offices back on Deva. The question was, did they have to be here?
I had a hunch that they were mostly staying here because they were worried about me . . . not without some justification. They all knew I was in a spot, and wanted to be close at hand if I needed help.
While I appreciated their concern, and definitely wanted the moral support, I also had to admit that there wasn’t whole bunches they could do. Bunny was invaluable in turning the kingdom’s finances around, but aside from holding my hand though this crisis, there was relatively little the others could do.
The trouble was, by simple arithmetic, while they were here on Possiltum, they weren’t out working other assignments, making money for M.Y.T.H. Inc. and therefore for themselves . . . for a whole month! On top of the work time they missed while stopping Hemlock’s army as a favor to me. If this organization was going to be a functioning, profit-making venture and not a humanitarian “bail-Skeeve-out” charity, we had to get back our bottom-line orientation. What’s more, both as president and the one who had led us off on this side trip, I had to seize the initiative in setting things right again. That meant that I either had to trim the force, or go along with Bunny’s plan of charging the kingdom for all our time.
The question was, who to trim?
Aahz had to stay. Not only had I just gone through a lot of trouble to get him back from Perv, but I genuinely valued his advice and guidance. While I had gotten into immeasurably more trouble since we first met, I had also become very aware that he was unequaled at getting us out of trouble as well.