Moira took the compliment without comment. “You had best ask Bal-Simba before you talk about bringing another through from your world.”
“Right. I’m sure he won’t have any problem with it.”
In a matter of minutes Bal-Simba was summoned and he listened carefully, if somewhat sleepily, to Jerry’s proposal.
“If you think it will aid us, by all means ask this person to come here,” he said when Jerry finally wound down.
“Even if he can’t physically come to us we can probably do a lot over the Internet. But it would be better if he can get free for a while.” He looked at Bal-Simba. “Can we still do a Great Summoning to bring someone over from our world?”
“Almost certainly. The shadows do not seem able to block that path.”
“Well, let’s find out then.” Jerry picked up the telephone sitting incongruously on his desk and began punching in the number. “I’ll put it on the speaker. I hope it’s late enough in the day that he’s up.”
“Hallo,” came a female voice with a hint of Scandinavian accent. In the background he heard the steady click of computer keys.
“Is Taj there? This is Jerry Andrews, jerry@thekeep.org, I’m kind of a friend of his.”
The keystrokes didn’t even slow. “Oh yah, I remember you, I think. From alt.comp.lang.theory.wild_blue. This is Sigurd, you know, Sig@Tniskatonic.frodo.org.”
Jerry remembered Tajikawa’s girlfriend/soulmate/companion/secretary/keeper. “Hi, Sigurd. Is Taj there?”
“He’s at Comdex. He’s not gonna be back until, like, a week from Sunday.”
“Oh. Well, is there any way to reach him?”
“I don’t think so. He said he was gonna beg crash space off a friend. Didn’t say who and I don’t think he knew himself.”
“Didn’t he take a celluar phone?”
“Well, kinda. He’s got a loaner from MMCC—you know, the Mini-Microcell-Communications Consortium—that’s running a demonstration network at the show. They’re setting up stations at all the major hotels. Only, one of their crates got lost in transit, then they had a problem with some weird connectors and had to have replacements airfreighted from Taiwan. Plus their directory software apparently has some kind of suicide pact with their hard drives and…”
“So their phones aren’t working,” Jerry cut in.
“I understand the hotel books are giving eight to three that they won’t have them working before the show ends.”
“Well, what about e-mail? Is he going to be on-line?”
“Well, he took his laptop but I don’t think he’s got the modem working. It’s a new machine with a Type III PC Card modem, only the card services for Linux are, like, flatlined. He was going to hack a driver but he didn’t have time before he left.”
“That’s too bad. Look, do you know who’s he’s going to be seeing? It’s really important that I reach him.”
“He wanted to check out some scientific visualization software, but other than that he didn’t say. I’m sorry.”
“If he does check in have him contact me. It really is a matter of life and death. Have him send to jerry@thekeep.org.”
“Okay, let me open a window here.” There was a brief pause then more clicking of keys as she took the address. “If I hear from him I’ll sure give him the message.”
“Shit,” said Jerry as he broke the connection.
“What now?’ Bal-Simba asked. “Will another serve?”
There aren’t any others in Taj’s class,” Jerry said, “at least none that I know of who are available.”
“Is there any other way to contact him?”
“We can put out the word on the Net, but I’m not sure how long that will take and we’ll probably get a lot of bogus reports. Taj is pretty famous.” He thought. “Comdex only lasts a week so he should be home next Monday at the latest.”
Bal-Simba considered. “I am not sure we can wait that long. These things press us relentlessly and ever closer despite our efforts.”
“Can we hide Moira somewhere?”
“I do not think there is any place in the World where these things could not find her,” Bal Simba told him.
“Okay, then. There’s only one thing to do.”
Wizard and dragon looked at the programmer expectantly.
“We,” said Jerry, “are going to Comdex.”