“I don’t recognize this at all,” Jerry said. This isn’t the Convention Center. It must be one of the new hotels.”
“What do we do first?”
Jerry looked at Bal-Simba in his leopard-skin kilt, bone necklace and blue cloak. “First we get some clothes. No, first we get some money.”
It took them a while to find their way out of the wooden maze. Finally, with the help of some rather profane instructions from a startled forklift driver who nearly ran over them, they found a gate and stepped into a parking lot dominated by a fleet of semis, trailers and satellite dishes.
“Okay,” Jerry said, looking around, “this is the Paladin. That tells me where we are, more or less.”
Bal-Simba and Moira didn’t say anything. They were too busy staring.
There was reason to stare. Off in one direction a castle raised pinnacled towers to the pale blue sky. In another a giant lion of blue glass crouched, and off to the side stood a glittering black pyramid. A tropical rain forest rose under a glittering dome, a gigantic brightly striped pavilion stood in another direction. Off in the distance there were more spires and domes. That all these wonders were accompanied by nearly identical blocky high-rise towers sheathed in golden glass did nothing to dim the effect on Bal-Simba and Moira,
“Amazing,” Bal-Simba said at last. “Moira may have seen its like before, but it is new to me.”
“This is unlike what I saw before of this world,” Moira told him.
“This is Las Vegas,” Jerry explained. “It’s unlike just about anything.” He looked around, getting his bearings and then patted the brown suede purse that hung from his belt. “Come on, let’s go around to the front.”
They trudged across acres of asphalt crammed with automobiles, threaded their way between the towering hotel block and a multi-story parking garage and finally emerged at the front of the hotel.
As soon as they came around the corner their surroundings changed completely. Jerry led them up a walkway beside a winding drive, past groves of palm trees and stands of giant bamboo springing from an impossibly green lawn. They passed statues in classical poses, acorn-pound holding several white tigers, crossed over a bridge above a pool housing a number of dolphins, passed an artificial geyser at a discreet distance and finally came to the bank of glass doors leading into the hotel proper.
“Moira, you’d better wait outside,” Jerry told the dragon. “I’m not sure what their rules are on animals and I don’t think we can pass you off as a seeing eye dog.”
“Well enough, My Lord,” Moira said. “It sounds excessively noisy in any event.”
“I begin to understand why the search will be difficult,” Bal-Simba said as soon as they were through the door and out of Moira’s earshot. “This place is larger than I had imagined.”
“Oh, this is only one of the places we’ve got to look There are maybe a couple of dozen more this big or bigger. One 01 the problems we’ve got is that the show is spreading out again. For a while they had all the exhibits concentrated in just two big exhibit halls and the Hilton next to the Convention Center,” Jerry said “But those overflowed and they’ve had to start using the hotel exhibition space again.”
Bal-Simba started forward toward the line of clerks and away from the racket in the casino, but Jerry stopped him.
“No, this is just the registration area. What we want is probably the tellers cage. That’s over this way.”
Bal-Simba frowned slightly but followed Jerry out into the maze of the casino.
Everywhere there were lights, colors and noise. It took Jerry a minute to realize the casino didn’t have many players.
The casinos hate the show even if the hotels love it,” he told Bal-Simba as they maneuvered through the aisles and past the occasional slot player. “Most of the attendees don’t gamble—well, except for the startups and product rollouts on the show floor.”
Bal-Simba nodded as if the comment made perfect sense.
The cashier’s office was off at one side of the casino so it only took about ten minutes and three sets of directions from change girls and a guard before they found it.