“You are late,” Moira said severely.
“Hey, I’m sorry. I had to hitch, okay?”
Moira opened her mouth to say something else, but Jerry interrupted her.
“Time in thirty seconds.”
Moira handed her box to Jerry and gestured them all into a tight group. Then she drew out the golden cord Bal-Simba had given her and laid a circle perhaps fifteen feet in diameter in the dusty surface of the parking lot, muttering as she did so.
“Now,” she said, turning to the programmers. “You must all stand close together and above all, stay within the circle. Do not step outside it or break it in any way.”
Checking the watch Jerry had given her, she raised her wand and began to chant.
At first no one said anything. Then the astonishment began to wear off and the cracks started.
“Is this where the flying saucer shows up?” someone asked.
“Scotty, beam me up,” someone else called out.
Moira ignored them and went on with the chant.
“Next stop Oz,” Judith chimed in.
And then the world dissolved.
Part III: COMPILE
Fourteen : Employee Orientation
You never find out the whole story until after you’ve signed the contract.
—programmer’s saying
They were crowded together on a smooth flagged floor. Looming over them on a dais at one end of the room was an enormous black man in a leopard skin loincloth and a necklace of bones. To his right was a blonde woman in a long gown.
The sun streamed in through narrow windows in the stone walls and struck shafts of gold through the dusty air.
At the points of the compass stood eight men and women in long blue robes, each holding a silver or ebony wand and each surrounded by glowing runes inscribed on the stone floor. Further back stood grim men in chain mail armed with swords and spears.
The programmers goggled.
Finally a female voice from the back of the group broke the silence. “Toto,” she whispered hoarsely. “I don’t think we’re in Kansas any more.”
“Merry met,” the black man boomed out. “I am called Bal-Simba. I am speaker for the Council of the North and of the Mighty of this place. We are your employers.”
“Did anyone bring a copy of that contract?” someone muttered.
Moira curtseyed. “Merry met, Lord. This one is called Jerry Andrews, of whom Wiz spoke often.” She gestured to the rest of the group. “These others are also of the Mighty of their place. Jerry enlisted their aid.”
Bal-Simba smiled, showing his teeth filed to points. “Excellent. Excellent. My Lords, Ladies, if you will come with me I will show you to your accommodations.” The wizards at the compass points moved out of the way as he descended the dais and the guards stepped back. With a dozen thoroughly bewildered programmers trailing in a clump, the giant wizard left the chantry through the carved oak doors and down the stone steps into the flagged courtyard.
The morning sun made the stone walls glow warmly and cast glints of light off the windows. Banners floated from staffs at tower tops, peacock blue and brilliant green against the sky and clouds. Around them men and women stopped to stare at the newcomers and the newcomers slowed to stare back.
“Look!” one of the group pointed off to the east. A gaggle of six dark shapes stood out against the high white clouds, shapes with far too much neck and tail to be birds.
The entire group stopped dead in the courtyard. The programmers craned their necks and shielded their eyes in an effort to see better.
“Are those . . . ?”
“Jesus, they’re dragons”
“How the hell would you know? You’ve never seen a dragon.”
“I have now.”
The dragons came closer, dropping lower and making it easier to pick out the details. Their guides made as if to move on but the programmers stood rooted in place.
“Hey, there are people on them!”
The Californians watched awestruck as the dragons glided around the tallest tower in tight V formation, wingtips almost touching as their riders pulled them into the turn. Then as one, the beasts winged over and fell away toward their aerie in the cliff beneath the castle.