Trying something new.

I have so much written it’s hard to keep it all in mind now. I have a few scribbled ‘bibles’ but they aren’t easy to use. I don’t want to take the time to read entire books, much less series, before starting new things to refresh my memory. It’s also hard after you’ve changed a book several times, adding and removing or shuffling entire chapters in writing it, to remember WHICH variation you kept as final. I’ve resurrected both a character and a ship now and had to correct them in published versions.
So I downloaded a wiki to try out. This particular one is the ZIM wiki. It’s going to be a learning curve I see looking at the manual I’ve never contributed to any wiki much less made my own. Any of you with experience at them are welcome to advise me.

A third small snippet of HooDoo

As requested by Joyce. I’m not sure how to classify this book. Science Fiction, Fantasy or Horror? The beta readers may have to inform me. I don’t want to give too much away but this gives you an idea what direction the book is taking.

Uncle had a habit of producing unexpected items from his loose clothing, so David had no idea how he intended to start a fire. He wouldn’t have been surprised if he produced a cheap plastic lighter.
David watched him prepare a fire, quite a small one, although longer along one direction instead of round. He took a small stick and made repeated cuts in it until it resembled a small carving of a pine tree. Uncle left an opening in the stacked wood and held the little starter piece down by that hole. Instead of producing a lighter or any other method Davis had ever heard of he sat very still and looked at the carved stick steadily. David was starting to wonder if he was changing his mind or having some sort of a seizure. Then the curled up slivers of wood started turning brown. David suddenly had trouble sucking in his next breath, and the hair stood up on the back of his neck…
The wood got darker steadily and then started to smoke. It all burst into flame at once instead of starting at a point and spreading. Uncle thrust it in the opening where it would catch the fuel above it on fire and stepped back.
David was so sure of his own sanity he never considered it was a hallucination. Neither did he think it was any trick, a magician’s sleight of hand. But the look on his face had to be addressed, even if he didn’t say anything.
“It is a small skill, but often handy. More frequently useful than… bigger things,” Uncle said a bit sheepish, as if it embarrassed him to jolt David so. “I’ll teach you, but we need some things still to start, and I think it will be at least another day’s journey before we can find them.”

Now up – “A Sudden Departure”

Should be up everywhere by tomorrow for sure. It takes a while to propagate through their system. So no link yet.
OK link now – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06VX84PTW

April #9 is done.

I’m sending it out to readers today and tomorrow. I have to look in my old computer to get addresses.
I may cut a few off I’ve used. It takes a long time to check a large number of readers.
Then I want to get the paper edition of “Family Law” back in print and go back to FL #4 and a couple stand alone books.

TO CLARIFY – Out to BETA readers not published. Still finding errors and waiting on a cover.

A small snippet of “A Sudden Departure” April #9

Raw and unedited as usual. Not the main story line but interesting I hope.

Jonathan was sitting by the stove, sharpening his ax. It was warm now, almost too warm, because he’d been able to cut some limbs and deadfall finally to feed the stove extravagantly. The snow was receding around the chalet and the slope behind them. It was still deep in the shadows and on the north side of the hill across from them.

In the last three days he felled seven trees and trimmed the limbs from two of them. Six of them he got to fall pretty much up-slope and he hoped to drag them down most of the way to the cabin with a cable and a come-along. The one that didn’t fall right was slotted between standing timber, and he might just leave it for now until warm weather and cut it up in place.

The ragged snarl of the vuvuzela actually made him jump, but then smile. He still looked downhill carefully with the binoculars from further back in the living room, not showing himself at the window. There were three horses down at the bottom of their meadow, it would never be a lawn again he suspected. He’d emptied an old washtub that had been used as a flower pot, but the bottom was rusted through so he hung it as a gong. However, Victor Foy was smart to use the horn. That told him they had visitors and who.

Jonathan was concerned with the size of the party until he looked closer. The second horse held a thin man with a beard. But the third horse held a woman and young girl, which helped him relax. Then with a start he focused the binoculars with extra care. It was their daughter.

Looking back at the bearded man he decided that it could be his son-in-law. But bearded and forty of fifty pounds lighter he sure looked different. The fellow had already started on a middle aged paunch early the last time he’d seen him. He had a pistol stuck in his pants on one side and a pair of bulky tan gloves on the other. Jon doubted he’d ever touched a pistol before the day, and he was too dainty back then to do anything that need gloves. Both horses had some baggage lashed on across their rump , and when his horse got nervous and side stepped a little Jon saw he had a small backpack.

“It’s Cindy,” Jon confirmed to his wife Jenny who’d joined him in the living room. I think it’d safe to walk down with me if you want.”

“Why don’t you just wave them to come on up?” Jenny asked.

“Sure, that makes sense,” Jonathan said, embarrassed he’d grow so cautious.

Victor might have been of a like mind, because he had Cindy, with their daughter Eileen sitting in front of her, lead the way up the gentle slope to the chalet. They tied the horses up on the porch railing and Vic took the precaution of hobbling them in case they pulled that loose.

Jenny hugged the woman and girl too overcome with emotion to speak.

FREE – this weekend 1/21 & 1/22 – “Going Up?”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IGMRUOI

Oops…

Can’t use Kurt. Already have a character Kurt started in the last book…Oh. Got Kurt and Karl transposed a couple times. Fixed it and uploaded to Amazon. And nobody caught it….

Free –

“Common Ground and Other Stories” will be free 1/9/2017

Can’t get it to display right or link……..

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0050YYVHY

Paper…dead trees

I’m working at getting the print on demand version of “Family Law” available again. Then on to”April” and the others..

A short snippet from April #9

Aaron was almost done with his supper. Karl figured he better ask him for the favor before he stood up. Aaron wasn’t big on patience to stand and listen when he was ready to march off.

“Keith Petros has a new concert recording out that everybody says is just tremendous. Do you think you could loan me two bits until payday to get it?” Karl asked.

“You’re broke before payday?” Aaron asked disgusted.

“There was stuff,” Karl said, and shrugged.

“And you didn’t keep any back to dip into,” he asked further.

“Well yeah,” Karl lied, “good thing because I needed it too.”

“I won’t loan it to you, but I’ll pay you a bit to run an errand for me,” Aaron offered.

“The download is two bits. He’s got a following. The guy is worth it though,” Karl said, enthused.

“Petros may be worth two bits, but the errand isn’t,” Aaron said. “No deal.”

“I’ll run your errand and owe you another,” Karl offered.

“Run the errand and owe me two,” Aaron demanded.

Karl didn’t like that and didn’t say anything.

“Or wait until payday,” Aaron suggested. “No skin off my nose.”

“OK, now and two whenever,” Karl agreed. Aaron keyed his pad and aimed it at Karl’s. The transfer registered and Karl immediately bought his music.

“Here, take this,” Aaron instructed, handing him a standard memory card between thumb and forefinger. It had no printing and could be any size. Probably cheap generic if it didn’t have a logo.

“Go down by the cabbage mines, on the tunnel to the elevator. You walk in the tunnel a couple meters and there’s a glow panel up high on the wall. Just sit this on top of the panel and leave it there. You’re as tall as me, so you can reach it if you stretch. Feel along the top and if there’s another one up there bring it back to me.”

“Now?” Karl asked.

“You’ve been paid already haven’t you? Now.”

“OK, Karl agreed and wolfed down his last couple bites and headed out the back access. He didn’t play his new music. He wanted to savor it in his bunk undistracted.

There wasn’t anything on top of the light. He felt carefully with his fingers hooked over the back edge and slid it off the end so if it was there he wouldn’t knock it off behind. There wasn’t any gritty dust at all which also surprised him. He left the card and headed back to the singles barracks.

“Adverse Possession” is free through the 30th

https://www.amazon.com/Adverse-Possession-Short-Mackey-Chandler-ebook/dp/B01LDXY7N8

“April” will be free 12/25 and 26.

Please tell anyone who might enjoy it.

Free

Adverse Possession will be free Dec26 to Dec 30. That’s Amazon time which approximates Pacific time.

Site changes and comments –

A couple people noted they could no longer make comments since the site was modified to make it look better for mobile users.
The lady who maintains the site just did a fix. I just looked (for the first time) at it on my phone and got a comment box.
If anybody is still having trouble let us know.
I personally need the big monitor! I’d go nuts trying to read it on my phone.

Mac’

Rough snippet of April 9

I don’t want to give away too much of what is happening on Home, but here’s some more of the side story about the fellow in California.

The man had a cheap plastic vuvuzela like some idiots took to sporting events, and blew a flat nasty raspberry with the cheap yellow horn. Jon hadn’t expected to see anybody at the cabin once there was any snow on the ground at all, but the fellow had a horse that seemed to deal with it well. When Jonathan went to the window to look the fellow seemed impatient for a response and gave it another blast. The horse he was sitting on just twitched its ears so he must be used to it. Jon had never seen a horse with a thick winter coat. The man was being cautious, not aggressive, and stayed back well over a hundred meters away. That was smart. He wouldn’t want to be mistaken for a bandit.

Jonathan told his wife to cover him while he walked out to talk to the man. She was a fair enough shot to do that. She’d watch him through the scope, dialed back to the weakest magnification from well inside the door where she’d be in shadow.

He looked the fellow over with binoculars and then set them on the table before going out. They were a treasure and it was best not to advertise your wealth now. He’d seen the butt of a rifle sticking up from a scabbard. Something old fashioned with polished wood and a metal butt plate. The man had on a heavy jacket with the collar up. He might have a pistol but it wouldn’t be very accessible.

The man kept both his hands on the saddle horn, reins loose, and the horse stood patiently without any fuss. Jonathan walked out to him at a normal pace. He looked all around and back on each side of the house. If he had to run in snow he didn’t want to start winded.

“I’m Victor of the Foy family,” he said when Jonathan came to a stop. “You go downhill to the northwest until you hit a stream. Go uphill and you’ll pass an abandoned cabin in rough shape. We’re another mile and a little more past it. About seven miles in all from here. We have a dinner bell on a post by the stream for folks to announce themselves.”

“We’re the Hughes,” Jon said. “That’s a good idea about the bell. We don’t have a bell but I’ll improvise a gong or something. What sort of business are you about?”

“Folks seem to be settling down. There were a few people who lived hereabouts all year long. Mostly retired. And those who could reach their property after things went all to hell seem to have made it. I don’t expect a whole lot more to show up. Some weren’t the owners of record, but that’s no concern of mine. There was one case where folks arrived to find squatters and they shot it out. We have two of the kids who survived that in our family now. I was told of another case where they came to an agreement and allied.

“I’m taking a census for our own use. I’m going to hold it close, and I’ll burn it before I let it fall in the wrong hands. But in maybe another year, if it looks safe to publish, I’ll be back and have a map for you of where everybody lives in about a forty kilometer radius. If you don’t want to be added just say so, but if you aren’t on it you don’t get a copy either.”

“Is there a cost involved?” Jon asked.

“Nope. We hope to get some trading going though. If you have a skill or intend to make something it’s a way to let people know. I have one lady who intends to produce wool and woolen goods. She’s what you’d have called a hobby farmer, and it all depends on increasing the size of her flock and keeping them safe from the coyotes. Got another fellow who has a decent metal working shop. There’s also a woman who keeps bees. You have any specialty?”

“I’m a farmer, a real trained one with a degree, not a hobbyist. I can provide expert advice and a lot of practical lessons on how to propagate plants and keep the lines of cultivars pure. I’d be happy to trade seed for variety I don’t have.”

“You sound like you’re saying you’re in then,” Vic said.

“Yes, as long as you have the sense not to supply it to somebody who will use it as a treasure map.”

“That’s a danger to me too. That why I am looking at next spring. This spring is too early. We have satellite com and get good weather reports still. I’m sure I have a three day spell we won’t get any snow right now. This is probably the last week I’ll be able to go out, even on horseback, before the deep snow sets in. About late May I hope to send a young man out further than I can go now.”

Jon nodded approval. “I notice you didn’t come in by the road.”

“The roads are still dangerous. We have maps and avoid the roads. Some people have dynamited the hill side and brought it down to block the road off too vehicular traffic. I had to beg a fellow not to take a bridge out and just do something less permanent.”

“Is there any official presence at all?” Jon asked. “Any police or military?”

“Nope. The county Sheriff quit when it was obvious he wasn’t going to be paid. Even if there were enough people to pay him in kind we don’t have the transport to get it to him yet. He’s not of much use to use if we can’t call and he has no way to come. When we breed some more horses it’ll help. Horses breed faster than people so they’ll catch up.”

“I was actually more concerned somebody would show up demanding their property tax. But when it was settled out here they had sheriffs. I suppose somebody had to ride into town to fetch him,” Jon speculated. “I don’t suppose you have anybody who can actually make radios?”

“No, but I’ve got a young guy who says he can make telephones if we can get him enough wire. Maybe half the homes near main roads have power wire strung we can use. Some can be cannibalized for other places. That’s a couple years out though,” Foy said.

“You think things will stay like this for years?” Jon asked.

“Up here? Yeah. They’ll likely take back control of the cities much faster. Better to plan on that, and be on the safe side, than wait for somebody else to fix things and be disappointed. What else you got to do but get on with life?” Vic Foy asked wryly.

Jon just tilted his head to concede the point.

“Is there anything you need?” Vic asked. “No idea when we’ll have access to anything, but I’m making a list of folks who need medicine or glasses. If it’s anything real serious they’re just out of luck. But I’m still making a list.”

“No. We’re fortunate that way. I suspect people will learn to use herbs and such again.”

“Then you’ll probably see me or one of my boys around late May or early June. We’ll be looking to survey to the southeast of here.”

“Hopefully we’ll be here. There’s a couple with a young girl who might be trying to come here, but they had a longer way to go than us. Just be aware,” Jon said.

“I’ll keep an eye out and know it’s OK to admit you are here, if they turn up and ask after you by name.”

“Thanks, until spring then,” Jon agreed.

Foy clicked his tongue at the horse and pressed with his knee, ignoring the reins. It turned back the way they’d come, highstepping a little because of the snow.

FREE BEER!! Well no, but almost as good.

No Early Birds is free Dec1 thru 5. Tell your friends, tell your enemies.

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Changes…

As requested the site has been tweaked to make it friendlier to mobile users.
The slide show of Amazon offerings will be updated soon.
Also my first book posted to Amazon – Paper or Plastic? – has been gone over and cleaned up quite a bit.
Doing better health-wise and back at writing.

Old stuff…

I was looking over older work I started and didn’t carry forward. I don’t think I posted this piece yet. I’ve written what I regard as firm if not hard science fiction, but I wrote a first chapter for a fantasy piece. Try not to laugh… I wonder if anybody thinks this is worth expanding or should I just post it as a short?

Strictly Business

Chapter 1

The rumors spread among the elves before first coffee break.

“Something big is going down on the top floor.” All along the production lines heads went together and exchanged whispers. The rumors spread down the lines faster than the build flowed. Part runners carried it back to the fabricators and loading docks. From there the drivers all stopped and gossiped with all the security trolls at the gates and portals. The story ran back down through all the suppliers before lunch time.

“Big Juju,” the e-mails were titled flowing between witches in middle management.

“Can’t read a thing past the twelfth floor,” the seers and wizards lamented. It wasn’t a glass ceiling, it was unobtainium – impervious to sixth sense and second sight.

“Big cuts,” the old hands said at the signs with hard-won wisdom. Most of them had been through this before when things turned down. Some had narrowly escaped previous lay-offs having just enough service or were simply in the right department by blind luck.

“I remember in ’34 when Cloaks and Robes went to Taiwan,” one veteran said. “It didn’t matter how much seniority you had, the entire department went down like a field of wheat,” he explained with a scything motion of his hand.

The apprentices were horrified. “Nobody got to transfer?”

“Nope. They declared their skills un-transferable and laid the lot off. But those were just little bumps. This is big.”

* * *

The ax-man, Axel, was from Resources – you couldn’t very well call them Human Resources after all. As one of the minor races of Ogres he could pass as human with a loose shirt, if he didn’t smile. The Great Ogres didn’t have the temperament for lay-offs unless you wanted the cut personnel dismembered and eaten.

He checked his list, switched his translator to Elfish and stepped inside the conference room. The door wasn’t obviously a portal, but it had that disquieting strangeness that said he was in another continuum. The light played funny to his eyes, everything unnaturally sharp and cloyingly pretty. Probably Fairy space even though the table was full of elves. The irritating little suckers were everywhere across the Universes that they could find a job and send the money home to their families.

The murmur of conversation died instantly. He pulled the emblem of his office off his shoulder and laid the ancient blade on the table to free his hands, distaining to sit down as this would be quick and brutal. Two Orcs with training collars followed at his heel, and the shadowy presence behind them stood just inside the door in case anyone went postal. It seemed like excessive caution given his massive arms and the fact his heritage symbol of office was three and a half stone of cold iron beaten to a razor edge. The stains on it were from an earlier era that didn’t understand job banks and unemployment insurance. Still, being let go would always be a hardship to which some could react emotionally.

“As you are all aware,” Axel spoke, “sales of high end accessories such as magic wands have plummeted. Our set costs have increased dramatically. Due to the unrest in human markets, silver alone has doubled in the last decade. Before you please find an information packet.” They looked down at the table where they had materialized in that instant when everyone was looking elsewhere.

“The vast majority of you will find it is a severance package. A few of you will find an offer to follow the Earth based production to Mexico as a manager or instructor. If you decide to take that offer you have seventy-two hours to contact Resources and bind yourselves to our service. Details of moving allowance and conditions in our Mexican plant’s area are in the packet. Please do not open them to find out which group you are in while on company property. Doing so will void and transform the offer packets in a particularly nasty way.

“You will not need to return to your work area. Your personal items are boxed and will be returned to you at the gate. Beings using company transport will unbind their authorization and destroy any spell linking them to its use. Commercial transport home will be provided. I’m sure you are all law-abiding and adult beings, but any effort to leave malignant spells, Trojans, or change passwords from home will be dealt with…” The hooded figure behind the Orcs removed the compulsion not to look at him momentarily and lifted its head. The pool of black in the hood swept the assembled group, giving them each a sense that they were examined and cataloged. There was not a glimmer of eyeball reflected in the black depths, but everyone was sure of a presence. Nobody knew what the thing in the robe was, and nobody wanted to find out. Word on the street was the company could take care of itself with any entity or reality.

Axel shifted the broad blade back to his shoulder, checked his PDA for the time, he was doing fine, and moved on.

The next department on his list was so small they didn’t have a conference room. In fact it was so small it only had head count for one full time and one part time employee. He was supposed to lay off a minimum of thirty percent of every department regardless of profit level. A closer look at the sheets showed all their goods were outsourced to Guatemala since the Pennsylvania shut down of ’27. The whole department was simply an added value operation and didn’t make sense. They didn’t have any materials budget, not even packaging, so what were they adding? Inspection was in Guatemala too.

The department showed as being in existence from the second year of the company. That’s when the big expansion had happened. A shame things were going the other way now – but that’s business. He couldn’t see any justification for the operation.

He shifted his ax to the other shoulder. The damn thing was awkward and got heavy after awhile, but there were certain forms to follow and they were traditions. He left the Orcs and the presence at the door. He wouldn’t need them for one elderly human.

The room was so small he felt a tad claustrophobic. There was no receptionist and no desks. The lady in the rocking chair was just having a cup of herbal tea while dwarfs scurried to take some skids of hex signs out. It was 09:17 and not any proper coffee break period. If that’s how slack they ran things here, it made it easier to break the bad news.

He wasn’t sure if it was a magic window or a big flat screen monitor, but behind her a large rectangle showed a scene of fenced fields and black and white cows standing around chewing like cattle are wont to do. There were woods behind and a barn in the distance. Given that both employees here were human, and that the sky was an absolutely shocking blue, it must be an Earth view. It was an extravagance for any but highest executive office. His work space certainly had nothing that nice. The printout indicated he should speak with her in English or German.

“Mrs. Ayers? I’m from Resources. I’d like to speak with your assistant also if he is available.”

“Oh, my son Billy. I’m sorry but he’s not available right now. He’s in his Junior year at Harvard. He’ll be back in a couple years and will take a break before he goes into graduate school if you’d like to meet him then.”

“Hmm…I hadn’t noticed the name is the same. That’s most irregular also, but I suppose it doesn’t matter after today. I’ll have some papers for you to pass on to him. He has been an apprentice even though he is your son?”

“That’s the way it works, father to daughter, mother to son. He is my apprentice for life. It’s spelled out in my terms of employment that he is salaried regardless of actual time on site. After all I expect he will take over some day. He wants to have a real education, but this is where the family’s bread and butter has always been. Just a moment please,” she requested.

The boss dwarf gave a high sign and the dwarfs ran in with three new skids. That they stood idle until she ordered them was a huge waste of productive time. All the skids were stacked cunningly so that each sign was visible to her. She started rocking the chair a little and spoke in a highlands German. Her voice had a regular cadence of memorized lines, but not that tonal quality of a chant. The translator whispered in his ear that it could not provide him the incantation because it was proprietary intellectual property and subject to nondisclosure agreements. She picked up a well worn leather bible in German and flipped it open where one of several bookmarks hung out. There was no telling where the spell ran seamlessly into reading instead of memory. The colorful art on the skids seemed to move subtly for an instant, the colors shifting like 3D post card with a lenticular overlay, and then it was as before and she closed her bible and made a mark in an open ledger on the side.

“What exactly do you do?” he asked puzzled.

“Why, I put the power in the signs,” Mrs. Ayers said, as if he were a little simple. “The English do love them, yust fer pretty” she explained lapsing into an accent intermittently, “but there are still plenty who want the real thing, not just a tourist doodad to take home from vacation. I put the seed there and hide it from those that don’t have the eye. Not like that,” she said, pointing at a huge Wheel of Fortune hanging on the wall behind her. When he looked right at it the swirled design moved like a vortex sucking him in, and he gasped at the power, jerking his eyes away disoriented for a moment.

“That was painted by my great – grandfather and he said the words over it. It has been working for the company every since I vust hired.”

“Are you Amish?” he asked, confused. He knew a little bit about human culture, and noticed her simple dress and linen cap pinned on her gathered up hair.

“Oh no. The Amish and the other plain people don’t hold with old ways. None of the preachers like a pow-wow woman like me. They look down their nose at us. Why one time I stopped the blood flowing on the preacher man neighbor when he slipped with the ax and he come running all the way from his place and cursed me to let it go. That’s gratitude for you. As if I’d take a chicken or anything from him. We don’t take money for pow-wow you know,” she informed him. “I yust done it fer good, or a little pay-in-kind.”

“But it says here you get two stone of fairy gold a lunar for your services,” Axel insisted.

“Ah, but the government in my human country has decreed that gold is not legal money.”

“So, what do they use for money?” he asked dubious.

“They use numbered engravings of dead politicians.”

“Engraved on what?”

“Well, paper. On what else do you print engravings?” she asked like he was daft.

It was madness. Art as money? Maybe fine originals, but numbered prints? He had wasted too much time here already, so he let it go.

“So what business did you have with me today?” Mrs. Ayers asked politely as another crew of dwarfs rushed in to carry the goods away.

“Are you aware things have been going very poorly for the company for the last several quarters?” He was getting the feeling Mrs. Ayers was at a disconnect with anything outside the sturdy Oak door he’d just entered.

“Oh my no,” she said with honest surprise. “I’m wondering why Harold didn’t say anything to me. Goodness, let me take a look here.” She grabbed both arms of the rocker and twisted it around. She lifted the screen on a very nice Tough Book computer and started reading.

His first thought was why does she need an expensive Panasonic built like a bank vault? The worst he could see happening here was if she spilled her tea on it. But that paled at the anger he felt rising as she expected him to patiently wait for her to catch up on her mail. Employees didn’t treat him like that. Normally they were afraid of him, terrified even.

“Achk – der it is,” she exclaimed. “Harold….”

“You mean Mr. Griffin the Owner?” he corrected with proper reverence.

“Yah, I yust forget to check my e-mails. Harold told me tings was bad a couple monts ago but I never seen it.” When she was upset her English suffered quickly. “Tings be very bad when dat don suck enough luck to keep us going,” she said nodding sage agreement. ‘Dat’ was apparently the wheel of fortune spinning away on the wall. It appeared to be painted on planks of barn wood, the sort architects and designers would pay a fortune for if weathered to a beautiful silvery silk texture. “I vill quick like maken dis right donchu vurry. You yust outen der light as you go and I’ll sit in der dark a bit vit my bible and have a good talk at der problem.”

“Thank you for the thought, but that’s why I’m here Mrs. Ayers. We are cutting back, and considering the size and relative importance of this department there is no rational way to make a fractional cut. I’m terminating it altogether. Axel pointed to an envelope that had suddenly materialized beside the computer. “You will find all the details in the packet.”

“Vell – Harold knows about this?” she asked stunned.

“Everything Resources does is with the full authority of the executive suite and the board of directors,” he assured her. “Do you need a hand with packing up? Perhaps a cardboard box for any personal items?”

“Everything you see is mine but the laptop,” she said showing a little anger for the first time. “Even der floor.” The look in her eye made him wonder if he should have kept the Orcs with him after all. He sensed a gathering power like the feel of a storm building up. “To my house you send, and be careful der is not a mark on it, especially the wheel,” she pointed at the vortex on the wall, “or I say some words – things dat shouldn’t be said – over your name,” she warned, hand gathering something he couldn’t see out of the air.

His hair was standing straight off his arms with electric potential, and he stood frozen like a rabbit before a fox, knowing the slightest move would bring disaster. She looked at him like she was considering something further, and then dismissed it spilling her hand open reluctantly. The room itself seemed to expand a little, like it breathed a sigh of relief. She stomped out the door and between the Orcs without a glance at them. The hooded figure behind the Orcs scurried out of her path and cowered flat against the wall, whimpering.

Axel shook his head in disbelief, hair flat again, too accustomed to fearlessness to retain a healthy dread with her out of his sight. He shifted the damn chopper on his shoulder again and checked his PDA. Crystals and Pyramids were waiting in conference room twelve and he was late because he spent so much time letting that old woman go on and on. He hurried down the hall.

* * *

A week later he was busier than ever. He was trying to keep up with the pink slips, but the whole company was headed south worse this week than the whole of last year. Something was sucking the luck out of it like a spider draining a fat bug. His full attention was focused on his desk and trying to get the papers sorted for a busy day when he noticed two hairy ham-like fists on either side of his antique Rolodex.

Allowing his gaze to climb the attached hairy columns upward there were two white cuffs folded back as far as the massive arms would allow. The white shirt sleeves continued. Floating above these supports was the ugly glaring face of his boss. Behind him was his boss, and oh crap…behind him was the big boss.

“Axel my boy,” the deep voice rumbled, deceptively pleasant, “did you perchance deliver a lay-off notice to a nice older lady by the name of Mrs. Ayers? In a quiet little room off in the back of the production facilities with a bunch of dwarfs running skids in and out instead of a fork lift?”

“Yes, I wondered about the dwarfs actually. It didn’t seem very efficient. Why were they doing it that way?”

“Because Mrs. Ayers didn’t like the smell of the propane lift truck and the electric whine of the battery operated ones disturbed her. If she had asked we would have gladly run them in on the bloody backs of snow white unicorns and sacrificed them for fresh ones if the load was too much for them to bear twice.” He waited to see if Axel could smell which way this was going.

“That’s…remarkable you’d defer to an employee’s taste in matters so much,” he smiled. “I take it Mrs. Ayers had some special relationship to the company of which I wasn’t appraised?”

“You might put it that way. More a personal relationship to the owner. That’s how she was recruited.” The man at the rear looked down upset at those words. “When the personal relationship faded nobody was put forward to manage Mrs. Ayers even though the company depended on her services. She’s an eccentric sort of person like a scientific researcher or an artist you can’t count on to attend meetings or read e-mails. They have to be managed. But none of that is your fault. The real problem is Resources was never supposed to be involved in managing her. You aren’t supposed to even have a file on her. The Resource managers are not even supposed to visit that department, it was a rule passed on verbally to each one, so what happened that you ended up there with a lay-off notice?”

“I suppose because the last head of Resources dropped dead of a heart attack.” (The sort triggered by a wooden stake, but it wasn’t polite to mention that.) “He didn’t get a chance to pass on any company secrets if there wasn’t hard copy of it. The new software we have generates cross files to correct if one department has something missing so everybody has full up to date files. I imagine payroll has to have something on her to pay her. So that’s where the file came from, and auto-copied through the system, I’m guessing.”

Axels boss closed his eyes for a moment in pain. “So…No point in blaming you. We screwed up. But it’s still going to be up to you to fix this cluster…” He stopped and took a deep breath. “We can’t go back to keeping you out of the loop on Mrs. Ayers. When Harold tried to call her she told him – ‘Your man fired me, let him come convince me I should want to come back.’ So like it or not you are our only hope to recover her services. Here is the rest of her file, the hard copy one with everything in it. This is the only copy and only three other people in the firm have access to all of it. Read it. We’ll see to it the software doesn’t keep spreading information where it shouldn’t go.”

He opened the file. Just reading the first page was a revelation, and they quietly let him read. He could see why it was embarrassing to say out loud. The hex signs were just an arrangement. The whole thing was a sham to make her feel she was keeping the spirit of her discipline’s rules. The first few years her compensation had been over generous, clearly a case of the owner’s girl friend kept on the payroll, but now the tail was wagging the dog, and they were the party hostage to her skills. And he’d thought their business was based on their fine products. Apparently their whole business model was a sham. “What am I authorized to offer?” Axel asked.

“Anything. If she wants to hack your silly head off with your frigging ax for a wall mount you can assume we will take excellent care of your heirs and thank you for your services. Better that than your loved ones die of hunger with you in poverty, right?”

Axel wasn’t sure about that.

“We’re rewarding her for mismanaging the company’s luck? That doesn’t seem fair to all the little people who suffered.”

The principle stockholder, owner in every way that mattered spoke from the rear. “The little people would have never had a job at all if she hadn’t been working for us. This isn’t about them at all. Don’t screw this up or all the rest of the little people are down the tubes along with us.” The other two men nodded solemn agreement and they all turned and walked away.

* * *

“I’m really sorry about what happened,” Axel told her. He could see black horse-buggies out the window in the cute little town. Mixed with tourist cars packing the restaurant parking lot across the road. It smelled funny in this reality and he was glad he was just a visitor. For some reason when he looked at the horses he got twitchy all over. He’d come through the portal Mrs. Ayers used to come to work and was happy he didn’t have to step outside. Besides the off smell the sky looked creepy and unnatural. He was even less comfortable than in the Fairies domains. He took another sip of the tea even though it was nasty. It wasn’t very hard to sound sincere because he was.

“Things have changed,” she said quite calmly. Now that she was less excited her English reverted to standard. “I’m widowed, and now that he is grown I’m willing to allow my son to start growing into being the head of household. I need to start planning to retire and hand the reins over to the new generation. My son said it was time for me to adopt a much more modern approach to business. He will have his MBA soon and I think it is timely the family has such a modern talent and pays close attention to its wisdom. So I don’t think I want to come back to the company in the same capacity I held previously.” Axel cringed to hear that because it proclaimed his personal doom.

He couldn’t suck another breath in, and his blood roared in his ears.

“I think we could dispense with the sign work, or maybe find a needy young practitioner to do that rote work. I think though, we should be able to come to a different arrangement about the real work of managing the company’s luck, and still follow proper forms.” Axel felt a fresh surge of hope cut through the gloom, sucking in air again.

Axel nodded enthusiastic agreement and swallowed some more vile tea and pride.

“My boy is still very much my apprentice in matters of craft, but he’s the next generation who will have to pay more attention to matters of business than our generation did. I never paid much mind to such matters because we were farmers and what we did on the side was for ourselves and our neighbors. We were happy if we could help, and if we got a chicken or a bowl of eggs now and again we were happy.”

” Now even the simple folk can’t make it farming, hard as they are willing to work, so you see them serving the English sit down meals, making furniture and other things that were never their way of life. My father wasn’t bound to the simple life, but he couldn’t make a living by farming, even using tractors and machinery. We tried market farming, and self-pick. We still ended up with the restaurant you see across the street there and selling the farm off lot at a time for houses. You talk to my boy and whatever arrangement you can make with him will be fine. He’s going to have to live with it a lot longer than me, and he has a fine head for such matters. At least he gets good marks from his professors in matters of business and economics.”

“Thank You Mrs. Ayers, I’ll do that. When will he be available?”

“He just started back on a new semester, he won’t be home until the winter break. About three and a half months, and he’ll be home for a couple weeks and should have plenty of time to work things out with you.”

Axel smiled, careful to keep his incisors from poking out, and took another sip of tea while he contemplated what shape the company would be in after three and a half months. He had to be careful how he expressed himself.

“Gee Willikers,” his translator found the mildest euphemism in its list, if a bit dated. “I just know my bosses would be just terribly upset with me if I didn’t wrap things up a lot sooner than that. Is there any way I could speak with your son sooner?”

“If you’re set on meeting him sooner the only thing I can suggest is going up to Boston and visiting him there. He has much too busy a schedule of classes to be running home for even a couple days.”

“I’ll arrange to do that,” he heard himself say with a sort of detached horror. He looked out the window at the alien sky, and one of the horsed swung it’s head up and seemed to be looking straight across the way at him. It had to be coincidence. “I’ll have to consult some of my people. If it’s better to come back through your portal can I bother you to allow that?”

“Sure, it’s no bother at all if you need it. Here, I’ll write down my boy’s contact information and you drop me some e-mail if you are coming back through. I’ve gotten much better about checking them,” she promised him.

“I feel bad because we Deutsch do things different. I didn’t think it was different from dealing with the English or the alternates for some reason. I suppose I was living in a Fairy Tale, but that’s all right, I learned my lesson. From now on it’s like Daddy told me and I ignored to my sorrow. Friends are for nice, and family is forever, but business is business, and you have to keep it that way.”