"I'm sorry," I blurted, getting to my feet, as the whole reality of my error slapped me in the face. "There's been a terrible mistake. Never mind. Um. I'm sorry. It's actually a really neat item. You ought to buy it. Uh, goodbye. Please don't run this story." Velda looked shocked. "But I have to," she insisted. "It's news. It's big news."

"No. I… you can't. It's wrong. I was wrong!"

"I must speak for my young friend," Zol interjected, stepping in between me and the glass-eyed cannon. "This interview is at an end."

Velda glared at him. "But we haven't gotten into all the details yet!"

I didn't wait to hear any more. I had to get a breath of fresh air. I rushed out of the studio and into the street. I had to get away. I looked around me wildly, hoping I could remember how to steer the D-hopper to get me home.

But a firm hand closed around my upper arm, and a familiar shape looped around my legs.

"Gleep!" chirped the latter.

"Hold on there, handsome," insisted Tananda, the proprietor of the aforementioned hand. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Anywhere," I replied desperately. "Away. Out of here!"

"All right, then," Tananda agreed, with a glance at Bunny and Zol.

The landscape around us vanished.

TWENTY-FIVE

"I feel really stupid," I exclaimed, as we arrived back on Wuh. I didn't want to endanger any of the locals, so we landed behind the statue in the park instead of at Montgomery's inn.

"I saw what you saw on that screen," Zol informed me gently. "It would appear that we have erred in our judgment. I did try to talk Velda out of running the story, but I doubt I have dissuaded her. Ronkonese believe strongly in word-of-mouth communications."

"I ought to go back there and try and straighten it out," I declared, wishing not as much that I could get away from my friends as that I wanted to get away from myself. "I have been a complete idiot. I'm supposed to be a hotshot, experienced magician, but I have made every single rookie mistake that Aahz was always pounding me over the head for. I made all those assumptions about the Pervects' plans, but I never looked at one of those things up close. A food processor!" I clutched my head. A gigantic ache was hammering in between my eyes like a troll with a mattock. It wanted out if it killed me, and I almost wished that it could.

"Don't," Zol replied softly. "It's a mistake anyone could have made."

I groaned again. Not anyone. Just the Great Skeeve. Just a guy who had had too much success too soon in the last few years, knocked his own supports out from underneath his own feet and tried to jump right back in the first time someone asked him for help without using any of the experience that he had supposedly gained. I made a decision there and then. I turned to the little gray man and put out my hand.

"Zol, I want to thank you for all of your help. It's been a privilege meeting you. I know you were going to stick around, but after today there's going to be nothing left to see."

Zol's thin black eyebrow went up his gray forehead. "Why the farewell?"

"Because I'm going to resign," I informed him. "I've made a total mess of this whole mission. Those things we thought were weapons were labor-saving gadgets. The Pervects were just trying to sell them. The same probably went for those spectacles. All I've done is make a fool of myself and of all of you. I'm going to find Gubbeen. He seems to be the ranking Wuhs around here. I'll tell him I'm sorry, but I can't do what he wants. It may be too late, but I'm going to take Aahz's advice. This mission was too much for me. I'm willing to admit it."

"Oh, Skeeve, that's not true," Bunny cooed, winding herself into my arm. "You can't quit now."

"I'd better," I told them, "because I've made nothing but bad decisions all the way through this."

'Things might not have gone the way you thought they would, Tiger," Tananda purred, burrowing close on my other side, "but you made the right moves. It's not your fault if the plans didn't work out the way you expected them to. You're not finished yet. I've never known you to be a quitter." Her soft lips were next to my ear, and her voice dropped so only I could hear it. "I know why you wanted to take this mission. You wanted to learn on your own, to be able to fail on your own. Okay, but that doesn't mean that you stop after you fail. Right? You try again. Humiliation's not fatal, even if it feels as though it ought to be."

I turned crimson with shame. She was right. I would never have even contemplated backing out of a contract when I was the president of M.Y.T.H. Inc., or leaving a friend in the lurch even before that. Not that I had had too many friends until the day Aahz exploded into my life.

Gleep, not to be left out, plumped down at my feet, making the ground shake, and wound his long neck around all of us. He gave me a big slurp on the face which, with both arms full and my legs immobilized, I was powerless to avoid.

"Those choppers and the spectacles were made by unwitting slave labor," Zol reminded me. "A situation which is still ongoing. And the Wuhses are not yet freed of the Pervects' rule."

"But one of my friends was killed," I reminded them sadly. "I'm afraid to put anyone else in harm's way."

"Isn't that our choice?" Tananda replied, shaking her head with a little smile on her face. "I've been around the dimensions for a while, and I'm not taking a risk without both eyes wide open."

"I may not have been as far around…" Bunny began, then shot an apologetic glance at Tananda, "no offense— we Klahds don't live as long as you Trollops."

"None taken," Tananda waved, without ire.

"… But I know that you're right, and they're wrong. It's as simple as that."

"Elegantly put, Miss Bunny," Zol applauded.

"You're right," I acknowledged, giving her a warm hug, then letting her go. "You're all right. I felt sorry for myself— really sorry for myself—but I won't let that stop me again." "Oh, look, there he is!"

I turned at the sound of a female voice. Kassery stood on the edge of the park jumping up and down and waving her hand vigorously at us.

"Master Sk—aagh!" the petite, darkhaired Wuhs cried.

Suddenly she choked, grabbing at her throat. She dropped to her knees, her face turning purple. I glanced around in horror. Tananda was throttling a handful of air. I threw a ward in front of Tananda's hands, cutting off the flow of magik to her target, then I ran to help Kassery to her feet. She was gasping for breath. I carried her to the steps of the statue and laid her down.

"Why did you do that?" I asked Tananda.

"Sorry," Tananda snapped out, sounding not at all apologetic. "Thinking on my feet. It was the only way I could think to shut her up before she finished shouting out your name. We're trying to be incognito here. You know damned well that the Pervect Ten will be out for your scalp pretty soon."

My fault again. I should have brought us in with disguises in place. Hastily I remedied the omission, transforming us all into Wuhses. "I apologize, Kassery. Are you hurt?"

"No, I am all right." Wensley's mate stood up and clutched my hands. She seemed more than all right. Her eyes were glowing, almost full of hope.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I have just heard a rumor at Montgomery's," the little female whispered. "Wensley is alive! Gubbeen saw him in the castle."

At first I felt nothing at all, then as her words sunk in joy welled up inside me until I could no longer contain it.

"Whhheeeeeee-HAH!" I cheered, grabbing Kassery around the waist. I kicked off against the ground and flew high into the air, higher than the treetops. He hadn't been killed after all!