skirts of her floor-length silk gown to settle around her manicured feet. "I've done the calculations myself, and Tenobia has checked the store rooms. About ten percent of the treasury is gone." "Again?" Vergetta roared. She slammed a hand down on the console, earning a glare from Caitlin. "What is it with these Wuhses?"

"I told you you ought to let me confiscate that D-hopper," sneered the narrow-eyed Pervect in black, who was filing her claws to razor points in the corner of the room.

Vergetta turned to her patiently. "It's a toy, Loorna. It gives them pleasure."

Loorna sprang up, her long yellow fangs bared. "Every time they use that toy they end up spending money! Money they don't have! Money we don't have. They're such idiots."

"They're Wuhses, what do you expect? They're going to pull business acumen out of the ground?"

"If they'd dig up some self-control, then I'd set every one of them up with shovels and tell them to get to it. As it is, if you yell at one of them, he folds up and points at everybody but himself."

"If I could get my hands on the Deveel who sold them that D-hopper I'd park it under his pointed tail," Tenobia growled. "I've tried to get them to put it back in the treasury and sign it out when they want to use it, but no. They don't want to let us hold it for them. We might not give it back, and that's 'uncooperative and unfriendly'. So it gets passed secretly from hand to hand, never in the same place for five minutes. If we don't control it, we can't tell them where they can and can't go. And they do: they flit off to any dimension that takes their fancy. And every time they go off they come back with a souvenir. Every single time. So suddenly everyone has to have one of the new gizmos, and we have a flood of imports. Then, because this stuff isn't free, they raid the treasury to pay for it. No one ever asks—they're not assertive enough for that. So they