color! Klahds like you get blue!'
'I'm not a Klahd,' Bunny said, standing her ground. 'I'm half Fairy!'
'Then violet!' the chief Deveel woman said, in a tone that brooked no argument.
'No, green!' shouted another.
'Yellow! Yellow's for the Fay!'
The room stewards arrived, shouting to everyone to break it up. By the time I caught sight of her again, Bunny's dress was a rainbow of anything but red, and her face had been dyed in stripes to match. I enveloped her with a web of power and pulled her out through the crowd, which disbursed with angry looks at me. Bunny's spine was straight as a tree. If the Deveels had intended to shake her confidence, they'd failed. She was more determined than ever to get through the contest honestly. I used a little power to dispel the color in her face, but a pink flush remained in her cheeks. She flatly refused to let me change her dress back.
That was the last attack, magikal or otherwise, until the essay portion began. The first woman on stage was a Klahd.
'Good evening,' she said, curtsying to the judges. 'If crowned the winner of this marvelous contest, I will use the Bub Tube for the benefit of all beings ...'
Out of nowhere a red sphere came hurtling, and splatted in the contestant's face.
It was a free-for-all. The poor Klahd hopped all over the stage, avoiding hot feet, kicking at snake-spiders that suddenly appeared and tried to crawl up her legs, shouting to be heard over booing from the audience, flushing sounds and greatly amplified intestinal noises. Swarms of sting-wasps buzzed around her, zooming for her face, her hands, any exposed flesh. The judges sat at their table, calmly marking score sheets and sipping tea poured for them by their attendants. They didn't move a finger to prevent the humiliation of the first contestant. Or the second. Or the third. The fifth essayist, the Gnome, simply wasn't there when rotten fruit came flying her way, but her continual disappearing and reappearing interfered with the delivery of her speech.
'... A benefit to all beings ... used only for good ... personally promise to dedicate the device ...'
Except for the direction the missiles were coming from, stature and skin color of the victim, er, participant, the speech, the ducking, and the humiliation of each woman was nearly identical. I began to feel sorry for the contestants. It would have tried even a seasoned politician to survive a pelting like that. I glanced at Bunny. Her face was set.
An Imper woman slunk off the stage, covered with yellow paint that had sloshed down on her from a bucket that clanged to the floor after depositing its contents on her head. The Pervect woman shoved past her, speech clutched in one scaly hand. She strode to the center of the stage, showed all her teeth and stuck a clawed finger out in the direction of her fellow contestants.
'If one
My ears rang with the sound of her voice, but she'd made her point. Except for resentful muttering, it was quiet in the auditorium. She showed all of her long teeth in a feral smile. I felt her build up a spell and cast it upon herself. It didn't feel like a charm of protection, rather one to aid eloquence.
I gulped as the Pervect left the stage to applause by the usually stoic judges. If my plan didn't work, all the pent up resentment building through the duration of the Pervect's speech would rebound upon the very next person up, and that person was Bunny.
One of the things I'd learned in my perusal of the Bub Tube's operation manual was how the pictures it produced came into being. The original illusions flowed from the chaotic ether, or they could be superseded by ones that sprang from a magician's creative mind. Both kinds played out directly upon the front glass, known as the screen.
Following the instructions, I pointed the control wand at the glass. I focused the image that I'd had building in my mind. Bunny walked up the steps, took her place before the judges, held up the parchment containing her speech, and opened her mouth.
The first tomato came flying out of the crowd. With one hand I averted the dripping fruit from hitting Bunny. With the other, I activated the Bub Tube.
High over the judges' heads the suavely smiling face of the Deveel host greeted them. 'Good evening, ladies! You all know the remaining speeches have no impact on the outcome of the contest, so I am about to announce the name of the winner of the annual Trofi beauty contest! Hold on to your wigs, ladies. First, the runners up! In 1,023rd place, from beautiful, bleak Imper—Aberdyfi! In 1,022nd place ...'
A thousand pairs of eyes fixed on the screen, listening raptly to the voice of the host rattling off hundreds of names I'd made up, so not one of them would lose interest in what they thought would be an early peek at the results. Far below, almost unnoticed on the stage, Bunny curtsied to the judges, and began her speech.
'Honored judges, I've thought very deeply about what I'd do with the Bub Tube if I got it, but the truth is I won't be using it myself. My uncle wants it, and he sent me here in hopes of winning it If you give it to me, itll be in the possession of a man that I love and trust. I'm not saying that he's incapable of being harsh to his enemies, but I would like to think that a hypnotic device like the Bub Tube will help him to deal with people he wishes to teach a lesson in a non-violent manner...'
I listened, keeping one eye on the rest of the contestants. Her speech was well-reasoned, honest, and above all, uninterrupted. She spoke for fifteen minutes, then curtsied again, rolled up her scroll, and was off the stage again before anyone noticed.
As soon as she was safely beside me again, I cut off the transmission from the Bub Tube. The screen went blank. All the women around us blinked.
'Hey!' a Deveel woman said, lowering the raised handful of dripping stable muck she'd held poised to throw. 'Where'd she go?'
The next speaker, a lizard woman in green, was pelted with vegetables and spells even before she reached the center of the stage. The other contestants had now missed attacking two women, and had plenty of dirty tricks left over they hadn't used yet.
I extended my elbow to Bunny. 'Shall we go?' I asked. 'The results won't be available until tomorrow. I'd like to see some more of this fine dimension.'
'Let's.' Beaming, Bunny tucked her hand into my arm, and we left the dressing room together.
The award ceremony was very much like the one that I'd faked for the Bub Tube. The handsome Deveel of a host stood in the middle of the stage reading from a long scroll of parchment given to him by the judges, who sat serenely in their seats on the dais. The contestants whose names had been read had all departed sobbing or shouting. The others remained in the big dressing room, clad in their finest formal gowns, hanging on every word the Deveel spoke.
'And in 887th place, right behind Shirleen, is Devraila! In 886th place—nice try, dear, better luck next year— is Elzinnona! Runner-up number 885, just a hair too far out for the big prize, is Mumseen!'
A Deveel, a Klahd, and a rock-faced woman shouldered their way out of the big crowd toward the rear. I never saw them again. I believe I dozed off a few times on my feet in between batches of names. I didn't hear Bunny's spoken. Beside me she was getting more and more excited. I didn't really hold out much hope. I had our bags packed and waiting in her dressing cubicle along with the D-hopper. The moment her name was read, we were going back to Klahd.
The mass of contestants thinned more and more. After a while I started to recognize the remaining ladies. This was the top tier of entrants. The chief Deveel woman was still in contention, as was the Pervect, the Gnome, two Imper women I'd thought had been terrific in the talent show, the shark, and one of the snake-women.
'... In 30th place, Bindina! In 29th place, Sorgkandu! ...'
Soon, only ten were left. The Deveel stopped to mop his brow and accept a glass of wine from one of the pages.
'Ladies,' he said, turning to face our side of the stage, 'I salute you. You've all come so far, but now this is the moment of truth! I want you all to come up on stage! Give 'em a big hand, folks!'
To deafening applause and a horn fanfare from the orchestra, the ten remaining women hurried up the
