Guido got between us and the most aggressive ones, sticking his hand in his breast pocket meaningfully to sug-gest there would be a penalty for hassling us. I always ap-preciated his gift for the subtle, but this time it was too subtle. The cabbies were too desperate for a fare to give up in the face of potential deadly retaliation. I turned and snarled at them, showing my Pervect four-inch teeth. The drivers recoiled, but kept coming. They didn't back off until they noticed Matfany. The prime minister gave each driver a look that was half stern teacher, half policeman. As a deterrent it worked better than pepper spray. I thought I could hear a couple of the cabbies whimper as they with-drew to their stands. They were more afraid of him than they were of me. That impressed me. He must be a lot tougher than he came across.
“We'll walk, if you don't mind, ma'am,” he said, bow-ing to Tananda. “Truth to tell, the budget won't run to a limousine, and you can see our fair city a whole lot better without rushing around.”
“No problem,” Tananda said, attaching herself to his right arm. “I've done a little streetwalking in my time.” Matfany looked shocked. Tananda gave him an outrageous wink. I grinned.
“It ain't the worst place I've ever seen,” I said. “But I'm an urbanite myself. This is a trifle away from the bright lights and big city that is my preferred habitat.”
“A lot of people say that the first day,” Matfany said. “By the end of the week we got most of them asking if they can extend their reservations. Well, we did, before the pinchbugs. This is our main street.”
He waved a hand. The once handsome lakeshore was lined with rental domiciles of every size, everything from the Gigantico Hotel chain out of Imper down to Pappy Johnstone's Pink Roof Inn. I guessed the latter must be a local establishment. The effigy in the parking lot of a Swamp Fox in a straw hat waving its hand was the mascot. Every one of the places had two things in common: their walls were full of little holes as if they had been attacked by a horde of insane carpenters with half-inch drill bits, and every establishment was empty. Not one tourist. The bare trees waved forlornly over swimming pools and lawn chairs, all vacant. Vines grew up and sometimes into aban-doned buildings and stands all up and down the street.
“Come on,” I said. “Let's see what else we can find.”
Matfany cleared his throat. “I am afraid, sir, that you are bound to be disappointed.”
A few hours later, I had to conclude that Matfany wasn't lying. Apart from food preparation and hand workshops that turned out souvenirs, there was almost no infrastruc-ture in the main city of Foxe-Swampburg. My feet were killing me, and I saw the presidency of M.Y.T.H., Inc. flut-tering away like an escaping bird.
“Okay,” I said. “What about manufacturing?”
“Don't do much of that,” Matfany said. “I've tried to introduce the concept of factorieshonest truth is we don't have a lot of dry. level land to spare for big facilities. We buy off-dimension most times. Tourist money is usu-ally rolling in. Our credit was pretty good on Deva and Flibber and a bunch of other places.”
“Natural resources?” I was grasping at straws. “Not enough to export, sir. Half the time the lamps run on fish oil, and the other half on magik.” “What about location?”
I already knew the answer to that one; it had taken us four jumps to get here. That meant Foxe-Swampburg was useless as a strategic location for refueling, armaments, manufacturing, or just about anything except tourism. Which had dried up.
A pony-drawn cart trotted toward us, the driver seem-ing to drowse over his reins. The driver looked up hope-fully at the sight of three obvious strangers and steered toward us. Then he noticed Matfany. His eyes went wide with fear and alarm. He turned his wagon all the way around and whipped up the pony. It trotted away, with the driver looking back over his shoulder.
“You have more than money problems, pal,” I said. “You have a PR problem. Your own people are scared of you.”
“I know it,” Matfany said, with a sigh. “I thought that they would be downright grateful that they were in the hands of someone who would save them from ruin, but they're not. I just don't understand it. I've done everything for those people.”
“Why do you think it is?”
“Well, I had to reintroduce some pretty fierce punish-ments,” he said. “We had a lot of theft and assault and all when things started to get tight around here. I didn't want anyone to get the idea that they could just push me around. But only for those felons who deserve it. I don't go around handing out sentences on innocent people. But I don't hold back where it's merited.”
“Punishments like what?” I asked. Matfany sounded hesitant. “Well, imprisonment. Whip-pings. Death.” I eyed him. “Sounds like a house party on Perv.” “Beg your pardon, sir?” “I get the picture. Got any ideas?” I asked Tananda and Guido. “This is all your show.”' Tananda reminded me, not with-out sympathy “What can you work with?”
I kicked a stone. It went bounding across the deserted road and knocked into the pillar of
