The Wizardry Consulted (Wiz, #4)(2)
“Nonsense. It’s no harder to write understandable code in APL than anything else. You can even write incomprehensible code in C.”
“I rest my case.”
Before Jerry could reply the door banged open and Danny limped in.
“How’s the back?” Wiz asked, grateful for a respite from what promised to be a full-scale language debate.
“Getting better,” the young programmer said, plopping himself down in his chair. He leaned forward almost forty-five degrees. “See? No pain.”
Considering the extent of his injuries, Danny was lucky to be alive, much less walking around. A blast from a guard’s weapon had nearly burned him in half during the great battle for Caermort almost three years before. Magic had saved him and magic had healed him, but not even the world’s most skillful healers could restore him fully in safety. So for months he had been going to the healers in the Wizard’s Keep for a combination of physical therapy, massage and healing magic. Gradually but steadily he was improving.
The third member of the software development team was several years younger with fresh good looks that made him look younger still. Even before his ordeal he had been slender, but the rigors of his recovery had taken flesh off his bones until he was positively skinny, despite the best efforts of his wife June and the castle cooks to feed him up.
He looked over at the characters above Jerry’s desk. “What’s that?” he asked, levering himself out of the chair and limping over to join them.
“APL,” Wiz told him. “He could have been doing something useful and he’s been writing an APL interpreter.”
“Well, whatever makes you happy,” Danny said with a shrug.
“Like figuring out how to tap into our world’s telephone system, I suppose,” Jerry retorted.
“Hey, we needed an Internet connection. We have to keep up with what’s going on back in the real world. Besides,” he added, “you’re the one who’s on that thing four hours a night.”
“I have a lot of newsgroups I have to keep up with,” Jerry said virtuously. “There’s a lot going on there.”
“Well, better keep it away from the wizards,” Wiz said. “I’m not sure what they’d make of some of those newsgroups.”
“You mean like the alt.sex groups?” Danny asked.
“I was thinking more of comp.language.flames, but yeah, the alt.sex groups too. Especially alt.sex.gerbils.
duct-tape.”
“That’s bogus,” Jerry said. “The real name is alt.sex.
bestiality.hamster.duct-tape.”
It was Danny’s turn to look smug. “You mean that’s another group. Just because it’s not in the official alt hierarchy you can’t find it.”
Wiz wasn’t sure whether he was joking or not. The Internet, an international computer network originally built around universities and research institutions, was famous for the depth and breadth of the knowledge contained in its newsgroups. However, even the Internet’s staunchest advocates had to admit that not all the newsgroups were research-related-or even serious. Hidden away in various places in the sprawling multi-dimensional message space were some decidedly odd things, including some highly unofficial newsgroups. But you needed to know how to use the net to get to them. Danny’s knowledge of the ins and outs of the net was extensive.
Danny was no sooner settled back in his chair than there was a discreet knock at the door. In all the Wizard’s Keep there was only one person who knocked so delicately, so discreetly and so exquisitely.
“Come in Wulfram,” Wiz called.
“Excuse me, My Lord.” The castle seneschal was calm, dignified and more than a little bit stuffy. “But . . .”
Before he could finish the door banged open again and two children and a dragon charged into the room.
“UncaWiz, UncaWiz,” shouted Caitlin, the daughter of one of the guardsmen. She was a couple of years older than Danny’s son Ian, with dark curly hair, flashing dark eyes and a single black eyebrow stark against her pale, fair skin. She was utterly charming, she knew it and she used it shamelessly.
Right on her heels came Ian. He was barely three and well into the head-down-and-charge stage of childhood locomotion. Without pausing he ran full-tilt across the room and bounced into Danny’s lap.
But the real attraction was the third member of the group, who charged into the room just as heedlessly, got his feet tangled up with the rug and his own tail, caromed off a pile of manuscripts and executed a neat bank shot to end up beside Ian and Danny.
Little Red Dragon, or LRD to the programmers, was little only in comparison to the eighty-foot cavalry mounts in the aeries below the castle. He-Wiz thought he was a he-was nearly ten feet long from snout to tail tip. His scales were darkening from scarlet to maroon and the blue edges were going from turquoise toward navy and his combination of exuberance, dragonish temper and size was making him increasingly hard to handle. Dragons do not become intelligent until they are nearly full grown. LRD was a long way from full grown and somewhat further than that from intelligent. But LRD and Ian were inseparable, so the dragon was allowed in the programmers’ workroom and their quarters in the Wizard’s Keep.
The seneschal knew when he was outclassed. With an exquisite sigh of resignation he stepped away from the door to await the wizards’ pleasure.