'Thank you so very much,' Standback said feebly. 'The Thudbaggers are nearly perfect — I don't have a bruise on me — but I couldn't really breathe in there.'
'You could make a snorkel,' Mara said sarcastically. She had grown up near the sea, ' — a short breathing tube.'
There was a hiss, then another. The balloons were deflating. Standback appeared among them, stuffing them back below floor level. He said dubiously, 'That's an awfully simplistic answer. You should leave design questions to the specialists. On the other hand,' he added thoughtfully, 'if it had reserve tanks — and an air pump — and free- swinging gimbals to keep it upright…' He sketched it all out on the only clear portion of his shirt.
Mara, who needed a rest, sat beside him, her chin in her hand. 'I see why you're having problems getting promoted. Do you have to get these all working to win approval?'
'Oh, my goodness, no.' Standback caught himself and added, almost defensively, 'Besides, they all work wonderfully!' He stared out at the smashed furniture wistfully. 'No, it's simply a matter of getting the Committee's stamp of approval. Unfortunately, I can't even get their attention. They completely ignore me.'
'Do you do everything by committee?'
'Some humans think we invented the committee.'
'And until you get their approval, poor Watchout can't be betrothed to you?'
'Nor should she be,' Standback said glumly. 'After all, would you agree to marry a gnome with no credentials?'
Mara didn't think she would marry a gnome at all, but decided it wouldn't be polite to point that out. 'You're very nice just for yourself, credentials or no. And now,' she said firmly, 'what about the weapons?'
'A bargain's a bargain.' Standback, making a final note on his shirt, opened the rear door of the Thudbagger room, and Mara found herself in a branch of the main tunnel again. They walked back toward the place where the tunnel split in two. Mara looked interestedly at the piles of debris and the bulky inventions half hidden under canvas or in shadow. Several of them were labeled, but life's too short to spend reading gnome labels.
'Wait.' Mara had noticed a device carelessly tossed to one side on the tunnel floor.
It had a shiny black hand-grip butt and stock that supported a shining tube-and-yoke arrangement of blue steel and black wire, which was topped by a small sighting tube and a tiny ring with crossed hairs in it. The whole effect was remarkably menacing.
'What is it?' she asked, staring at it in awe.
'What? Oh, that.' Standback nudged it with his foot disdainfully. 'A co-worker made it.'
'You disapprove of him?' Mara hazarded.
Standback nodded, his beard whipping up and down rapidly. 'It was to be his Life Quest, and he abandoned it. Can you imagine, abandoning your Life Quest? He's always sworn that he'd fix it some day, but I doubt if he can; it has too few parts, it's far too small, and it can't even carry itself.' He finished indignantly, 'It doesn't even have a place for the operator to sit!'
Mara bent over it. 'It fits in your hand.'
'You see what I mean?'
She didn't, but only asked, 'What's it for?'
The gnome snorted. 'It's supposed to dowse for water, but it's hopeless. I can tolerate a few false starts, or a near miss, or the occasional explosion or dismemberment, but this — '
'It doesn't find any water, then?'
Standback said disgustedly, 'Just diamonds, emeralds, rubies, other rocks…' He shoved it aside with a kick.
Mara looked back at it longingly, but kept walking.
Leaning alongside a hanging drop cloth on the tunnel wall was a human-size mannequin with some sort of backpack on it.
'This,' Standback said as impressively as a gnome can be, in brief, 'is the Mighty Thunderpack.'
Mara examined the three nozzles connected to two tanks and what looked like a fire-starting flint. Near the top of the unit was also the now-familiar bulge of one of Standback's sensors. She gingerly touched the directional fin, like a fish's, on the Thunderpack. 'How do you aim it?'
Standback laughed tolerantly. 'It's not a weapon; it's personal troop transport.'
Mara put it on her shoulders. For metal work, particularly for gnome metalwork, it was surprisingly light. 'Very impressive,' she said. She pictured an army (led by herself, naturally) swooping through squadrons of draconians and cutting them into small, non-combative strips. 'How does it start up?'
'From the mere touch of an iron weapon,' Standback said proudly. 'I used a special kind of rock in it. Do you have a dagger?'
Mara hesitated.
'Come, come,' the gnome said impatiently. 'All thieves have daggers.'
Embarrassed, Mara handed him the paring knife she had brought with her from her mother's kitchen.
Standback took it and said, 'When I wave this near the sensor, the Mighty Thunderpack will burst into action.' He tensed his arms and said in a melancholy voice, 'Well, good-bye.'
Mara, seeing the knife wave and noticing belatedly Standback's emphasis on 'burst,' lurched forward out of the way as Standback's arm moved near. To her relief, the Thunderpack did not activate. 'What do you mean, 'goodbye?' Has this thing been tested before?' she demanded.
'Of course, extensively. Just look in the side room.' The gnome gestured to the left, behind the drop cloth that Mara had assumed was hanging against the tunnel wall.
Mara lifted the cloth. Stacked floor to ceiling were the charred arms and legs of test dummies. Not one torso remained. 'Has it ever been tested by a living person?'
'Of course not; why do you think — Oh, you mean, 'by someone living at the time he tested it.' Yes, once.' Standback looked solemn. 'Poor fellow. And so young.'
Mara took off the Thunderpack, and, to her credit, she was barely shaking. 'What else do you have?'
'I have other transport devices.' He escorted her to what he called, 'a variation on the gnomeflinger. I named it the Portapult.'
IT looked more like THEM. The Portapult consisted of two gnomeflingers, ingeniously and intricately linked by cable, chain, and several pieces of fine wire, for which Mara could imagine no purpose.
Each gnomeflinger rested on six wheels on three axles. The front axle had a built-in pivot and the pivot axle of each gnomeflinger was connected to the other by chain.
Standback followed Mara's confused glance. 'Oh, they're inseparable,' he said proudly. 'Linked in frame, function, and trigger. The Portapult breaks apart for transport' — it looked as though it might break apart as he spoke — 'but it re-assembles for synchronized action. The Portapult can deliver six soldiers simultaneously, send them hundreds of feet through the air…
'Isn't it wonderful?' he finished huskily, and patted one of the delivery platforms affectionately. The platform shot upward and the Portapult spun sideways. An identical platform on the second gnomeflinger shot upward and that unit turned sideways as well — sideways toward the first — and the two platforms met with a smack that blew Standback's hair straight behind him and made Mara's ears pop.
'I should check that trigger again,' he said thoughtfully. 'Also, perhaps, the targeting ratchets.'
He sat in a narrow seat beyond one of the platforms and pedaled strenuously. A chain on a toothed gear cranked down one platform; the other inched down in time with it. Mara heard the faintest of clicks as the minuscule triggers hooked over the platforms to hold the bent, straining beams and cablework in place.
She helped the gnome as, very gently, he put the two units side by side again. 'They look dangerous,' she said.
Standback misunderstood. 'Oh, yes,' he said happily. 'Someday they'll have great strategic importance.'
'But not yet.' Mara sighed. 'Is there anything useful down here?'
The gnome considered. 'There is,' he said slowly for a gnome, 'a powerful defensive weapon, designed to break through any surrounding force. I'm not sure that I should let you see it — '
'Please.' Mara had little faith left in gnome technology, but she wanted very badly to leave with something.
'Very well.' Standback walked her down several bends in the corridor to a side tunnel. In the middle of it was
