The War of the Lance t2-3

by Margaret Weis

  Standback complained, with some justification, "You promised. Is there no honor among thieves?"

  "There was once," Mara said. "Someone stole it." Then she sighed and moved the dummy off the X. "I warn you, I'm leaving at the first sign of danger. What is it we're testing?"

  "It's called the Room Security Spybanger," Standback said impatiently. "Now will you step on the X?"

  Mara tapped the X with her toe, leapt, tucked, and rolled easily away, preparing to watch from a safe distance.

  She heard a twang. A stone mallet — its head the size of her own — whistled above her close enough to ruffle her hair. Mara ducked, heard a second twang and felt a sudden sharp sting on her cheek as an elastic cord attached to the mallet handle snapped taut against her skin.

  The mallet struck the far wall. A trap door popped open beside it. The mallet whizzed back. Mara's back flip carried her just out of range. She dropped flat as a second mallet spun out of the trap door and careened past her, setting off a third mallet.

  Soon six stone hammers were ricocheting and thudding around the room. Mara rolled, leapt, ducked, twisted, and at one point slid down a thrumming elastic cord to keep out of the way.

  Eventually, in desperation, she crawled back to a section of floor that every last mallet had failed to pass over. She glanced in all directions, poised to spring, until the mallets gradually lost momentum and dangled limply from the tangled elastics.

  In the far comer, Standback applauded. "A perfect test." He wrote furiously on his stomach. "Absolutely perfect, with the exception of a few trajectory defects."

  Mara looked down. She was crouched over the X. "You tried to kill me."

  Standback shook his head violently. "Never. The Spybanger is designed only for self-protection; killing is purely accidental. Can you help me rig these back up?"

  From a comer cabinet, Standback produced a large wooden crank. He inserted the crank into a spring and ratchet arrangement in the first trap and turned it until the mechanism was tight enough to leave room for the hammer in front of it. He lifted the mallet laboriously, then stood back, panting.

  "And so amazingly easy to reload," he said, struggling to shut the trap before the hammer flew out.

  Mara helped crank and lift the other five. "What else have you been working on?"

  In answer, he led her through a second door — which led through a short tunnel to another room.

  "This isn't for spies, and it's not an offensive weapon. It's a shock-lessening device, a preventive measure for high-impact disasters. A pneumatically seismosensitive counter-measure for offsetting combat-related upheavals."

  "What does it do?"

  "I just told you," Standback snapped. "When we get there, would you stand in the center of the room, right on the X?"

  Mara started to agree readily, then stopped. "Is it supposed to be the safest place?"

  Standback nodded.

  "In that case," Mara said politely, "why don't YOU stand on it, and I'll observe?"

  The gnome's shaggy eyebrows shot up. "That's kind of you." He stepped onto the X. "You don't mind taking the extra risk?"

  "Never." Mara folded her arms. "Danger and I are well acquainted."

  "All right. Watch, then. The Thudbagger is designed to protect against impact." He paused. "You've seen the gnomeflingers in use, above?"

  Mara shuddered. She. had flitted down from level to level in the shadows, watching as gnomes sailed from level to level (and, usually, down again) from the bulky catapults that were equipped with everything except accuracy and control.

  "Well," Standback continued, "this may surprise you, but several visiting knights thought that the gnomeflingers might also be dangerous."

  "No!"

  "Truly. They thought — now, to my mind, it takes a twisted mind to think this in the first place — that someone could use the gnomeflingers to throw dead weight projectiles instead of passengers. Well, we performed some experiments, but we never got reliable enough results to suggest that this would work."

  "Why not?" Mara asked.

  Standback sighed. "Mostly because the note-takers kept getting crushed by thrown rocks. At any rate, the knights asked us to come up with a defense to protect getting hurt by flying rocks. They talked about shields, and barriers, but our Hazard Analysis Committee interviewed the gnomeflinger Impact Test Survivors and concluded that the problem went beyond shields and walls. I brought their results down here with me." He led her into the next room.

  The furniture, Mara noted with relief, did not look banged up at all. How dangerous could this room be?

  A closer look revealed the furniture to be brand new. The comers of the room contained large piles of splinters.

  "Are you sure you want ME to stand on the X?" Stand-back asked. "After all, I guarantee it to be the safest place in the room."

  Mara bowed to him. "All the more reason to give it to you."

  He was flattered. "How kind you are, and how brave."

  "I am also called Mara the Courageous," she said.

  Standback was not surprised.

  He stepped onto the X and folded his arms confidently. "This room has a broad-band sensor." He pointed to a small round bump in the floor. "Stamp anywhere. You don't need to do it very hard."

  The floor looked to be some kind of parquet, broken at regular intervals with circular lids each the size of a melon.

  Mara eyed Standback narrowly and slammed her foot against the bare floor. Nothing happened. She stamped again, harder. Still nothing. She took a running start and stamped with both feet, hard enough to hurt her ankles. Nothing. She gave up and leaned on the wall.

  Huge leather balloons popped out of the floor. Filling instantly with compressed air, the balloons smashed the new furniture to kindling.

  Mara sidled around the edge of the room, squeezing between the wall and the balloons. "That's pretty impressive, Standback — hello?" She squeaked a balloon with her thumb. "Standback?"

  Mara heard an answering squeak. She leapt onto one of the balloons, poised there like a cat, and saw a hand struggling upward in the crack where all the balloons met.

  Mara rolled down to the hand and planted her feet against balloon, her right shoulder against another. Gradually, the two moved apart. She heard a gasping inhale below her, then a thump as something hit the floor.

  "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 weap
ons?"

  "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 a tarpaulin covering something the size of a crouching man.

  "Why isn't this one in a room?" Mara asked.

  Standback shuddered. "In a room, with this? That would be far too dangerous." He pointed to the long horizontal gashes in the tunnel walls, and parallel marks on the floor, chiseled into the rock. Some of them were bright and new.

  Mara perked up. "Is it really so dangerous as all that?"

  "Absolutely," the gnome replied. "You can parry a sword. You can beat back a spear." Standback paused for effect, not an easy thing for a gnome. "But there is no way for your adversary to fight off the astonishing Floating Deathaxe."

  He pulled a cloth off the axe.

  In spite of her disappointment, Mara felt like laughing at the sight of a pendulum-shaped axe, swinging from a framework of three strange oar-shaped wooden fans. The fans were attached to a gear arrangement of spools of thongs and elastics.

  "Good design," she said finally. "If it's deadly, it hides its function well."

  "You think so?" Standback peered at it. "It looks like any other weapon's design to me."

  "How does it work? No offense, but it looks as though it is designed to mix bread in some demented kitchen. What do these little oars do?"

  The gnome reached a stubby finger out and spun them fondly. "They're called propellers. When they're in balance, they propel it."

  Mara stared confusedly at the propellers, which weren't attached to any wheels or rollers. "How?"

  "In a straight line, if it's properly adjusted."

  "No, I mean, how can
they move it?"

  "It flies."

  Now Mara did laugh. "And what makes it fly?" She saw a pull-cord hanging from one of the spindles. "This?"

  "Yes, but only after it's properly adjusted. If you — "

  "Oh, leave it alone," Mara said tiredly.

  Standback looked crushed.

  "I'm sorry." Mara sighed. "I didn't mean that. It's just — I was going to bring back such wonderful things, and save my people and make Kalend notice me — " She choked back her tears. Queens of Thieves don't cry.

  Standback patted her sympathetically and they walked together in silence, two people with little in common but the fact that life was not going well for either of them.

  They returned to the skylight where Mara had first entered. She stood in the smoke and steam-filtered daylight of the square hole above them and slumped against the rock wall, looking at the hall of useless inventions.

  From somewhere far overhead came a muffled boom. The entire tunnel shook, dropping dust and cobwebs. A huge bell carillon somewhere far above them clanged frantically, followed by some kind of trumpet, several clappers, a siren, and numerous whistles.

  Invisible creatures shook themselves free of the ceiling and flapped to and fro in panic. Mara clapped her hands over her ears. Standback shouted in delight, "It works!"

  "What?" Mara could read his lips, though that was hard because of the gnome's beard.

  "The perimeter alarm. I set it up around the top of the mountain." Standback was actually dancing. "It notifies bystanders — "

  "I'll say."

  " — locates the point of entry, and even seals off rooms and levels." He pointed to the stone trap door sliding slowly over the skylight to the crater floor.

  Then he looked concerned. "They'll need me up there to shut it off. They're probably completely deaf right now."

  "Whaaat?"

  "Nothing." Standback dashed over to the Gnomeflinger, leapt on the payload pad several times and (amazingly enough) sailed easily through the half-shut skylight. "Illbebacktheleverletsyouout — "

  The trap door slid shut and fell in place with a thud. The bells, whistles, clappers and sirens above grew muffled.