"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.
Mara stared upward, her mouth hanging open. A gnome device had actually worked as it was supposed to. But now how was she going to get out?
She examined the lever on the wall and tried to trace its relationship to the trap door. She could see a slack rope that disappeared into a hole in the tunnel ceiling, and she noted a rod leading from the lever up to a cantilever, but she couldn't understand how it would work.
The alarm noises stopped abruptly. Standback or someone else had found a way to shut them off or, more likely, had accidentally silenced them. Mara had seen enough of the gnomes to hope that there were no casualties.
Her ears adjusted to the sudden near-silence; she heard the soft hum (and drip) of ventilation devices somewhere, and the restless motion of invisible flying pests, and something else: a rustling, back in the side tunnels.
Feet moving — a scraping sound, not quite boots and not quite barefoot. The clink of metal on metal. It sounded definitely ungnomelike. At that point, it occurred to Mara that something had set off Standback's alarms. A real thief… Mara hid in a niche in the wall.
A shadowy figure came into view, wearing a helmet with a dragon crest.