cleaning them – with a perfectly fine solvent invented by a
friend of mine – when they dissolved. Also, the table under
them. Wonderful stain remover, though.” Standback’s
shaggy eyebrows dropped low as he brooded. “I can’t re-
apply until I’ve proven that I have a semi-working
prototype.” He added sadly, “If only you had been caught
or killed.”
Mara sighed in her turn. “If only YOU were the
master of the Weapons Guild.”
Standback shook his head. “If I were, Watchout and I
would be married by now. And I would be far above.” He
looked upward wistfully, as though he could see through
the ceiling. “Up where there is honor, glory, and matching
funding. Where draftsmen constantly draft bigger drafting
boards for bigger projects with larger cost overruns . . .”
Mara, disheartened, listened as he described the
Schedule Rescheduling Department, the Management
Oversight Overseers, and the apparently all-powerful
Expanding Contractors. “Tell me,” she broke in finally,
“have any of these projects ever been finished?”
Standback, shocked to the depth of his stubby little
being, stared at her. “Young woman, any project worthy of
state funding should be perfected, never finished.”
“Well, if you’re not the master of the Weapons Guild,
then what ARE you?” she asked.
He lowered his eyes. “I’m a lower-level inventor
whose future life work must be scrounged from the debris
left by the failures of others – ”
“Have you invented ANYTHING?”
“I’ve done more varied work than most gnomes you
have met.”
Since Mara had met no other gnomes, she simply
nodded.
“My Life Quest – ” Standback stopped, looked pained,
and said with careful stress, “my primary work just now is
still sensor-related, since that was my Life Quest. I invent
security and safety equipment for home or fort, for the
detection and prevention of unwanted forcible spies,
intruders, or weapons – ”
“Paladine’s panties,” Mara said irreverently. “You
make burglar alarms and traps.”
Standback said happily, “That’s why I was so happy
when you appeared. What luck, really – a burglar, coming
straight through the burglar alarms and lockouts. It will be
a boon to my data.”
“Not luck.” Mara was having trouble understanding.
“I mean, Kalend ordered that I take this dangerous
mission.”
Standback looked dubious. “No offense and don’t take
this the wrong way, but you ARE rather young and did he
really order you?”
Mara nodded emphatically. “It was when I was walking
with him on the ramparts, which I try to do a lot – not that
he minds or anything, even though I’m younger than he is,
since I’m remarkably mature, responsible, and
exceptionally good-looking for my age – and we were
talking about the war. He said, ‘If only there were one
working gnome weapon, and we had it. . .'” Mara stopped
and chewed her lip thoughtfully. “Or maybe he said, ‘If
there was only one gnome weapon that worked and we
had it. . .’
“Anyway,” Mara went on, “I remember thinking that
he’d better not talk like that where the draconians could
hear him, or they’d go get a weapon first, and then I
thought about how happy he’d be if I went first instead and
found him a weapon and saved the village, and – well, I
left.” She folded her arms over her chest. “Under cover of
darkness, like I said. Through the draconian camps – ”
The gnome raised a bushy eyebrow. He was coming
to know Mara. “THROUGH their camps?”
“Well, around. Under their very scaly noses.”
“So you saw them?”
“Not actually saw them,” she admitted, but added
quickly, “BUT I knew they were there, and was too clever
to be caught by them. Alone and courageous, I came – ”
‘To find weapons.” Standback frowned, thinking. “To
fight these draconians, whom you haven’t really seen.
Um.”
He reached a conclusion and rubbed his stained and
callused hands together. “Well, as long as you’re here, I
don’t see why we shouldn’t strike a deal. Do you still want
some gnome weapons?”
“What?” It took Mara, caught up in dreams of her own
heroism, a moment to remember what she was doing here.
Her thin young mouth set firmly. “More than ever.”