"Technology?" Sorter gasped. A chill traveled up and down him before settling near his heart.

Elder Cammion nodded. "The plans he carried were quite interesting."

"But they are plans for war machines! Machines for killing! Machines for war!"

"Just so. We are, after all, one of three trading villages. Compet.i.tion," the elder said slowly and solemnly, "is fierce."

Sorter looked about in all directions, but saw no kender. "Will you tell me where he is?"

Elder Cammion looked as he chewed his beard. "Franni the kender is working at our technology a good distance from the village. I thought that was for the best."

Sorter was relieved. "It seems to me that villages like this are dangerous places for a kender."

Sorter followed the elder's directions that led to a cleared field outside the village. He saw that someone was raising a wood frame for a house in the field.

As he drew closer, he saw that he had been mistaken. The frame had three sides, not four, as would he required for a house, or at least so Sorter supposed. Three upright poles connected with what must be roof beams. The beams in turn connected at the apex, above a platform.

Sorter moved closer. Why a platform? Why did the platform have a rocker arm on it, with a huge pole extending, and a mallet head on the pole.

"That's the Automated Siege Engine with the remarkable Gatling Ballisra Attachment! Gatling Ballisra Attachment!" exclaimed Sorter.

Sorter walked under it, staring up. Strange noises came from above, but he couldn't see anyone.

"Franni?" he called.

An iron chain with links as long as his forearms dropped almost on top of him. He dived for the ground as a cast-iron hook came to a stop so close to him that it ruffled the hair on the back of his neck.

An oil-soaked and thoroughly delighted kender slid down the chain, stopping with one foot in the hook.

"Mr. Sorter?"

"Just Sorter." The gnome crawled out from under the hook. The kender had so much grease, oil, glue, and other substances on him that he was barely recognizable. "Franni?"

"It's good to see you!" The kender hopped off the chain. "What are you doing here?"

Sorter said with a stern glare, "I'm looking for library books."

Franni stared innocently back. "Then you should have stayed where you were, Mr. Sorter. There were lots of books there."

"I'm looking for three books that aren't there," Sorter said.

"Three books? Now there's a coincidence." Franni pointed to his duffel, which lay alongside one wooden leg of the Walking Sledgehammer. "I happen to have exactly three books. Do you think they're the ones you're looking for?"

Sorter rubbed his eyes. "That depends. Where did you get them?"

"Oh, around," Franni said vaguely. "n.o.body was reading them, and that seemed a shame. They're really interesting. Do you know the best part? The people of the village of Mormar are supplying parts for me to build the machines in the books. I'm nearly done with this one."

He slapped one of the tripod legs affectionately. An unattached beam slid off from the drive mechanism and slammed into the earth beside him, nearly knocking him senseless.

"Are you all right?" Sorter gasped. "Are you hurt?"

"Not yet," Franni said, poking unhappily at the beam. "I don't think it was supposed to do that. Do you know how these things are supposed to work?"

Sorter spoke with absolute faith. "I could build them off the plans."

"Good! Then you can stay and help me build these machines! I'm having a bit of trouble with this one," Franni admitted.

Sorter said flatly, "I can't. I must take the books back to the Repository immediately. It's my duty."

Franni looked disappointed. Sorter stood staring up at the machine. His palms itched. Before he quite knew what he was doing, his palms had taken hold of one of the books and opened it to the plans of the Walking Sledgehammer.

"Can you tell what's wrong?" Franni asked innocently. "The others worked fine, but this one-" He caught himself, shut his mouth tight, and kept his eyes on the gnome.

Sorter looked at mallet hanging over them, its handle as long as a mature tree trunk.

"Franni," said Sorter uncomfortably, not wanting to hurt the kender's feelings, "is there any chance that you've . . . er . . . exaggerated some of the machine's dimensions?"

Franni stared blankly. "Dimensions? Dimensions. . ." He glanced at one of the books. "Oh. Right. Those little numbers beside each the sketches." He shrugged. "I didn't know what they meant, so I ignored them."

"You what?" Sorter said. "Franni, you can't ignore the numbers! Gnome designs are very complicated. They have to be executed to every specification, or they may not work. Even then," he conceded, "sometimes there are a few problems. But if you change the dimensions, you don't have any idea what the machine will do when you start it up."

"But we'll know now, won't we, Mr. Sorter? Because you know what the numbers mean, and you can help me fix it. Toss me that thing with the propeller on the end, will you? I think it fits up here."

Sorter thought of the Great Repository. He thought of Blastmaster, of thirty years of work going up in a moment's spectacular explosion. Sorter picked up the propeller thing and handed it to the kender.

Construction took a month. During that time, Sorter dodged falling bricks, ducked swinging beams, and fled varying sizes of rolling objects-not always successfully. He was covered in welts, bruises, calluses, and one extremely interesting scar that ran the length of his left arm. He lost a fifth of his body weight, and his skin grew dark and weather-beaten. He was happier than he had ever been in his life.

He peered up at the Automated Siege Engine with the remarkable Catling Ballista Attachment. In just thirty days, he and the kender had raised a tower ten times the gnome's height and seventeen times the kender's. They had equipped the tower with three tiers of enormous bows and more than a dozen racks of pitch-dipped fire arrows. In a burst of inspiration, they had added on the Rolling Ram and the Walking Sledgehammer.

Surprisingly, it was the battering ram portion of the Siege Engine that gave them the most trouble. The governor on the engine spun out of control three times, leaving Franni and Sorter to dance frantically around trying to shut the engine down by throwing rocks at it or poking at it cautiously with sticks. Then, once that was fixed, the wheel blocks slid mysteriously out from under the undercarriage, sending the entire structure rolling downhill while they chased it. Franni enjoyed that part a lot more than Sorter did.

Now the ram stood shining in the starlight, the mallet's steel plated head gleaming.

"Tomorrow's the big day," said Franni.

"It is," Sorter said, trying to imagine it. "The whole village of Mormar is turning out to watch."

"Think the test will go well?"

Sorter fell back on the old gnome maxim. "I can't think of a single reason why it shouldn't work."

Franni said solemnly, "Then you'll take your books and go back to the library."

"Of course," Sorter said slowly. "That's my duty. I'll miss the children, though."

Every few days, Lila and some of the other children would run out from the town with loaves of fresh-baked bread and food. She and the children stayed as long as they dared, asking questions about the machines and climbing over them with a reckless courage that even Franni admired. Then they would run back, late for work. After the children left, Franni was always very sad-an odd thing for a kender, or so Sorter had read.

Franni rolled over on his pallet. "It's all right that you want to go back. It was really fun at the Repository, just not as interesting as what we've been doing. To me, anyway," he finished tactfully.

"To you," Sorter echoed. "Well, our work has been interesting. To tell you the truth, I've enjoyed myself."

"I'm glad," Franni said. "I'd hate to think that I'd completely wasted your time."

"Not a bit." Sorter looked around with awe at the machinery the two of them had a.s.sembled. "I'll remember this all my life."

Franni was delighted. "You really think so?"

"I swear it. Listen, we'd better get some sleep."

"For the big day, and for your journey home."

"For the big day," Sorter agreed.

Franni rolled over and fell asleep. Sorter stared into the stars, saying nothing more out loud.

The day dawned clear and warm, with next to no breeze. Sorter scanned the sky and saw no clouds at all. They couldn't have asked for a better day.

The test was going to be conducted on a city wall and a warehouse that the people of the village of Mormar had built in the field near the machine. Flags flew atop the warehouse and battlements- the flags of Dormar and Gormar. The people of Mormar told the gnome that the flags had been placed there for a joke.

The festivities began the moment the sun rose. A band consisting of a flaternette, a floozie, a rebec, a cit-terne, a serpent, a tabor, a tambour, and three large bra.s.s instruments that sounded like extremely unhappy livestock marched into the field. The people of the village of Mormar gathered near the band but not too near. Elder Cammion stood with his people, wincing occasionally at the music.

There was a rustle of motion in the gra.s.s and Lila appeared, carrying a bouquet of wildflowers in her hands. She was scrubbed clean of work-dirt and wore a linen dress. Sorter barely recognized her. She handed him the flowers.

"Good luck!" she said.

Sorter put the flowers in an open-ended canister used for injecting grease onto axles, making a mental note as he did so: Automated Siege Machine with the remarkable Catling Ballista and Flower Vase. Automated Siege Machine with the remarkable Catling Ballista and Flower Vase.

"Thank you, Lila."

"This is fun," Lila said. "Today I don't have to haul boxes or check inventory." She ran back across the field.

Sorter noticed that Franni was once again sad about something.

Sorter put his hand on the kender's shoulder. Hoping to cheer him up, he said, "We'd better start the pre-test checklist."

They climbed up and down each part of the machines, inspecting bolt tightness, wheel lubrication, gear mesh, and worm-gear travel distance.

When they dropped to the ground, Franni asked, "Is that everything?"

"You have a grease smudge on your nose," Sorter told him.

"Yes," Franni said impatiently, "but is that everything?"

"Are you nervous?" Sorter asked. "I didn't think kender were ever nervous."

"I don't know what you mean," Franni said, and he clearly didn't. "I'm just excited by all these people watching."

"Me, too." Sorter confessed, and added shyly, "It's the best day of my life." To cover his embarra.s.sment, he said quickly, "Isn't that Elder Cammion in the center of the townspeople?"

Franni squinted and shrugged. "I never could tell them all apart. You don't suppose he's going to make a speech, do you?" Now he sounded nervous.

"Why don't you engage the Siege Engine?" Sorter suggested hastily.

Franni clambered up the lashed timbers of the Siege Engine. On the topmost platform, fastened in place with a panoply of rivets, grommets, staples and tabs, was a huge blood-red b.u.t.ton. The plans called for manual controls.

Franni looked at the breathless crowd. He waved his hand at Sorter, who stood off to one side and prepared to take notes. The kender raised his fist and punched the b.u.t.ton.

There came a strong smell of hot metal. A motor whined. Seconds later, the siege engine, its bows bending and its arrows loading, rolled and rumbled toward the test fortifications. According to the plan, the engine would stop in front of the walls, fire its arrows and strew about a few flowers.

Franni leaped clear of the platform, landed on the rolling ram, and pulled back on the stick that freed the flywheel.

Now Sorter was nervous. The siege engine was supposed to be rolling to a stop about now. Instead it was picking up speed, rumbling toward the fortress. Something was very wrong.

Sorter ran alongside. "Did you override the safety cutouts?" he hollered.

"Who needs 'em?" Franni shouted back happily, and spun a crank. The air filled with a high-pitched whine, and the rolling ram rolled on.

"Yaaaah!" Franni screeched, as he leaped to the dangling starter pull of the mallet.

The sledgehammer engine turned over with a roar. As the great tripod legs strode forward, the mighty hammer swung down with a threatening whoosh. The crowd sighed expectantly.

At that point, the starter-pull tried to rewind, swinging the kender to one side. He dropped down to land on one foot of the walking sledgehammer tripod. Off balance, he steadied himself using his hoopak, which, unfortunately, happened to jam in between the toes of the tripod foot.

The tripod turned on the stuck foot. The mallet, slicing down, knocked the rolling ram sideways. The rolling ram hit a corner of the siege engine, which spun around one hundred and eighty degrees.

The Automated Siege Engine with the remarkable Catling Ballista and Flower Vase shifted away from the fake village of Gormar and Dormar and rolled, walked, and crawled inexorably toward the real village of Mormar.

The a.s.sembled villagers stared, stunned, at the technology that was headed straight for them. They scattered for the high ground, leaving behind a few musical instruments and the elder's notes for a speech. The children, shouting gleefully, cheered the machine.

Suddenly Sorter saw that one of the children, Lila, had fallen down. The siege engine was headed straight for her.

"No!" Sorter cried, and dashed toward her as fast as he could.

A shadow fell on Lila. She looked up, frozen, at the mallet head swinging forward, prepared to crush her against the city wall.

Sorter threw himself on top of her. His last thought was, "It's been fun-"

"Hop on!" cried a voice.

Sorter looked up, saw that Franni had managed to regain control of the machine. It jumped over both of them, as the whizzing mallet head smashed a chunk out of the city wall.

Sorter and Lila jumped onto the machine. Sorter shouted over the sound of falling stone, "So you've got the manual controls working again?"