8

Kip’s little workshop didn’t tell me much. It was evident the kid knew his tools, though. He had a hell of a collection, half of which I didn’t know what they were. He had a hundred unidentifiable projects going. As soon as we walked in he grabbed a file and went to work on notches in a round metal plate about eight inches in diameter. It took him only a few seconds to become totally focused.

“What the hell?” I asked.

Playmate shrugged. “I don’t know. Part of one of his machines. I can show you the picture he had me draw.”

“I meant, how come he suddenly goes from being something you have to keep on a leash to being somebody who’s blind to the whole damned world?”

Another expressive shrug. Playmate showed me into his forge area, which had expanded considerably since my last visit and which was an amazing clutter of junk and what looked like things half-built. I wondered how he got any shoeing done.

From some niche Playmate produced a leather folder filled with dozens of sheets of good linen paper. He shuffled through unsuspectedly good bits of artwork until he located the piece he wanted. I glimpsed my own likeness in passing. “Now that was a good-looking young man.”

Playmate grunted. I think that was meant to be neutral but failed to sound like it when he observed, “The operative word being ‘was.’ ”

There were more portrait sketches. They were all good. I recognized several people.

How many hidden talents did Playmate have? He surprised me every few months.

The portfolio contained more sketches of devices than of people. Some were really complicated, highly unlikely mechanisms. And a few didn’t seem complicated at all. One of those was a little two-wheeler cart with a pair of long shafts sticking out in front. A man had been sketched in as pulling it, conveying another seated in the cart.

Something like that, without the shafts, sat about ten feet from where I stood. “You’re trying to build some of these things?”

“Unh? Oh. Yeah. All of them, eventually. But there’re problems. With that thing I’m having trouble finding long enough poles that’re still light. But we did test it. It’ll work.”

“Why?”

“Because we have an extremely lazy complement of wealthy people in this town. And a lot of unemployed young men who need something to keep them out of trouble. My notion is to build a fleet of those things and rent them out at nominal fees so some of those young men have a way to make a living. Which will keep them out of trouble at the same time.”

Having a way to make a living didn’t keep me out of trouble.

That was Playmate, though. Finding a way to get rich doing good deeds. Except that then he would end up giving away any wealth he acquired.

Next to the cart stood a second mechanism. I could not figure it out. It had three wheels. Two were about a foot in diameter and were mounted at the ends of a wooden axle. The other was about two and a half feet in diameter, turning on a hardwood pin which passed through the ends of a two-lined wooden fork. That rose through the upper end of an arc of hardwood that curved down to the two-wheel axle. A curved crossbar above the hardwood arc allowed the larger wheel to be turned right and left.

I did not see a sketch of that in Playmate’s folio. “What is that?”

“We just call it a three-wheel. Let me finish showing you this. Then I’ll let you see how it works. Here. Check this. It’s a two-wheel. It’s a more complicated cousin of that.” He extracted a drawing.

This mechanism had two wheels of equal size, fore and aft, with a rider perched amidships, as though astride a horse. “I’m not sure I get this.”

“Oh, I don’t, either. Kip explains these things when he has me draw them but I seldom understand. However, everything he finishes putting together does what he says it will do. And sometimes it seems so obvious afterward that I wonder why nobody ever thought of it before. So I take him on faith. This engine—and that one there—gets around on power provided by the rider’s legs. If you want to know much more than that you’ll have to ask Kip. He’ll turn human after a while. Come here.” He led me to the three-wheel.

“Climb up here and sit down.”

The wooden arc part of the mechanism boasted a sort of saddle barely big enough for a mouse. When I sat on it my butt ached immediately. “So what is it? Some kind of walker with wheels?” If so, my legs were too long. “I’ve seen lots better wheelchairs.” Chodo Contague has one that is so luxurious it comes with a crew of four footmen and has its own heating system.

“Put your feet up on these things.” He used the toe of a boot to indicate an L-shaped bar that protruded from the hub of the big wheel up front. “The one on the other side, too. Good. Now push. With your right foot. Your other right foot.”

The three-wheel moved. I zipped around in a tight circle. “Hey! This’s neat.” My foot slipped off. The end of the iron L clipped my anklebone. I iterated several words that would have turned Mom red. I reiterated them with considerable gusto.

“We’re working on that. That can’t be much fun. We’re going to drill a hole down the center of a flat piece of hardwood . . . ”

I got the hang of the three-wheel quickly. But there wasn’t enough room to enjoy it properly in there. “How about I take it out in the street?”

“I’d really rather you didn’t. I’m sure that’s why we’ve had the trouble we’ve had. Kip took it out there, racing around, and before he got back he had several people try to take it away from him. And right afterward the strange people started coming around.”

I scooted around the stable for a few minutes more, then gave up because I couldn’t enjoy the machine’s full potential under such constrained circumstances. “Are you planning to make three-wheels, too? Because if you are, I want one. If I can afford it.”

Playmate’s eyes lighted up as he saw the possibility of paying my fees without having to part with any actual money. “I might. But honesty compels me to admit that we’re having problems with it. Especially with getting the wheels and the steering bar to move freely. Lard doesn’t seem to be the ideal lubricant.”

“And it draws flies.” Plenty of those were around. But the place was a stable, after all.

“That, too. And the kinds of hardwoods we need to make the parts aren’t common. Not to mention that we’d have to come up with whole teams of woodworking craftsmen if we were to build even a fraction of the number of them we think we’d need to satisfy the demand there’d be once people started seeing them in the streets.”

“Hire some of those out-of-work veterans to make them.”

“How many of them, you figure, are likely to be skilled joiners and cabinetmakers?”

“Uhn. Not to mention wheelwrights.” I walked around the three-wheel. “That geekoid kid over there actually thought this up?”

“This thing and a whole lot more, Garrett. It’ll be a mechanical revolution if we ever figure out how to build all of the things he can imagine.”

I slid down off the three-wheeler. “What do you call this?”

“Like I told you. Just three-wheel.”

There had to be something that sounded more dramatic. “Here’s a notion. You could train your veterans just to do what it takes to manufacture three-wheels. That wouldn’t be like them having to learn all about making cabinets and furniture.”

“And then I’d have guild trouble.”

I stared at the three-wheel, sighed, told Playmate, “I guarantee you, somebody’s going to get rich off this thing.” My knack for prophecy is limited but that was a prediction I made with complete conviction. I had no trouble picturing the streets of the better neighborhoods overrun with three-wheels.

“Someone with fewer ethical disadvantages than I have, you mean?”

“That wasn’t what I was getting at, but it’s a fact. As soon as you get some of those things out there you’re going to have people trying to build knockoffs.” I had a thought. Lest it get lonely I sent it out into the world. “You said Kip took this one out and somebody tried to take it away from him?”

Playmate nodded.

“Could it be that Kip’s having problems because somebody wants to steal his ideas?” I’m sure that I’m not the only royal subject bright enough to see the potential of Kip’s inventions.

Playmate nodded. “That could be going on, too. But there’s definitely something to the trouble with the weird elves. And right now I’m more worried about them. Stay here and keep an eye on Kip while I make us all a pot of tea.”

Ever civilized, my friend Playmate. In the midst of chaos he’ll take time for amenities, all with the appropriate service.