Men at Arms (Discworld 15)

Leonard nodded. 'Ah. I . . . think I understand. I hope it works.'

He sighed.

'I suppose I should have dismantled it, but . . . it was so clearly a made thing. I had this strange fancy I was merely assembling something that already existed. Sometimes I wonder where I got the whole idea. It seemed . . . I don't know . . . sacrilege, I suppose, to dismantle it. It'd be like dismantling a person. Biscuit?'

'Dismantling a person is sometimes necessary,' said Lord Vetinari.

'This, of course, is a point of view,' said Leonard da Quirm politely.

'You mentioned sacrilege,' said Lord Vetinari. 'Normally that involves gods of some sort, does it not?'

'Did I use the word? I can't imagine there is a god of gonnes.'

'It is quite hard, yes.'

The Patrician shifted uneasily, reached down behind him, and pulled out an object.

'What,' he said, 'is this?'

'Oh, I wondered where that had gone,' said Leonard. 'It's a model of my spinning-up-into-the-air machine.'[20]

Lord Vetinari prodded the little rotor.

'Would it work?'

'Oh, yes,' said Leonard. He sighed. 'If you can find one man with the strength of ten men who can turn the handle at about one thousand revolutions a minute.'

The Patrician relaxed, in a way which only then drew gentle attention to the foregoing moment of tension.

'Now there is in this city,' he said, 'a man with a gonne. He has used it successfully once, and almost succeeded a second time. Could anyone have invented the gonne?'

'No,' said Leonard. 'I am a genius.' He said it quite simply. It was a statement of fact.

'Understood. But once a gonne has been invented, Leonard, how much of a genius need someone be to make the second one?'

'The rifling technique requires considerable finesse, and the cocking mechanism that slides the bullette assembly is finely balanced, and of course the end of the barrel must be very . . .' Leonard saw the Patrician's expression, and shrugged. 'He must be a clever man,' he said.

'This city is full of clever men,' said the Patrician. 'And dwarfs. Clever men and dwarfs who tinker with things.'

'I am so very sorry.'

'They never think.'

'Indeed.'

Lord Vetinari leaned back and stared at the skylight.

'They do things like open the Three Jolly Luck Take-Away Fish Bar on the site of the old temple in Dagon Street on the night of the Winter solstice when it also happens to be a full moon.'

'That's people for you, I'm afraid.'

'I never did find out what happened to Mr Hong.'

'Poor fellow.'

'And then there's the wizards. Tinker, tinker, tinker. Never think twice before grabbing a thread of the fabric of reality and giving it a pull.'

'Shocking.'