Tazo spoke privately to Vonn in his room. "Why hide that detail about jets from our official report?"

Vonn looked up from his desk, brushing his ears back. "I want to tell everyone, soon. This part of the information is the cutting edge. And I'm wondering who's going to get cut."

"His expectations will be too high?"

"Yeah. 'I want a ship that can drill into the dungeon from the sky, with a blast of flame!'"

"But we could begin dropping alchemical bombs or fire-pots."

Vonn buried his muzzle in his hands. "Remember how you were all upset to hear about World War I? War is a way of speeding up technology, but this is not the direction I was hoping to take our flying machines before their first birthday."

His sister's ears drooped as she saw where her line of thinking would lead. "I don't want to specialize in weapons either. So do we need to pretend our machines are less impressive than they really are?"

"No; just stick to discussing what we're sure is working properly. Or the printer kids will start reporting that we'll fly to the moons next month." He stood. "I need to go make sure they're not rushing into print with rumors again."

#

In fact he could smell the fear in the print shop, where a few gems dangled from the ceiling to give off heat and light. The usual trio was cleaning and organizing along with a fourth kid, a grey Kobold he didn't know. "New hire," said the oldest boy. "Vonn, what do we do? We're supposed to say what happened, but we've got the Duke looking over our shoulders."

He looked the printing press over with some admiration. "You've been taking care of this."

"Yes, sir," said the younger Human brother. He showed off inkstains on his hands.

Vonn nodded in approval. "You're all making money, apparently, and you're learning. You can do the most good if you spread true and useful information instead of rushing to get gossip on paper. Take at least a day to find out what's going on. Go around asking people questions about what and where and why. Make it clear which parts you actually know and which parts you're guessing... and try not to guess. That'll help protect you."

Inkpaw said, "All right, we can ask around."

He added, "While you're unsure, you might help train the monks over at the temple." He'd been wanting to sell them a printing press too but just hadn't had time. "Or work on that paperwork project." Which meant cranking out standard legal documents for the Baron, a dull but useful job. The kids had set up a frame of lettering for it and left it permanently ready for use.

"Aw, that's the same thing over and over. Can't we get one of your machines to do it?"

Vonn laughed. "In a way, that's the right attitude. Maybe think of a faster way to set up the letters?"

#

His team put the flying boat back in the air with Birb and a shooter. They were on the town's west edge, from which Birb said she could see the tainted stone terrain closer than ever. Vonn reluctantly left the flying machine in the care of his friends and went off to do business.

He had engines but not standard boats. So he hired a builder in the dock district to produce four rafts quickly, sturdy enough that he could motorize them. Unfortunately, there was no factory cranking these out; every item had to be hand-crafted. And of course the Company was relying on magicite, a unique resource that couldn't be mined and was a substantial share of the budget.

The dock district was in a weird mood. The usual rowdy crowd of outsiders looked ready to bolt, yet some people lingered to watch the hubbub. Vonn stopped by a bar he rarely visited and listened in. Some folk wanted to raid the dungeon but there was too much danger, too little reward. Some feared the whole town would get "eaten by monsters".

A man who looked half-frozen, just in from the cold, looked up from his drink. "You there. Do you know those Engineers in this town?"

"I'm one of them."

"Can you make me a hunting crossbow?"

"Yeah. Might be a few days." He named a price, and they haggled. The customer was headed north to Grandbridge where they had such things too, but more expensive.

"Do you really have flying boats?"

"Just one right now."

Another patron said, "The kid's got another one, a rowboat that can push upriver without oars."

"I do, but with the dungeon trouble I'm trying to build a couple more in a hurry. Wouldn't trust it on a long trip yet unless you've got a backup plan."

The buyer said, "Might want one, once you get it working. I sell pelts up and down the river."

Vonn headed home in time to see another commotion. One of the flying beasts had come again to menace the town. He cursed. The alarm bell wasn't ringing but the Reeve was outside and assembling a gang of irritated people with clubs and bows. One of these men said to Vonn, "You! You went to the dungeon and it suddenly erupted. You flew around it with your fancy machines, and suddenly it started spitting out flying monsters. It's imitating what you do."

The Reeve tried to quell that talk, but several more people had obviously been thinking the same thing. "What's he going to do next, build a giant fire beast? No gems for us in that death maze, but somehow he has plenty."

The latest flapping intruder had been circling. Now it dived toward the cooper's shop and the militia had to run after it. With a shriek and a flyby it tore a chunk of the roof loose and hurled it to the ground. Vonn hurried back to the workshop while the better equipped group tried to shoot the creature.