"No toy, Lady Nirea," he grunted. "You lied to me."
"I didn't! Can you read the writing?" she asked sourly.
"No rucker reads, as you know. But this is no toy, and you knew it." He tucked it into the waistband of his trousers, took three more. "You can show me how to use them later."
She laughed in his face and was given a rough slap on the cheek. Skin tingling, she said, "Play the squire, miner, you don't have long to do it!"
"They won't find this hole."
"I left a trail of emotion that a globe could follow after a week!" she told him.
Slowly his brown face turned pale. Then he struck her again, but very hard, so that she staggered back and fell. Without a word he grasped her wrist and hauled her after him on a swift tour of the cavern.
A huge intricate mechanism sat like a grotesque idol on the floor. "What is it?" he said. "Read for me."
She looked at the printing on the front. Dynamo she spelt out, and shrugged. "A name I don't know."