"Yeah," says Stalas. "We have those at home too. It's amazing how happy little kids can be about 'and then all the bad guys died in a darkspawn attack'."

"What exactly are darkspawn, anyway?"

"They look sort of like people. Some dwarf-size, some human-size, some fucking huge - we call that last kind ogres. But they're kind of grey and horrible-looking and you have experienced what they smell like. And they come from deep underground and kill anyone they can find."

"Are they spontaneously generated or is there some kind of mechanism that produces them?"

"If I knew, I'd be trying to cut them off at the source. Maybe they breed like people and animals; maybe they sprout like mushrooms. Who knows."

"No one's gotten deep enough to find out?"

"You're joking, right? No. No one's been crazy enough to try. There are a lot of fucking darkspawn down there."

"Well, now I want to send a little robot with a camera down there."

"I feel like that would end badly," says Stalas, "even if I can't predict exactly how."

"It would involve you holding the door to let the robot get anywhere, but I wouldn't send an indispensible robot."

"Right, and while I was holding the door, darkspawn could attack us," he says. "As an example of something that could go horribly wrong with that plan."

"I didn't say the plan was complete in its current form. For instance, in addition to a robot, we could acquire plasma arcs."

"You know what," says Stalas, "I suspend all discussion of things to do about darkspawn until I am actually trained in these mysterious weapons you people keep mentioning."

"What about if we, say, promised to take it apart again right away?" wonders Miles, reading the napkins over his wife's elbow.

"Sure, but wanting to shoot things isn't the only reason to want a plasma arc," says Miles. "I actually want to show Stalas what all these things look like and how they're put together. I can do it at home, but I could do it here too."

I will provide you any diagrams of plasma arcs you may care to borrow or purchase, says Bar implacably.

"Because you don't believe me, or because you wouldn't go for it even if you did?"

"So, here's a question," says Miles. "If Linya's staying here for a few days, is there any point in the rest of us going home before then?"

"If sufficiently bored," says Mark. "Otherwise no. As I understand it."

"If sufficiently bored or concerned that you will have inadequate ability to rejoin the paused timestream if you stay too long. If, for example, Ivan feels that he's in danger of forgetting people he was introduced to 'half an hour ago', he might want to bail out early."

"Ah, I didn't even think of that. I'd be more worried about it if I was single."

Miles snorts. "Yeah, as long as you don't forget your girlfriend, you should be fine."