"No -- uh -- we can do it," Roperig replied.

Roperig slapped Fitter on the back and they turned around, laying the rope over their shoulders. The gnomes dug in their toes and pulled.

"Pull, Roperig! Heave ho, Fitter! Pull, pull, pull!" shouted the other gnomes.

"Wait," said Kitiara suddenly. "The rope is fraying --"

The hastily woven cable was coming undone just behind Fitter. Twine and strands of twisted cloth spun away, and the two gnomes, oblivious, braced their backs against it.

"Stop!" This was all Sturm had time to shout before the rope parted. Roperig and Fitter fell on their faces with a plunk. The other end of the cable, weighted down by the anchor, snaked away. Bellcrank and Cutwood took off after . it. The roly-poly chemist tripped over his own feet and stumbled. The ragged end of the cable whisked out of his reach. Cutwood, with surprising verve, leaped over his fallen colleague and dived for the fleeing rope. To Sturm's amazement, he caught it. Cutwood weighed no more than fifty or sixty pounds, and the anchor weighed two hundred.

As it continued to sink into the red dust, it dragged Cut- wood along with it.

"Let go!" Sturm shouted. Kitiara and the gnomes echoed him, but Cutwood was already in the dust. Then, as the oth- ers looked on in horror, Cutwood upended and disap- peared. They waited and watched for the carpenter gnome to surface. But he did not.

Bellcrank got up and took a few steps toward the rim of the rock field. He was shouted to a halt. "You'll go in, too!"

Kitiara said.

"Cutwood," said Bellcrank helplessly. "Cutwood!" A rip- ple appeared in the motionless dust. It roiled and grew into a hump of crimson grit. Slowly the hump became a head, then developed shoulders, arms, and a squat torso.

"Cutwood!" was the universal cry.

The gnome slogged forward heavily, and when he was waist-high out of the dust, everyone could see that his pants had ballooned to twice their usual size. The waist and legs were packed with Lunitarian dust. Cutwood stepped to firmer ground. He lifted one leg and shook it, and a torrent of grit poured out.

Bellcrank rushed forward to embrace his dusty friend.

"Cutwood, Cutwood! We thought you were lost!"

Cutwood responded with a mighty sneeze, which got dust on Bellcrank, who sneezed right back, prompting Cut- wood to sneeze again. This went on for some time. Finally, Sighter and Birdcall came forward with improvised Dust- Free Face Filters (handkerchiefs). The siege of sneezing over-come, Cutwood lamented, "My suspenders broke."

"Your what?" asked Bellcrank, sniffling.

Cutwood pulled up his deflated pants. "The anchor dragged me under. I knew it was taking me down, but I couldn't let all our scrap metal get away. Then my sus- penders broke. I tried to grab them and the rope jerked out of my hands." He sighed. "My best suspenders."

Roperig walked around Cutwood, plucking at his baggy trousers. "Give me your pants," he said.

"What for?"

"I want to do some structural tests. There may be an invention in them."

Cutwood's eyes widened. He quickly removed his rusty twill trousers and stood by in blue flannel long johns.

"Brrr! This is a cold moon," he said. "I'm going for another pair of trousers, but don't you invent anything until I get back!" Cutwood hurried to the Cloudmaster with showers of dust still cascading from his shoulders.

Sturm took Kitiara aside. "Here's a pretty problem," he said in a low voice. "We need metal to repair the engine, and all our scrap was lost in a lake of dust."

"Maybe Bellcrank could salvage a bit more from the fly- ing ship," Kitiara said.

"Maybe, but I don't trust him not to ruin the whole ship in the process. What we need is more metal." He faced the crowd of gnomes who were busy examining Cutwood's pants as if they were the find of a lifetime. Now and then a gnome would turn his head and sneeze.

"Oh, Bellcrank? Would you come over here, please?"

Sturm said.

The gnome scurried over. He stopped, pulled out a hand- kerchief stained with grease and chemicals, and blew his nose loudly. "Yes, Sturm?"

"Just how much metal do you need to fix the engine?"

"That depends on what type of switch I make. For a dou- ble throw, rotary pole --"

"The very least you'll need, in any case!"

Bellcrank chewed his lip a moment and said, "Thirty pounds of copper, or forty pounds of iron. Copper would be easier to work than iron, you see, and --"

"Yes, yes," Kitiara said hastily. "We don't have forty pounds of anything except beans."

"Beans wouldn't work," Bellcrank offered.

"All right. We'll just have to find some metal." Sturm looked around. The high clouds were beginning to thin, and the twilight that had persisted since their landing was begin- ning to brighten. The sun that warmed Krynn was rising higher in their sky. Taking that direction as east (for conven- ience), they could see a distant range of hills far off to the north.

"Bellcrank, would you know iron ore when you saw it?"

said Sturm.

"Would I know it? I know every ore there is!"

"Can you smelt it?"

The germ of Sturm's idea spread to the gnome, and he smiled widely. "A fine notion, my friend. Worthy of a gnome!"

Kitiara slapped him on the back. "There you are," she said. "A few days in the air and you start thinking like agnome."

"Never mind the wit. We've got to organize an expedition to those hills to see if there is any metal there."

Bellcrank ran back to his fellows to share the news. Excla- mations of joy rang across the empty plain. Cutwood, com- ing down the ramp from the Cloudmaster, was nearly bowled over as his fellows charged up. He was carried back inside with them. The thumps and crashes that always signi- fied gnomish enthusiasm were not long in coming.

Kitiara shook her head. "Now see what you've done."

The first argument began over who would go on the trek and who would stay with the flying ship.

"Everyone can't go," Sturm said. "Wfhat food and water we have won't sustain us all on a long march."

"I'll st-stay," Stutts said. "Cloudmaster is m-my responsi- bility."

"Good fellow. Who will stay with Stutts?" The gnomes looked at the purple sky, the stars, their shoes, anywhere but at Sturm. "Whoever stays will get to work on the ship."

Birdcall whistled his acceptance. Hearing him agree, Flash said, "Oh, well, burn it! No one understands the light- ning bottles but me. I'll stay."

"I'll stay behind," Rainspot offered. "I don't know much about prospecting."

"Me, too," Cutwood said.

"Hold your horses," Kitiara objected. "You can't all stay.

Rainspot, we need you. We'll be out in the open, and if storms threaten, we'll want to know beforehand."

The gnome grinned and placed himself by Kitiara. He gazed happily up at her, pleased that someone needed him.

"Three should be enough to watch over the ship," Sturm said. "The rest of you get your belongings together. No one is to take anything more than he can carry on his back." The gnomes all nodded vigorous affirmatives. "After we eat, we'll all get some sleep and start fresh in the morning."

"When is morning?" asked Bellcrank.

Sighter unfolded his tripod and clamped his telescope in place. He studied the sky, searching for familiar stars. After a lengthy perusal, he announced, "Sixteen hours. Maybe more. Hard to tell." He snapped the telescope tube shut.

"Sixteen hours!" said Kitiara. "Why so long?"

"Lunitari doesn't sit in the same part of the heavens as Krynn. Right now, the shadow of our home world is over us. Until we move clear of it, this is all the light we'll get."

"It will have to do," Sturm said. To Fitter, who as the youngest gnome had permanent kitchen duty, he said, "What is there to eat?"

"Beans," said Fitter. Boiled beans, seasoned with their last tiny bit of bacon, was dinner, and it promised to be their breakfast, too.

Sturm squatted under the overhang of the flying ship's hull and ate his bowl of beans. As he ate, he tried to imagine what lay beyond the dust and stones. The sky was not black, but purple, lightening at the horizon to a warm clar- et. Everything was wrought in tones of red -- the dirt, the rocks; even the white beans seemed vaguely pink. Was all of Lunitari like this, lifeless? he wondered.

"Kitiara sauntered up. She'd shed her heavy furs for a lessconfining outfit. The hip-length jacket and leggings she'd retained, and had slung her sword over her left shoulder, as the Ergothites often did. In that position, it freed the legs for walking.

"Good, huh?" she said, dropping down beside Sturm.

"Beans are beans," he replied, letting them fall from his spoon back into the bowl. "I've eaten worse."

"So have I. During the siege of Silvamori, my troops'

menu was reduced to boiled-boot soup and tree leaves. And we were the besiegers."

"How did the people in the town fare?" Sturm asked.

"Thousands died of starvation," she said. The memory did not seem to trouble her. Sturm felt the beans turn to paste in his mouth.

"Don't you regret that so many died?" he asked.

"Not really. If a thousand more had perished, the siege might have ended sooner, and fewer of my comrades would have died."

Sturm all but dropped his bowl. He stood up and started to walk away. Kitiara, puzzled by his reaction, said, "Are you through? Can I finish your beans?"

He stopped, his back to her. "Yes, eat them all. Slaughter spoils my appetite." He mounted the ramp and disappeared into the Cloudmaster.

A quick flush of anger welled within Kitiara. Who did he think he was? Young Master Brightblade presumed to look down on her for her warrior's code.

The spoon Kitiara had clenched in her fist suddenly snapped. The pieces fell from her fingers. She stared at them, her anger dissolving as quickly as it had come. The spoon was made of sturdy ash wood. But it broke cleanly where her thumb had pressed on it. Kitiara's eyebrows rose in amazement. Must be a defect in the wood, she thought.

Chapter 10.

The First Lunitari Exploration March.

The gnomes emerged from the ship after a few hours' nap, staggering under a burden of tools, clothing, instruments, and other less identifiable rubbish. Kitiara spied Roperig and Fitter pushing a four-wheeled cart between them.

"What have you two got there?" she asked.

Roperig dug in his heels to stop the cart. "A few essential things," he said. He had a coil of rope over his left shoulder that was so thick he couldn't turn his head in that direction.

"This is ridiculous. Where did you get this contraption?"

"Fitter and me made it. It's all wood, you see? No metal."

Roperig thumped the rear wall of the cart with his foot.

"Where did the wood come from?" said Kitiara.

"Oh, we knocked out a few of the inside walls in the ship."

"Great suffering gods! It's a good thing we're going on this march. Otherwise, you gnomes would have the whole ship dismantled before long!"

The explorers mustered on the plain below the Cloudmas- ter's port side. The gnomes, in their usual endearing earnest- ness, lined up like an honor guard on parade. Despite the bleakness of their situation, Sturm couldn't help but smile at the goofy, ingenious little men."Stutts has asked me to lead this march to the hills, in search of ore to repair the flying ship, and you all have agreed to follow my directions. My, ah, colleague, Kitiara is to be equally responsible. She's had considerable experience in forays like this, and we should all be guided by her wis- dom." Kitiara did not acknowledge his compliment, but leaned back against the ship's hull and looked on impassive- ly, one hand resting on the pommel of her sword.

"Sighter estimates the distance to the hills as fifteen miles.

We should reach them at about the time daylight breaks, isn't that right?"

Sighter checked a column of numbers scrawled on his shirt cuff. "Fifteen miles in six hours; yes, that's right."

Sturm looked down the line of his 'troops.' He couldn't think of anything else to say. "Well, let's get going," he said, embarrassed. So much for his first speech as a leader.

Fitter and Roperig ran around their makeshift cart, fitting long poles into prepared brackets on the front and back.

Bellcrank and Cutwood placed themselves on the pole in front, while Roperig and Fitter took up positions at the rear.

"A four-gnome-power exploratory wagon," said Wingover admiringly.

"Mark I," added Rainspot.

"Move out," said Kitiara impatiently. With no more fan- fare than that, the First Lunitari Exploration March began.