She stepped through the door and it swung shut behind her with a soft click. The tile walls inside the cleansing station were covered with writing. Kitiara squinted at the hand-painted script. Some of it ran sideways, and some of it was upside down. Most of the writing concerned proper and scientific bathing procedure. Some of it was nonsense — she saw a line that declared, "The absolute value of the density of raisins in the perfect muffin is sixteen." And some of the writing was rude: "The inventor of this station has dung for brains." She peeled off her outer clothing and put it in a convenient wicker basket. Kitiara stepped to a raised wooden platform. There was a ghastly, rubbery hissing sound, an water began to spray from a pipe above her head. It caught her by surprise, so she clamped a hand over the spoutin end. No sooner had she stopped one spray than another started from the wall on her left. That one she plugged with a finger. Then the real melee began. With mud and water trickling down her face, Kitiara heard a rattling and squeaking behind her. She twisted around without unstopping the spouts. A square tile on the wall had popped open, revealing a jointed metal rod that was unfolding and reaching out for her. On the end of the rod was a round pad of fleece, rapidly spinning. Wheels and pulleys set along the jointed rod made the sheepskin turn. "What a time to be without a sword!" Kitiara said aloud. The rod wavered and came toward her. It was a moment of decision. She accepted the challenge and released the pipes. Water gushed out, sluicing the mud from her body. Kitiara grappled with the whirling fleece, grabbing it with both hands. The pulleys whined and the cords twanged. Finally she succeeded in snapping the rod off at the first joint. The water stopped. Kitiara stood, panting, as the water drained through slots in the floor. There was a knock on the door.
"Kit?" Sturm called. "Are you finished?"
Before she could reply, a heavy piece of cloth dropped from the ceiling over her head. She yelled and threw fists at her unseen attacker, but all she hit was air. Kitiara pulled the cloth off her head. It was a towel. She dried off and wrapped herself in it. Sturm was in the corridor, likewise swathed in a dry blanket.
"What a place," he said, grinning more widely than Kitiara had ever seen him do.
"I'm going to have a few words with Stutts!" she declared.
"What's wrong?"
"I was attacked in there!"
Stutts appeared. "Is there a p-problem?"
Kitiara was about to voice her outrage, but Stutts wasn't actually speaking to her. He bustled on by and opened a panel in the wall. Inside, a rather harried-looking gnome lay in a tangle with a three-legged stool. At the gnome's waist level was a hand-crank, labeled Cleansing Station Number 2 — Rotary Washing Device.
"Is that what I was fighting?" Kitiara said.
"Looks that way," said an amused Sturm. "The poor fellow was just doing his job. The fleece is like a washcloth, only he does the scrubbing for you."
"I can do my own scrubbing, thank you," she said sourly.
Stutts mopped his face with his sleeve.
"This is all v-very distressing. I must ask you, Mistress Kitiara, to not d-damage the machinery. Now I shall have to write a report in qui-quintuplicate to the Aerostatics Guild."
"I'll keep an eye on her," Sturm said. "Kit has a tendency to bash things she doesn't understand."
Birdcall came down the corridor whistling furiously.
Stutts brightened. "Oh, g-good. Time for d-dinner."
The gnomes dined in the rear half of the deckhouse. A long, plank table was suspended from the ceiling, as on an ocean-going ship, but the gnomes had 'improved' on the sailors' arrangement by hanging their seats from the ceiling, too. They swung happily from side to side. Thus, Sturm and Kitiara had to squeeze into narrow chain swings just to sit at the table. Dinner proved ordinary enough: beans, ham, cabbage, muffins, and sweet cider. Stutts apologized; they had no scientifically trained cook on board. The warriors were grateful for that. The gnomes ate rapidly and without conversation (because it was more efficient). The sight of ten bowed, balding heads, accompanied only by the sound of spoons scraping on plates, was a little unnerving. Sturm cleared his throat and said, "Perhaps we ought to introduce ourselves — "
"Everyone knows who you are," said Stutts without looking up. "I s-sent out a memorandum while you were b-being cleansed."
"Then you can introduce your crew to us," said Kitiara. Stutts's head snapped up. "They're n-not crew. We are c-colleagues."
"Pardon me!" Kitiara rolled her eyes.
"You are p-pardoned." He spooned the last of his beans swiftly into his mouth. "But if you insist."
Stutts slipped from his swinging seat and walked down the row of eating gnomes. He gave a yawningly elaborate profile of each of his colleagues, including the name by which "those not of the gnomish race" could call each one. Sturm distilled all of this into a short mental list: Birdcall, chief mechanic in charge of the engine, Wingover, Stutts's right-hand gnome; in charge of actually flying the machine, Sighter, astronomer and celestial navigator, Roperig, expert with rope, cord, wire, cloth, and so forth, Fitter, Roperig's apprentice, Flash, collector and storer of lightning, Bellcrank, chief metal worker and chemist, Cutwood, in charge of carpentry, woodwork, and all non-metal parts, Rainspot, weather seer and physician by designation.
"How did you come to build this, uh, machine?" asked Sturm.
"It is part of my Life Quest," said Wingover, a taller-thanaverage gnome with a hawklike nose. "Complete and successful aerial navigation, that's my goal. After years of experimenting with kites, I met our friend Bellcrank, who has discovered a very rarefied air, which, when enclosed in a suitable bag, will float and support other objects of weight."
"Preposterous," said Sighter. "This so-called ethereal air is humbug!"
"Listen to the stargazer," the tubby Bellcrank said with a sneer. "How do you think we were able to fly to this point from Caergoth, eh? Magic?"
"The wings supported us," Sighter replied with heat. "The lift ratios clearly show — "
"It was the ethereal air!" retorted Rainspot, who sat by Bellcrank.
"Wings!" shouted Sighter's side of the table.
"Air!" cried Bellcrank's allies.
"Colleagues! C-colleagues!" Stutts said, holding up his hands for quiet. "The p-purpose of our expedition is to establish with scientific accuracy the c-capabilities of the Cloudmaster. Let us not argue needlessly about theories until the d-data is available."
The gnomes lapsed into sullen silence. Rain drummed on the skylight over the table. The hostile silence lingered for an embarrassing length of time. Then Rainspot lifted his eyes to the dark panes and said, "The rain is stopping."
A few seconds later, the steady thrumming ceased completely.
"How did he know that!" asked Kitiara.
"Theories differ," said Wingover. "A committee is meeting even now on Sancrist Isle to study our colleague's talent."
"How can they study him when he's up here?" Sturm wondered. He was ignored.
"It's his nose," Cutwood said.
"His nose?" Kitiara asked.
"Because of the size and relative angle of Rainspot's nostrils, he can detect changes in relative air pressure and humidity just by breathing." "Hogwash!" Roperig said.
"Hogwash," echoed Fitter, the smallest and youngest of the gnomes, from his place by Roperig.
"It's his ears," continued Roperig. "He can hear the rain stop falling from the clouds before it reaches the ground."
"Unmitigated tommyrot!"
That was Sighter again. "Any fool can see it's his hair that does it. He can feel the roots uncurl when the moisture in the air falls — "
Bellcrank, sitting opposite Sighter, snatched up a muffin from the table and bounced it off his rival's chin. Flash and Fitter pounced on the fallen muffin and broke it open.
"Twelve, thirteen, fourteen," Flash counted.