"Don't do that!" Cutwood said plaintively. With his aug mented hearing, the tone had been enough to start his nose bleeding. All the Micones were clicking their mandibles and shaking their heads.

"Fascinating," said Stutts. "A perfect resonant chamber!

Ah! It makes sense!"

"What does?" asked Roperig.

"This extraneous jetsam. It's padding, to deaden the ants' footsteps on the floor."

They waded though the rubbish toward the end of the oblong chamber. The ceiling level fell and the floor rose to form a tight circular opening. The rim of the opening had been notched with jagged spikes of quartz, probably by the

Micones. Anything softer than a giant ant would be cut to pieces if it tried to walk or crawl over the spikes. The gnomes held back and proposed many solutions to the problem of the entrance. Sturm planted his fists on his hips and sighed. He turned back and gathered up an armful of the tough parchmentlike shreds, then laid them across the spikes. He put his hands on the parchment and pushed. The spikes poked through three or four layers, but the top layers remained unpierced.

"Allow me," said Sturm. He lifted Stutts and sat him on the padding. Stutts slid through the opening to the chamber beyond. One by one, the other gnomes followed. Sturm went last. The gnomes plunged ahead in their bumbling, fearless way, and he had to catch up with them.

Sturm hurried down the narrow slit in the rock and into another large chamber. Here veins of wine red crystal oozed out of fissures in the rock. When the soft crystal touched the warmer, moister air of the cavern, it lightened to clear crim son and began to take more exact form. Around them were dozens of half-formed Micones; some only heads, some whole bodies but without legs, and some so complete that their antennae wiggled.

"So this is the ant hatchery," said Wingover.

"'Hatchery' isn't the right word for it," said Roperig.

"Living rock crystal," said Stutts breathlessly. "I wonder what influences it to take on an ant shape?"

"The dragon, I would think," said Sighter, turning a com plete circle to see all the budding Micones. "Remember, he said he tried to make the tree-folk into servants but failed.

He must have uncovered this living crystal and decided to use it to make perfectly obedient and hard-working slaves."

They walked in single file down the center of the high, narrow cavern. As before, bluish stalactites on the ceiling shed a weak light on the scene. Flash approached one of the nearly finished Micones and tried to measure the width of its head. The ant moved like lightning and clamped its power ful jaws on the gnome's arm. Flash let out a yell.

"Get back!" Sturm cried, drawing his sword. He tried to lever the jaws open, but the creature's grip was too strong.

The cruel saw-toothed jaws could easily cut through flesh and bone -

Sturm noticed that Flash's arm wasn't bleeding. The gnome struggled, beating the stone-hard ant on the head with his flimsy folding rule.

"Has he got you by the arm?" Sturm asked.

"Uh! Agh! Yes! What do you think this is, my foot?"

Sturm eased his hand forward and felt Flash's arm. The

Micone's jaws had missed the gnome's flesh. All it had was his jacket sleeve.

"Take your jacket off," Sturm said calmly.

"Uh! Argh! Eeel I can't!"

"I'll help you." Sturm reached in front of the gnome and undid the complex series of buttons and lacings on his jack et. He pulled Flash's left arm out, then his right. The empty jacket dangled in the Micone's jaws. The half-formed

Micone did not move.

"My jacket!" Flash howled.

"Never mind! Just thank your gods that your arm didn't get caught in that thing's pincers," Sturm said.

"Thank you, Reorx," said the gnome. He looked longing ly at the lost jacket. A big tear rolled down his cheek. "I designed that jacket myself. The One Size Fits All Wind proof Jacket Mark III."

"You can make another," Wingover said consolingly. "An even better one. With detachable sleeves, in case you ever get in such a predicament again."

'Yes, yes! What a splendid notion, detachable sleeves!"

Flash made a hasty sketch on his white shirt cuff.

Beyond the ant hatchery the cavern wound off in several directions, and there was no clear indication which way the explorers should go. Cutwood suggested that they split up and try all the tunnels, but Stutts vetoed that, and Sturm agreed.

"We've no idea how large this caverns is, and if you go off on your own, you stand a good chance of getting lost forever.

We also don't know how the Micrones will react to us if we split up," Sturm said.

"They do seem very literal-minded," Sighter said. "Sepa rate pairs may not mean the same thing to them as a band of ten." The sight of Flash's jacket locked in the unbreakable grip of the Micone's jaws was a powerful inducement to stay together. Nothing more was said about splitting up.

They chose the widest, straightest path onward. The floor sloped down from the Micones' birth chamber at such a steep angle that the gnomes gave up trying to walk down and instead sat down to slide. Sturm would have preferred to walk down, but the floor was slick with dew, so it didn't take him long to decide to do as the gnomes did.

Sturm slid gently into another, lower cavern. It was very much warmer and wetter here; the air was steamy. Water trickled down the walls and dripped from overhead. As he stood up, he saw the gnomes' dark shapes strolling through the wispy white clouds of steam.

"Stutts! Sighter! Where are all of you?" he called.

"Right here!" Sturm walked uncertainly into the mist.

The cavern was well lit from above (from a large number of the glowing stalactites), and considerable heat radiated from the floor.

"Mind the magma," said Cutwood, appearing in the steam in front of him. The gnome pointed to a raised funnel of glazed rock in their path. A fiery halo hung over the wide mouth.

Sturm bent over it and saw that the natural bowl was full of a bright orange liquid. A bubble burst wetly in its center.

"Molten rock," Cutwood explained. "That's why the cave is so warm."

Sturm had an almost irresistible urge to touch the bub bling stuff, but the glare of heat on his face told him quite plainly how hot the magma was. Another gnome,

Wingover, appeared in the swirling steam.

"This way!" he cried.

They wended their way through a garden of seething cauldrons, each one emitting gurgles as the molten rock boiled. The air around them became sulfurous and hard to take in. Sturm coughed and held a kerchief to his face.

The vapors abated somewhat near the cavern wall. The remaining gnomes were clustered by a small hole in the wall. Sturm raised his head and saw that the hole was dark.

"Is that it?" Sturm wondered aloud.

"Must be," said Sighter. "Seems to be no other way out."

"Perhaps one of the other tunnels we missed," Roperig suggested. The black circle was not very inviting.

"The established path clearly leads here," said Stutts. "As senior colleague, it is up to me to go first -"

"No, you don't," Sturm said. "I'm armed. 111 go first to make sure it's safe."

"Oh, excellent idea!" said Rainspot.

"Well, if you insist -" said Stutts.

"You will need a light," said Flash. He unbuttoned one of the capacious pockets on the front of his trouser legs. "Give me a moment and I'll lend you my Collapsing Self-Igniting

Pocket Lamp Mark XVI." Flash unfolded a flattish box of tin and set it on the floor. From a separate wooden case he extracted a bit of gooey stuff that resembled axle grease. He put a dollop of this in the lamp. From a different pocket,

Flash produced a slender glass vial, tightly stoppered. He broke the wax seal and popped the cork. A sharp, volatile aroma filled the cavern. Flash crouched down and extended his arm cautiously to the lamp. One eye clenched shut as a single drop of the fluid fell from the vial.