THE SKY IS FALLING
By
LESTER DEL REY
ace books
A Division of Charter Communications Inc.
1120 Avenue of the Americas
New York, N.Y. 10036
Copyright © 1954, 1963 by Galaxy Publishing Corp.
A shorter and earlier version of this story appeared as "No More Stars"
under the pseudonym of Charles Satterfield in Beyond Fantasy Fiction
for July, 1954.
First Ace printing: January, 1973
Printed in U.S.A.
Transcriber's note.
Extensive research did not uncover any
evidence that the copyright on this publication was renewed.
Dave stared around the office. He went to the window and stared
upwards at the crazy patchwork of the sky. For all he knew, in
such a sky there might be cracks. In fact, as he looked, he
could make out a rift, and beyond that a ... hole ... a small
patch where there was no color, and yet the sky there was not
black. There were no stars there, though points of light were
clustered around the edges, apparently retreating.
The Sky
Is Falling
By
Lester Del Rey
I
"Dave Hanson! By the power of the true name be summoned cells and
humors, ka and id, self and—"
Dave Hanson! The name came swimming through utter blackness, sucking at
him, pulling him together out of nothingness. Then, abruptly, he was
aware of being alive, and surprised. He sucked in on the air around him,
and the breath burned in his lungs. He was one of the dead—there should
be no quickening of breath within him!
He caught a grip on himself, fighting the fantasies of his mind, and
took another breath of air. This time it burned less, and he could force
an awareness of the smells around him. But there was none of the pungent
odor of the hospital he had expected. Instead, his nostrils were
scorched with a noxious odor of sulfur, burned hair and cloying incense.
He gagged on it. His diaphragm tautened with the sharp pain of
long-unused muscles, and he sneezed.
"A good sign," a man's voice said. "The followers have accepted and are
leaving. Only a true being can sneeze. But unless the salamander works,
his chances are only slight."
There was a mutter of agreement from others, before an older voice broke
in. "It takes a deeper fire than most salamanders can stir, Ser Perth.
We might aid it with high-frequency radiation, but I distrust the
effects on the prepsyche. If we tried a tamed succubus—"
"The things are untrustworthy," the first voice an [Pg 7]swered. "And with the
sky falling, we dare not trust one."
The words blurred off in a fog of semiconsciousness and half-thoughts.
The sky was falling? Who killed Foxy Loxy? I, said the spider, who sat
down insider, I went boomp in the night and the bull jumped over the
moon....
"Bull," he croaked. "The bull sleeper!"
"Delirious," the first voice muttered.
"I mean—bull pusher!" That was wrong, too, and he tried again, forcing
his reluctant tongue around the syllables. "Bull dosser!"
Damn it, couldn't he even pronounce simple Engaliss?
The language wasn't English, however. Nor was it Canadian French, the
only other speech he could make any sense of. Yet he understood it—had
even spoken it, he realized. There was nothing wrong with his command of
whatever language it was, but there seemed to be no word for bulldozer.
He struggled to get his eyes open.
The room seemed normal enough, in spite of the odd smells. He lay on a
high bed, surrounded by prim white walls, and there was even a chart of
some kind at the bottom of the bedframe. He focused his eyes slowly on
what must be the doctors and nurses there, and their faces looked back
with the proper professional worry. But the varicolored gowns they wore
in place of proper clothing were covered with odd designs, stars,
crescents and things that might have been symbols for astronomy or
chemistry.
He tried to reach for his glasses to adjust them. There were no glasses!
That hit him harder than any other discovery. He must be delirious and
imagining the room. Dave Hanson was so nearsighted that he couldn't
have [Pg 8] seen the men, much less the clothing, without corrective lenses.
The middle-aged man with the small mustache bent over the chart near his
feet. "Hmm," the man said in the voice of the first speaker. "Mars
trines Neptune. And with Scorpio so altered ... hmm. Better add two cc.
of cortisone to the transfusion."
Hanson tried to sit up, but his arms refused to bear his weight. He
opened his mouth. A slim hand came to his lips, and he looked up into
soothing blue eyes. The nurse's face was framed in copper-red hair. She
had the transparent skin and classic features that occur once in a
million times but which still keep the legend of redheaded enchantresses
alive. "Shh," she said.
He began to struggle against her hand, but she shook her head gently.
Her other hand began a series of complicated motions that had a
ritualistic look about them.
"Shh," she repeated. "Rest. Relax and sleep, Dave Hanson, and remember
when you were alive."
There was a sharp sound from the doctor, but it began to blur out before
Hanson could understand it. He fought to remember what he'd heard the
nurse say—something about when he was alive—as if he'd been dead a
long time.... He couldn't hold the thought. At a final rapid motion of
the girl's hand his eyes closed, the smell faded from his nose and all
sounds vanished. Once there was a stinging sensation, as if he were
receiving the transfusion. Then he was alone in his mind with his
memories—mostly of the last day when he'd still been alive. He seemed
to be reliving the events, rethinking the thoughts he'd had then.
It began with the sight of his uncle's face leering at him. Uncle David
Arnold Hanson looked like every man's dream of himself and every woman's
dreams of manliness. [Pg 9]But at the moment, to Dave, he looked more like a
personal demon. His head was tilted back and nasty laughter was booming
through the air of the little office.
"So your girl writes that your little farewell activity didn't fare so
well, eh?" he chortled. "And you come crawling here to tell me you want
to do the honorable thing, is that it? All right, my beloved nephew,
you'll do the honorable thing! You'll stick to your contract with me."
"But—" Dave began.
"But if you don't, you'd better read it again. You don't get one cent
except on completion of your year with me. That's what it says, and
that's what happens." He paused, letting the fact that he meant it sink
in. He was enjoying the whole business, and in no hurry to end it. "And
I happen to know, Dave, that you don't even have fare to Saskatchewan
left. You quit and I'll see you never get another job. I promised my
sister I'd make a man of you and, by jumping Jupiter, I intend to do
just that. And in my book, that doesn't mean you run back with your tail
between your legs just because some silly young girl pulls that old
chestnut on you. Why, when I was your age, I already had...."
Dave wasn't listening any longer. In futile anger, he'd swung out of the
office and gone stumbling back toward the computer building. Then, in a
further burst of anger, he swung off the trail. To hell with his work
and blast his uncle! He'd go on into town, and he'd—he'd do whatever he
pleased.
The worst part of it was that Uncle David could make good on his threat
of seeing that Dave got no more work anywhere. David Arnold Hanson was a
power to reckon with. No other man on Earth could have persuaded anyone
to let him try his scheme of building a great deflection wall [Pg 10] across
northern Canada to change the weather patterns. And no other man could
have accomplished the impossible task, even after twelve countries
pooled their resources to give him the job. But he was doing it, and it
was already beginning to work. Dave had noticed that the last winter in
Chicago had definitely shown that Uncle David's predictions were coming
true.
Like most of the world, Dave had regarded the big man who was his uncle
with something close to worship. He'd jumped at the chance to work under
Uncle David. And he'd been a fool. He'd been doing all right in Chicago.
Repairing computers didn't pay a fortune, but it was a good living, and
he was good at it. And there was Bertha—maybe not a movie doll, but a
sort of pretty girl who was also a darned good cook. For a man of thirty
who'd always been a scrawny, shy runt like the one in the "before"
pictures, he'd been doing all right.
Then came the letter from his uncle, offering him triple salary as a
maintenance man on the computers used for the construction job. There
was nothing said about romance and beauteous Indian maids, but Dave
filled that in himself. He would need the money when he and Bertha got
married, too, and all that healthy outdoor living was just what the
doctor would have ordered.
The Indian maids, of course, turned out to be a few fat old squaws who
knew all about white men. The outdoor living developed into five months
of rain, hail, sleet, blizzard, fog and constant freezing in tractors
while breathing the healthy fumes of diesels. Uncle David turned out to
be a construction genius, all right, but his interest in Dave seemed to
lie in the fact that he was tired of being Simon Legree to strangers
and[Pg 11] wanted to take it out on one of his own family. And the easy job
turned into hell when the regular computer-man couldn't take any more
and quit, leaving Dave to do everything, including making the field
tests to gain the needed data.
Now Bertha was writing frantic letters, telling him how much he'd better
come back and marry her immediately. And Uncle David thought it was a
joke!
Dave paid no attention to where his feet were leading him, only vaguely
aware that he was heading down a gully below the current construction
job. He heard the tractors and bulldozers moving along the narrow cliff
above him, but he was used to the sound. He heard frantic yelling from
above, too, but paid no attention to it; in any Hanson construction
program, somebody was always yelling about something that had to be done
day before yesterday. It wasn't until he finally became aware of his own
name being shouted that he looked up. Then he froze in horror.
The bulldozer was teetering at the edge of the cliff as he saw it, right
above him. And the cliff was crumbling from under it, while the tread
spun idiotically out of control. As Dave's eyes took in the whole
situation, the cliff crumbled completely, and the dozer came lunging
over the edge, plunging straight for him. His shout was drowned in the
roar of the motor. He tried to force his legs to jump, but they were
frozen in terror. The heavy mass came straight for him, its treads
churning like great teeth reaching for him.
Then it hit, squarely on top of him. Something ripped and splattered and
blacked out in an unbearable welter of agony.
Dave Hanson came awake trying to scream and thrusting at the bed with
arms too weak to raise him.[Pg 12] The dream of the past was already fading.
The horror he had thought was death lay somewhere in the past.
Now he was here—wherever here was.
The obvious answer was that he was in a normal hospital, somehow still
alive, being patched up. The things he seemed to remember from his other
waking must be a mixture of fact and delirium. Besides, how was he to
judge what was normal in extreme cases of surgery?
He managed to struggle up to a sitting position in the bed, trying to
make out more of his surroundings. But the room was dark now. As his
eyes adjusted, he made out a small brazier there, with a cadaverous old
man in a dark robe spotted with looped crosses. On his head was
something like a miter, carrying a coiled brass snake in front of it.
The old man's white goatee bobbed as he mouthed something silently and
made passes over the flame, which shot up prismatically. Clouds of white
fire belched up.
Dave reached to adjust his glasses, and found again that he wasn't
wearing them. But he'd never seen so clearly before.
At that moment, a chanting voice broke into his puzzled thoughts. It
sounded like Ser Perth. Dave turned his head weakly. The motion set sick
waves of nausea running through him, but he could see the doctor
kneeling on the floor in some sort of pantomime. The words of the chant
were meaningless.
A hand closed over Dave's eyes, and the voice of the nurse whispered in
his ear. "Shh, Dave Hanson. It's the Sather Karf, so don't interrupt.
There may be a conjunction."
He fell back, panting, his heart fluttering. Whatever[Pg 13] was going on, he
was in no shape to interrupt anything. But he knew that this was no
delirium. He didn't have that kind of imagination.
The chant changed, after a long moment of silence. Dave's heart had
picked up speed, but now it missed again, and he felt cold. He shivered.
Hell or heaven weren't like this, either. It was like something out of
some picture—something about Cagliostro, the ancient mystic. But he was
sure the language he somehow spoke wasn't an ancient one. It had words
for electron, penicillin and calculus, for he found them in his own
mind.
The chant picked up again, and now the brazier flamed a dull red,
showing the Sather Karf's face changing from some kind of disappointment
to a businesslike steadiness. The red glow grew white in the center, and
a fat, worm-like shape of flame came into being. The old man picked it
up in his hand, petted it and carried it toward Dave. It flowed toward
his chest.
He pulled himself back, but Ser Perth and the nurse leaped forward to
hold him. The thing started to grow brighter. It shone now like a tiny
bit of white-hot metal; but the older man touched it, and it snuggled
down into Dave's chest, dimming its glow and somehow purring. Warmth
seemed to flow from it into Dave. The two men watched for a moment, then
picked up their apparatus and turned to go. The Sather Karf lifted the
fire from the brazier in his bare hand, moved it into the air and said a
soft word. It vanished, and the two men were also gone.
"Magic!" Dave said. He'd seen such illusions created on the stage, but
there was something different here. And there was no fakery about the
warmth from the thing over his chest. Abruptly he remembered that he'd
come across something like it, called a salamander, in[Pg 14] fiction once;
the thing was supposed to be a spirit of fire, and dangerously
destructive.
The girl nodded in the soft glow coming from Dave's chest. "Naturally,"
she told him. "How else does one produce and control a salamander,
except by magic? Without, magic, how can we thaw a frozen soul? Or
didn't your world have any sciences, Dave Hanson?"
Either the five months under his uncle had toughened him, or the sight
of the bulldozer falling had knocked him beyond any strong reaction. The
girl had practically told him he wasn't in his own world. He waited for
some emotion, felt none, and shrugged. The action sent pain running
through him, but he stood it somehow. The salamander ceased its purring,
then resumed.
"Where in hell am I?" he asked. "Or when?"
She shook her head. "Hell? No, I don't think so. Some say it's Earth and
some call it Terah, but nobody calls it Hell. It's—well, it's a
long—time, I guess—from when you were. I don't know. In such matters,
only the Satheri know. The Dual is closed even to the Seri. Anyhow, it's
not your space-time, though some say it's your world."
"You mean dimensional travel?" Dave asked. He'd seen something about
that on a science-fiction television program. It made even time travel
seem simple. At any event, however, this wasn't a hospital in any sane
and normal section of Canada during his time, on Earth.
"Something like that," she agreed doubtfully. "But go to sleep now.
Shh." Her hands came up in complicated gestures. "Sleep and grow well."
"None of that hypnotism again!" he protested.
She went on making passes, but smiled on him kindly. "Don't be
superstitious—hypnotism is silly. Now go to[Pg 15] sleep. For me, Dave
Hanson. I want you well and true when you awake."
Against his will, his eyes closed, and his lips refused to obey his
desire to protest. Fatigue dulled his thoughts. But for a moment, he
went on pondering. Somebody from the future—this could never be the
past—had somehow pulled him out just ahead of the accident, apparently;
or else he'd been deep frozen somehow to wait for medical knowledge
beyond that of his own time. He'd heard it might be possible to do that.
It was a cockeyed future, if this were the future. Still, if scientists
had to set up some, sort of a religious mumbo-jumbo....
Sickness thickened in him, until he could feel his face wet with
perspiration. But with it had come a paralysis that left him unable to
move or groan. He screamed inside himself.
"Poor mandrake-man," the girl said softly. "Go back to Lethe. But don't
cross over. We need you sorely."
Then he passed out again.[Pg 16]
II
Whatever they had done to patch him up hadn't been very successful,
apparently. He spent most of the time in a delirium; sometimes he was
dead, and there was an ultimate coldness like the universe long after
the entropy death. At other times, he was wandering into fantasies that
were all horrible. And at all times, even in unconsciousness, he seemed
to be fighting desperately to keep from falling apart painfully within
himself.
When he was awake, the girl was always beside him. He learned that her
name was Nema. Usually there was also the stout figure of Ser Perth.
Sometimes he saw Sather Karf or some other older man working with
strange equipment, or with things that looked like familiar hypodermics
and medical equipment. Once they had an iron lung around him and there
was a thin wisp over his face.
He started to brush it aside, but Nema's hand restrained him. "Don't
disturb the sylph," she ordered.
Another semirational period occurred during some excitement or danger
that centered around him. He was still half delirious, but he could see
men working frantically to build a net of something around his bed,
while a wet, thick thing flopped and drooled beyond the door, apparently
immune to the attacks of the hospital staff. There were shouting orders
involving the undine. The salamander in Dave's chest crept deeper and
seemed to bleat at each cry of the monstrous thing beyond the door.[Pg 17]
Sather Karf sat hunched over what seemed to be a bowl of water, paying
no attention to the struggle. Something that he seemed to see there held
his attention. Then he screamed suddenly.
"The Sons of the Egg. It's their sending!"
He reached for a brazier beside him, caught up the fire and plunged it
deep into the bowl of water, screaming something. There was the sound of
an explosion from far away as he drew his hands out, unwet by the water.
Abruptly the undine began a slow retreat. In Dave's chest, the
salamander began purring again, and he drifted back into his coma.
He tried to ask Nema about it later when she was feeding him, but she
brushed it aside.
"An orderly let out the news that you are here," she said. "But don't
worry. We've sent out a doppelganger to fool the Sons, and the orderly
has been sentenced to slavery under the pyramid builder for twenty
lifetimes. I hate my brother! How dare he fight us with the sky
falling?"
Later, the delirium seemed to pass completely, but Dave took no comfort
from that. In its place came a feeling of gloom and apathy. He slept
most of the time, as if not daring to use his little strength even to
think.
Ser Perth stayed near him most of the time now. The man was obviously
worried, but tried not to show it. "We've managed to get some
testosterone from a blond homunculus," he reported. "That should put you
on your feet in no time. Don't worry, young man we'll keep you vivified
somehow until the Sign changes." But he didn't sound convincing.
"Everyone is chanting for you," Nema told him. "All over the world, the
chants go up."[Pg 18]
It meant nothing to him, but it sounded friendly. A whole world hoping
for him to get well! He cheered up a bit at that until he found out that
the chants were compulsory, and had nothing to do with goodwill.
The iron lung was back the next time he came to, and he was being tugged
toward it. He noticed this time that there was no sylph, and his
breathing seemed to be no worse than usual. But the sight of the two
orderlies and the man in medical uniform beside the lung reassured him.
Whatever their methods, he was convinced that they were doing their best
for him here.
He tried to help them get him into the lung, and one of the men nodded
encouragingly. But Dave was too weak to give much assistance. He glanced
about for Nema, but she was out on one of her infrequent other duties.
He sighed, wishing desperately that she were with him. She was a lot
more proficient than the orderlies.
The man in medical robe turned toward him sharply. "Stop that!" he
ordered.
Before Dave could ask what he was to stop, Nema came rushing into the
room. Her face paled as she saw the three men, and she gasped, throwing
up her hand in a protective gesture.
The two orderlies jumped for her, one grabbing her and the other closing
his hands over her mouth. She struggled violently, but the men were too
strong for her.
The man in doctor's robes shoved the iron lung aside violently and
reached into his clothing. From it, he drew a strange, double-bladed
knife. He swung toward Dave, raising the knife into striking position
and aiming it at Dave's heart.
"The Egg breaks," he intoned hollowly. It was a [Pg 19] cultured voice, and
there was a refinement to his face that registered on Dave's mind even
over the horror of the weapon. "The fools cannot hold the shell. But
neither shall they delay its breaking. Dead you were, mandrake son, and
dead you shall be again. But since the fault is only theirs, may no ill
dreams follow you beyond Lethe!"
The knife started down, just as Nema managed to break free. She shrieked
out a phrase of keening command. The salamander suddenly broke from
Dave's chest, glowing brighter as it rose toward the face of the
attacker. It was like a bit from the center of a star. The man jumped
back, beginning a frantic ritual. He was too late. The salamander hit
him, sank into him and shone through him. Then he slumped, steamed ...
and was nothing but dust falling toward the carpet. The salamander
turned, heading toward the others. But it was to Nema it went, rather
than the two men. She was trying something desperately, but fear was
thick on her face, and her hands were unsure.
Abruptly, Sather Karf was in the doorway. His hand lifted, his fingers
dancing. Words hissed from his lips in a stream of sibilants too quick
for Dave to catch. The salamander paused and began to shrink doubtfully.
Sather Karf turned, and again his hands writhed in the air. One hand
darted back and forward, as if he were throwing something. Again he made
the gesture. With each throw, one of the false orderlies dropped to the
floor, clutching at a neck where the skin showed marks of constriction
as if a steel cord were tightening. They died slowly, their eyes bulging
and faces turning blue. Now the salamander moved toward them, directed
apparently by slight motions from Sather Karf. In a few moments, there
was no sign of them.[Pg 20]
The old man sighed, his face slumping into lines of fatigue and age. He
caught his breath. He held out a hand to the salamander, petted it to a
gentle glow and put it back over Dave's chest.
"Good work, Nema," he said wearily. "You're too weak to control the
salamander, but this was done well in the emergency. I saw them in the
pool, but I was almost too late. The damned fanatics. Superstition in
this day and age!"
He swung to face Dave, whose vocal cords were still taut with the shock
of the sight of the knife. "Don't worry, Dave Hanson. From now on, every
Ser and Sather will protect you with the lower and the upper magic. The
House changes tomorrow, if the sky permits, and we shall shield you
until then. We didn't bring you back from the dead, piecing your
scattered atoms together with your scattered revenant particle by
particle, to have you killed again. Somehow, we'll incarnate you fully!
You have my word for that."
"Dead?" Dave had grown numbed to his past during the long illness, but
that brought it back afresh. "Then I was killed? I wasn't just frozen
and brought here by some time machine?"
Sather Karf stared at him blankly. "Time machine? Impossible. Of course
not. After the tractor killed you, and you were buried, what good would
such fantasies be, even if they existed? No, we simply reincarnated you
by pooling our magic. Though it was a hazardous and parlous thing, with
the sky falling...."
He sighed and went out, while Dave went back to his delirium.[Pg 21]
III
There was no delirium when he awoke in the morning. Instead, there was
only a feeling of buoyant health. In fact, Dave Hanson had never felt
that good in his life—or his former life. He reconsidered his belief
that there was no delirium, wondering if the feeling were not itself a
form of hallucination. But it was too genuine. He knew without question
that he was well.
It shouldn't have been true. During the night, he'd partially awakened
in agony to find Nema chanting and gesturing desperately beside him, and
he'd been sure he was on the verge of his second death. He could
remember one moment, just before midnight, when she had stopped and
seemed to give up hope. Then she'd braced herself and begun some ritual
as if she were afraid to try it. Beyond that, he had no memory of pain.
Nema came into the room now, touching his shoulder gently. She smiled
and nodded at him. "Good morning, Sagittarian. Get out of bed."
Expecting the worst, he swung his feet over the side and sat up. After
so much time in bed, even a well man should be rendered weak and shaky.
But there was no dizziness, no sign of weakness. He had made a most
remarkable recovery, and Nema didn't even seem surprised. He tentatively
touched foot to floor and half stood, propping himself against the high
bed.
"Come on," Nema said impatiently. "You're all right now. We entered your
sign during the night." She turned her back on him and took something
from a chest [Pg 22] beside the bed. "Ser Perth will be here in a moment. He'll
want to find you on your feet and dressed."
Hanson was beginning to feel annoyance at the suddenly cocksure and
unsympathetic girl, but he stood fully erect and flexed his muscles.
There wasn't even a trace of bedsoreness, though he had been flat on his
back long enough to grow callouses. And as he examined himself, he could
find no scars or signs of injuries from the impact of the bulldozer—if
there had ever really been a bulldozer.
He grimaced at his own doubts. "Where am I, anyhow, Nema?"
The girl dumped an armload of clothing on his bed and looked at him with
controlled exasperation. "Dave Hanson," she told him, "don't you know
any other words? That's the millionth time you've asked me that, at
least. And for the hundredth time, I'll tell you that you're here. Look
around you; see for yourself. I'm tired of playing nursemaid to you."
She picked up a shirt of heavy-duty khaki from the pile on the bed and
handed it to him. "Get into this," she ordered. "Dress first, talk
later."
She stalked out of the room.
Dave did as she had ordered, busy with his own thoughts as he discovered
what he was to wear. He was still wearing something with a vague
resemblance to a short hospital gown, with green pentacles and some
plant symbol woven into it, and with a clasp to hold it together shaped
into a silver crux ansata. He took it off and hurled it into a corner
disgustedly.
He picked up the khaki shirt and put it on; then, with growing
curiosity, the rest of the garments, until he came to the shoes. Khaki
shirt, khaki breeches, a wide, webbed belt, a flat-brimmed hat. And the
shoes [Pg 23]—they weren't shoes, but knee-length leather boots, like a dressy
version of lumberman's boots or a rougher version of riding boots. He
hadn't seen even pictures of such things since the few silent movies run
in some of the little art theaters. He struggled to get them on. They
were an excellent fit, and comfortable enough, but he felt as if his
legs were encased in hardened concrete when he was through. He looked
down at himself in disgust. He was in all respects costumed as the
epitome of the Hollywood dream of a heroic engineer-builder, ready to
drive a canal through an isthmus or throw a dam across a raging
river—the kind who'd build the dam while the river raged, instead of
waiting until it was quiet, a few days later. He was about as far from
the appearance of the actual blue-denim, leather-jacket engineers he had
worked with as Maori in ancient battle array.
He shook his head and went looking for the bathroom, where there might
be a mirror. He found a door, but it led into a closet, filled with
alembics and other equipment. There was a mirror hung on the back of it,
however, with a big sign over it that said "Keep Out." He threw the door
wide and stared at himself. At first, in spite of the costume, he was
pleased. Then the truth began to hit him, and he felt abruptly sure he
was still raging with fever and delirium.
He was still staring when Nema came back into the room. She pursed her
lips and shut the door quickly. But he'd already seen enough.
"Never mind where I am," he said. "Tell me, who am I?"
She stared at him. "You're Dave Hanson."
"The hell I am," he told her. "Oh, that's what I remember my father
having me christened as. He hated [Pg 24] long names. But take a good look at
me. I've been shaving my face for years now, and I should know it.
That face in the mirror wasn't it! There's a resemblance. But a darned
faint one. Change the chin, lengthen my nose, make the eyes brown
instead of blue, and it might be me. But Dave Hanson's at least five
inches shorter and fifty pounds lighter, too. Maybe the face is plastic
surgery after the accident—but this isn't even my body."
The girl's expression softened. "I'm sorry, Dave Hanson," she said
gently. "We should have thought to warn you. You were a difficult
conjuration—and even the easier ones often go wrong these days. We did
our best, though it may be that the auspices were too strong on the
soma. I'm sorry if you don't like the way you look. But there's nothing
we can do about it now."
Hanson opened the door again, in spite of Nema's quick frown, and looked
at himself. "Well," he admitted, "I guess it could be worse. In fact, I
guess it was worse—once I get used to looking like this, I think I'll
get to like it. But seeing it was a heck of a thing to take for a sick
man."
Nema said sharply, "Are you sick?"
"Well—I guess not."
"Then why say you are? You shouldn't be; I told you we've entered the
House of Sagittarius now. You can't be sick in your own sign. Don't you
understand even that much elementary science?"
Hanson didn't get a chance to answer. Ser Perth was suddenly in the
doorway, dressed in a different type of robe. This was short and somehow
conservative—it had a sincere, executive look about it. The man seemed
changed in other ways, too. But Dave wasn't concerned about that. He was
growing tired of the way [Pg 25] people suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Maybe
they all wore rubber-soled shoes or practiced sneaking about; it was a
silly way for grown people to act.
"Come with me, Dave Hanson," Ser Perth ordered, without wasting words.
He spoke in a clipped manner now.
Dave followed, grumbling in his mind. It was even sillier than their
sneaking about for them to expect him to start running around before
they bothered to check the condition of a man fresh out of his death
bed. In any of the hospitals he had known, there would have been hours
or days of X-rays and blood tests and temperature taking before he would
be released. These people simply decided a man was well and ordered him
out.
To do them justice, however, he had to admit that they seemed to be
right. He had never felt better. The twaddle about Sagittarius would
have to be cleared up sometime, but meanwhile he was in pretty good
shape. Sagittarius, as he remembered it, was supposed to be one of the
signs of the Zodiac. Bertha had been something of a sucker for
astrology and had found he was born under that sign before she agreed to
their little good-by party. He snorted to himself. It had done her a
heck of a lot of good, which was to be expected of such nonsense.
They passed down a dim corridor and Ser Perth turned in at a door.
Inside there was a single-chair barber shop, with a barber who might
also have come from some movie-casting office. He had the proper wavy
black hair and rat-tailed comb stuck into a slightly dirty off-white
jacket. He also had the half-obsequious, half-insulting manner Dave had
found most people expected from their barbers. While he shaved and
trimmed [Pg 26] Dave, he made insultingly solicitous comments about Dave's skin
needing a massage, suggested a tonic for thinning hair and practically
insisted on a singe. Ser Perth watched with a mixture of intentness and
amusement. The barber trimmed the tufts from over Dave's ears and
clipped the hair in his nose, while a tray was pushed up and a
slatternly blonde began giving him a manicure.
He began noticing that she carefully dumped his fingernail parings into
a small jar. A few moments later, he found the barber also using a jar
to collect the hair and shaving stubble. Ser Perth was also interested
in that, it seemed, since his eyes followed that part of the operation.
Dave frowned, and then relaxed. After all, this was a hospital barber
shop, and they probably had some rigid rules about sanitation, though he
hadn't seen much other evidence of such care.
The barber finally removed the cloth with a snap and bowed. "Come again,
sir," he said.
Ser Perth stood up and motioned for Dave to follow. He turned to look in
a mirror, and caught sight of the barber handing the bottles and jars of
waste hair and nail clippings to a girl. He saw only her back, but it
looked like Nema.
Something stirred in his mind then. He'd read something somewhere about
hair clippings and nail parings being used for some strange purpose. And
there'd been something about spittle. But they hadn't collected that. Or
had they? He'd been unconscious long enough for them to have gathered
any amount they wanted. It all had something to do with some kind of
mumbo-jumbo, and....
Ser Perth had led him through the same door by which they'd entered—but
not into the same hallway. Dave's [Pg 27] mind dropped the other thoughts as
he tried to cope with the realization that this was another corridor. It
was brightly lit, and there was a scarlet carpet on the floor. Also, it
was a short hall, requiring only a few steps before they came to a
bigger door, elaborately enscrolled. Ser Perth bent before it, and the
door opened silently while he and Dave entered.
The room was large and sparsely furnished. Sitting cross-legged on a
cushion near the door was Nema, juggling something in her hands. It
looked like a cluster of colored threads, partly woven into a rather
garish pattern. On a raised bench between two windows sat the old figure
of Sather Karf, resting his chin on hands that held a staff and staring
at Dave intently.
Dave stopped as the door closed behind him. Sather Karf nodded, as if
satisfied, and Nema tied a complex knot in the threads, then paused
silently.
Sather Karf looked far less well than when Dave had last seen him. He
seemed older and more shriveled, and there was a querulous, pinched
expression in place of the firmness and almost nobility Dave had come to
expect. His old eyes bored into the younger man, and he nodded. His
voice had a faint quaver now. "All right. You're not much to look at,
but you're the best we could find in the Ways we can reach. Come here,
Dave Hanson."
The command was still there, however petty the man seemed now. Dave
started to phrase some protest, when he found his legs taking him
forward to stop in front of Sather Karf, like some clockwork man whose
lever has been pushed. He stood in front of the raised bench, noticing
that the spot had been chosen to highlight him in the sunset light from
the windows. He listened while the old man talked.[Pg 28]
Sather Karf began without preamble, stating things in a dry voice as if
reading off a list of obvious facts.
"You were dead, Dave Hanson. Dead, buried, and scattered by time and
chance until even the place where you lay was forgotten. In your own
world, you were nothing. Now you are alive, through the effort of men
here whose work you could not even dream of. We have created you, Dave
Hanson. Remember that, and forget the ties to any other world, since
that world no longer holds you."
Dave nodded slowly. It was hard to swallow, but there were too many
things here that couldn't be in any world he had known. And his memory
of dying was the clearest memory he had. "All right," he admitted. "You
saved my life—or something. And I'll try to remember it. But if this
isn't my world, what world is it?"
"The only world, perhaps. It doesn't matter." The old man sighed, and
for a moment the eyes were shrouded in speculation, as if he were
following some strange by-ways of his own thoughts. Then he shrugged.
"It's a world and culture linked to the one you knew only by theories
that disagree with each other. And by vision—the vision of those who
are adept enough to see through the Ways to the branches of Duality.
Before me, there was nothing. But I've learned to open a path—a
difficult path for one in this world—and to draw from it, as you have
been drawn. Don't try to understand what is a mystery even to the
Satheri, Dave Hanson."
"A reasonably intelligent man should be able—" Dave began.
Ser Perth cut his words off with a sharp laugh. "Maybe a man. But who
said you were a man, Dave Hanson? Can't you even understand that? You're
only half human. [Pg 29]The other half is mandrake—a plant that is related to
humanity through shapes and signs by magic. We make simulacra out of
mandrakes—like the manicurist in the barber shop. And sometimes we use
a mandrake root to capture the essence of a real man, in which case he's
a mandrake-man, like you. Human? No. But a very good imitation, I must
admit."
Dave turned from Ser Perth toward Nema, but her head was bent over the
cords she was weaving, and she avoided his eyes. He remembered now that
she'd called him a mandrake-man before, in a tone of pity. He looked
down at his body, sick in his mind. Vague bits of fairy tales came back
to him, suggesting horrible things about mandrake creatures—zombie-like
things, only outwardly human.
Sather Karf seemed amused as he looked at Ser Perth. Then the old man
dropped his eyes toward Dave, and there was a brief look of pity in
them. "No matter, Dave Hanson," he said. "You were human, and by the
power of your true name, you are still the same Dave Hanson. We have
given you life as precious as your other life. Pay us for that with your
service, and that new life will be truly precious. We need your
services."
"What do you want?" Dave asked. He couldn't fully believe what he'd
heard, but there had been too many strange things to let him disbelieve,
either. If they had made him a mandrake-man, then by what little he
could remember and guess, they could make him obey them.
"Look out the window—at the sky," Sather Karf ordered.
Dave looked. The sunset colors were still vivid. He stepped forward and
peered through the crystalline glass. Before him was a city, bathed in
orange and red,[Pg 30] towering like the skyline of a dozen cities he had
seen—and yet; not like any. The buildings were huge and many-windowed.
But some were straight and tall, some were squat and fairy-colored and
others blossomed from thin stalks into impossibly bulbous, minareted
domes, like long-stemmed tulips reproduced in stone. Haroun-al-Rashid
might have accepted the city, but Mayor Wagner could never have believed
in it.
"Look at the sky," the old man suggested again, and there was no mockery
in his voice now.
Dave looked up obediently.
The sunset colors were not sunset. The sun was bright and blinding
overhead, surrounded by reddish clouds, glaring down on the fairy city.
The sky was—blotchy. It was daylight, but through the clouds bright
stars were shining. A corner of the horizon was winter blue; a whole
sweep of it was dead, featureless black. It was a nightmare sky, an
impossible sky. Dave's eyes bulged as he looked at it.
He turned back to Sather Karf. "What—what's the matter with it?"
"What indeed?" There was bitterness and fear in the old man's voice. In
the corner of the room, Nema looked up for a moment, and there was fear
and worry in her eyes before she looked back to her weaving of endless
knots. Sather Karf sighed in weariness. "If I knew what was happening to
the sky, would I be dredging the muck of Duality for the likes of you,
Dave Hanson!"
He stood up, wearily but with a certain ease and grace that belied his
age, looking down at Dave. There was stern command in his words, but a
hint of pleading in his expression.[Pg 31]
"The sky's falling, Dave Hanson. Your task is to put it together again.
See that you do not fail us!"
He waved dismissal and Ser Perth led Dave and Nema out.[Pg 32]
IV
The corridor down which they moved this time was one that might have
been familiar even in Dave's Chicago. There was the sound of typewriters
from behind the doors, and the floor was covered with composition tile,
instead of the too-lush carpets. He began to relax a little until he
came to two attendants busily waxing the floor. One held the other by
the ankles and pushed the creature's hairy face back and forth, while
its hands spread the wax ahead of it. The results were excellent, but
Dave found it hard to appreciate.
Ser Perth shrugged slightly. "They're only mandrakes," he explained. He
threw open the door of one of the offices and led them through an outer
room toward an inner chamber, equipped with comfortable chairs and a
desk. "Sit down, Dave Hanson. I'll fill you in on anything you need to
know before you're assigned. Now—the Sather Karf told you what you were
to do, of course, but—"
"Wait a minute," Dave suggested. "I don't remember being told any such
thing."
Ser Perth looked at Nema, who nodded. "He distinctly said you were to
repair the sky. I've got it down in my notes if you want to see them."
She extended the woven cords.
"Never mind," Ser Perth said. He twiddled with his mustache. "I'll recap
a little. Dave Hanson, as you have seen, the sky is falling and must be
repaired. You are our best hope. We know that from a prophecy, and [Pg 33] it
is confirmed by the fact that the fanatics of the Egg have tried several
times to kill you. They failed, though one effort was close enough, but
their attempts would not have been made at all if they had not been
convinced through their arts that you can succeed with the sky."
Dave shook his head. "It's nice to know you trust me!"
"Knowing that you can succeed," the other went on smoothly, "we know
that you will. It is my unpleasant duty to point out to you the things
that will happen if you fail. I say nothing of the fact that you owe us
your life; that may be a small enough gift, and one quickly withdrawn. I
say only that you have no escape from us. We have your name, and the
true symbol is the thing, as you should know. We also have cuttings from
your hair and your beard; we have the parings of your nails, five cubic
centimeters of your spinal fluid and a scraping from your liver. We have
your body through those, nor can you take it out of our reach. Your name
gives us your soul." He looked at Hanson piercingly. "Shall I tell you
what it would be like for your soul to live in the muck of a swamp in a
mandrake root?"
Dave shook his head. "I guess not. I—look, Ser Perth. I don't know what
you're talking about. How can I go along with you when I'm in the dark?
Start at the beginning, will you? I was killed; all right, if you say I
was, I was. You brought me to life again with a mandrake root and
spells; you can do anything you want with me. I admit it; right now,
I'll admit anything you want me to, because you know what's going on and
I don't. But what's all this business of the sky falling? If it is and
can be falling, what's the difference? If there [Pg 34] is a difference, why
should I be able to do anything about it?"
"Ignorance!" Ser Perth murmured to himself. He sighed heavily. "Always
ignorance. Well, then, listen." He sat down on the corner of the desk
and took out a cigarette. At least it looked like a cigarette. He
snapped his fingers and lighted it from a little flame that sprang up,
blowing clouds of bright green smoke from his mouth. The smoke hung
lazily, drifting into vague patterns and then began to coalesce into a
green houri without costume. He swatted at it negligently.
"Dratted sylphs. There's no controlling the elementals properly any
more." He didn't seem too displeased, however, as he watched the thing
dance off. Then he sobered.
"In your world, Dave Hanson, you were versed in the engineering
arts—you more than most. That you should be so ignorant, though you
were considered brilliant is a sad commentary on your world. But no
matter. Perhaps you can at least learn quickly still. Even you must have
had some idea of the composition of the sky?"
Dave frowned as he tried to answer. "Well, I suppose the atmosphere is
oxygen and nitrogen, mostly; then there's the ionosphere and the ozone
layer. As I remember, the color of the sky is due to the scattering of
light—light rays being diffracted in the air."
"Beyond the air," Ser Perth said impatiently. "The sky itself!"
"Oh—space. We were just getting out there with manned ships. Mostly
vacuum, of course. Of course, we're still in the solar atmosphere, even
there, with the Van Allen belts and such things. Then there are the [Pg 35]
stars, like our sun, but much more distant. The planets and the moon—"
"Ignorance was bad enough," Ser Perth interrupted in amazement. He
stared at Dave, shaking his head in disgust. "You obviously come from a
culture of even more superstition than ignorance. Dave Hanson, the sky
is no such thing. Put aside the myths you heard as a child. The sky is a
solid sphere that surrounds Earth. The stars are no more like the sun
than the glow of my cigarette is like a forest fire. They are lights on
the inside of the sphere, moving in patterns of the Star Art, nearer to
us than the hot lands to the south."
"Fort," Dave said. "Charles Fort said that in a book."
Ser Perth shrugged. "Then why make me say it again? This Fort was right.
At least one intelligent man lived in your world, I'm pleased to know.
The sky is a dome holding the sun, the stars and the wandering planets.
The problem is that the dome is cracking like a great, smashed
eggshell."
"What's beyond the dome?"
Ser Perth shuddered slightly. "My greatest wish is that I die before I
learn. In your world, had you discovered that there were such things as
elements? That is, basic substances which in combination produce—"
"Of course," Dave interrupted.
"Good. Then of the four elements—" Dave gulped, but kept silent, "—of
the four elements the universe is built. Some things are composed of a
single element; some of two, some of three. The proportions vary and the
humors and spirits change but all things are composed of the elements.
And only the sky is composed of all four elements—of earth, of water,
of fire and of air—in equal proportions. One part each, lending each
its own essential quality to the mixture, so that the sky is [Pg 36] solid as
earth, radiant as fire, formless as water, insubstantial as air. And the
sky is cracking and falling, as you have seen for yourself. The effects
are already being felt. Gamma radiation is flooding through the gaps;
the quick-breeding viruses are mutating through half the world, faster
than the Medical Art can control them, so that millions of us are
sneezing and choking—and dying, too, for lack of antibiotics and proper
care. Air travel is a perilous thing; just today, a stratosphere roc
crashed head-on into a fragment of the sky and was killed with all its
passengers. Worst of all, the Science of Magic suffers. Because the
stars are fixed on the dome of the sky. With the crumbling of that dome,
the course of the stars has been corrupted. It's pitiful magic that can
be worked without regard to the conjunctions of the planets; but it is
all the magic that is left to us. When Mars trines Neptune, the Medical
Art is weak; even while we were conjuring you, the trine occurred. It
almost cost your life. And it should not have occurred for another seven
days."
There was silence, while Ser Perth let Dave consider it. But it was too
much to accept at once, and Dave's mind was a treadmill. He'd agreed to
admit anything, but some of this was such complete nonsense that his
mind rejected it automatically. Yet he was sure Ser Perth was serious;
there was no humor on the face of the prissy thin-mustached man before
him. Nor had the Sather Karf considered it a joke, he was sure. He had a
sudden vision of the latter strangling two men from a distance of thirty
feet without touching them. That couldn't happen in a sane world,
either.
Dave asked weakly, "Could I have a drink?"
"With a sylph around?" Ser Perth grimaced. "You [Pg 37] wouldn't have a chance.
Now, is all clear to you, Dave Hanson?"
"Sure. Except for one thing. What am I supposed to do?"
"Repair our sky. It should not be too difficult for a man of your
reputation. You built a wall across a continent high and strong enough
to change the air currents and affect all your weather—and that in the
coldest, meanest country in your world. You come down to us as one of
the greatest engineers of history, Dave Hanson, so great that your fame
has penetrated even to our world, through the viewing pools of our
wisest historians. There is a shrine and monument in your world. 'Dave
Hanson, to whom nothing was impossible.' Well, we have a nearly
impossible task: a task of engineering and building. If our Science of
Magic could be relied upon—but it cannot; it never can be, until the
sky is fixed. We have the word of history: no task is impossible to Dave
Hanson."
Dave looked at the smug face and a slow grin crept over his own, in
spite of himself. "Ser Perth, I'm afraid you've made a slight mistake."
"We don't make mistakes in such matters. You're Dave Hanson," Ser Perth
said flatly. "Of all the powers of the Science, the greatest lies in the
true name. We evoked you by the name of Dave Hanson. You are Dave
Hanson, therefore."
"Don't try to deceive us," Nema suggested. Her voice was troubled. "Pray
rather that we never have reason to doubt you. Otherwise the wisest of
the Satheri would spend their remaining time in planning something
unthinkable for you."
Ser Perth nodded vigorous assent. Then he motioned to the office. "Nema
will show you to your quarters [Pg 38] later. Use this until you leave. I have
to report back."
Dave stared after him until he was gone, and then around at the office.
He went to the window and stared upwards at the crazy patchwork of the
sky. For all he knew, in such a sky there might be cracks. In fact, as
he looked, he could make out a rift, and beyond that a ... hole ... a
small patch where there was no color, and yet the sky there was not
black. There were no stars there, though points of light were clustered
around the edges, apparently retreating.
All he had to do was to repair the sky. Shades of Chicken Little!
Maybe to David Arnold Hanson, the famed engineer, no task was
impossible. But quite a few things were impossible to that engineer's
obscure and unimportant nephew, the computer technician and generally
undistinguished man who had been christened Dave. They'd gotten the
right man for the name, all right. But the wrong man for the job.
Dave Hanson could repair anything that contained electrical circuits or
ran on tiny jeweled bearings, but he could handle almost nothing else.
It wasn't stupidity or incapacity to learn, but simply that he had never
been subjected to the discipline of construction engineering. Even on
the project, while working with his uncle, he had seen little of what
went on, and hadn't really understood that, except when it produced data
that he could feed into his computer. He couldn't drive a nail in the
wall to hang a picture or patch a hole in the plaster.
But it seemed that he'd better put on a good show of trying if he wanted
to continue enjoying good health.
"I suppose you've got a sample of the sky that's fallen?" he asked Nema.
"And what the heck are you [Pg 39] doing here, anyhow? I thought you were a
nurse."
She frowned at him, but went to a corner where a small ball of some
clear crystalline substance stood. She muttered into it, while a surly
face stared out. Then she turned back to him, nodding. "They are sending
some of the sky to you. As to my being a nurse, of course I am. All
student magicians take up the Medical Art for a time. Surely one so
skilled can also be a secretary, even to the great Dave Hanson? As to
why I'm here—" She dropped her eyes, frowning, while a touch of added
color reached her cheeks. "In the sleep spell I used, I invoked that you
should be well and true. But I'm only a bachelor in magic, not even a
master, and I slipped. I phrased it that I wanted you well and true.
Hence, well and truly do I want you."
"Huh?" He stared at her, watching the blush deepen. "You mean—?"
"Take care! First you should know that I am proscribed as a duly
registered virgin. And in this time of need, the magic of my blood must
not be profaned." She twisted sidewise, and then turned toward the door,
avoiding him. Before she reached it, the door opened to show a dull
clod, entirely naked, holding up a heavy weight of nothing.
"Your sample of sky," she said as the clod labored over to the desk and
dropped nothing with a dull clank. The desk top dented slightly.
Dave could clearly see that nothing was on the desk. But if nothing was
a vacuum, this was an extremely hard and heavy one. It seemed to be
about twelve inches on a side, in its rough shape, and must have weighed
two hundred pounds. He tapped it, and it rang. Inside it, a tiny point
of light danced frantically back and forth.[Pg 40]
"A star," she said sadly.
"I'm going to need some place to experiment with this," he suggested. He
expected to be sent to the deepest, dankest cave of all the world as a
laboratory, and to find it equipped with pedigreed bats, dried unicorn
horns and whole rows of alembics that he couldn't use.
Nema smiled brightly. "Of course. We've already prepared a construction
camp for you. You'll find most of the tools you used in your world
waiting there and all the engineers we could get or make for you."
He'd been considering stalling while he demanded exactly such things. He
was reasonably sure by now that they had no transistors, signal
generators, frequency meters or whatever else he could demand. He could
make quite an issue out of the need to determine the characteristic
impedance of their sky. That might even be interesting, at that; would
it be anywhere near 300 ohms here? But it seemed that stalling wasn't
going to work. They'd given him what they expected him to need, and he'd
have to be careful to need only what they expected, or they might just
decide he wasn't Dave Hanson.
"I can't work on this stuff here," he said.
"Then why didn't you say so?" she asked sharply. She let out a cry and a
raven came flying in. She whispered something to it, frowned, and then
ordered it off. "There's no surface transportation available, and all
the local rocs are in use. Well, we'll have to make do with what we
have."
She darted for the outer office, rummaged in a cabinet, and came back
with a medium-sized rug of worn but gaudy design. Bad imitation Sarouk,
Dave guessed. She tossed it onto the largest cleared space, gobbled
some [Pg 41] outlandish noises, and dropped onto it, squatting near one end.
Behind her, the dull clod picked up the sample of sky and fell to his
face on the rug. At her vehement signal, Dave squatted down beside her,
not daring to believe what he was beginning to guess.
The carpet lifted uncertainly. It seemed to protest at the unbalanced
weight of the sky piece. She made the sounds again, and it rose
reluctantly, curling up at the front, like a crazy toboggan. It moved
slowly, but with increasing speed, sailed out of the office through the
window and began gaining altitude. They went soaring over the city at
about thirty miles an hour, heading toward what seemed to be barren land
beyond. "Sometimes they fail now," she told him. "But so far, only if
the words are improperly pronounced."
He gulped and looked gingerly over at the city below. As he did, she
gasped. He heard a great tearing sound of thunder. In the sky, a small
hole appeared. There was a scream of displaced air, and something went
zipping downwards in front of them, setting up a wind that bounced the
carpet about crazily. Dave glanced over the edge again to see one of the
tall buildings crumple under the impact. The three top stories were
ripped to shreds. Then the whole building began to change. It slowly
blossomed into a huge cloud of pink gas that rifted away, to show people
and objects dropping like stones to the ground below. Nema sighed and
turned her eyes away.
"But—it's ridiculous!" Dave protested. "We heard the rip and less than
five seconds later, that piece fell. If your sky is even twenty miles
above us, it would take longer than that to fall."
"It's a thousand miles up," she told him. "And sky has no inertia until
it is contaminated by contact with the [Pg 42] ground. It took longer than
usual for that piece to fall." She sighed. "It gets worse. Look at the
signs. That break has disturbed the planets. We're moving retrograde,
back to our previous position, out of Sagittarius! Now we'll go back to
the character we had before—and just when I was getting used to the
change."
He jerked his eyes off the raw patch of emptiness in the sky, where a
few stars seemed to be vanishing. "Your character? Isn't anything stable
here?"
"Of course not. Naturally, in each House we have a differing of
character, as does the world itself. Why else should astrology be the
greatest of the sciences?"
It was a nice world, he decided. And yet the new factor explained some
things. He'd been vaguely worried about the apparent change in Ser
Perth, who'd turned from a serious and helpful doctor into a
supercilious, high-handed fop. But—what about his recovery, if that was
supposed to be determined by the signs of the zodiac?
He had no time to ask. The carpet bucked, and the girl began speaking to
it urgently. It wavered, then righted itself, to begin sliding
downwards.
"There is a ring of protection around your camp," Nema explained. "It is
set to make entry impossible to one who does not have the words or who
is unfriendly. The carpet could not go through that, anyway. The ring
negates all other magic trying to pass it. And of course we have
basilisks mounted on posts around the grounds. They're trained to hood
their eyes, except when they sense anyone trying to enter who should
not. You can't be turned to stone looking at one, you know—only by
having one look at you."
"You're cheering me up no end," he assured her.
She smiled pleasantly and began setting the carpet [Pg 43] down. Below, he
could see a camp that looked much like the camps he had seen in the same
movies from which all his clothes had been copied. There were well
laid-out rows of sheds, beautiful lines of construction equipment and
everything in order, as it could never be in a real camp. As he began
walking with the girl toward a huge tent that should have belonged to a
circus, he could see other discrepancies. The tractors were designed for
work in mud flats and the haulers had the narrow wheels used on rocky
ground. Nothing seemed quite as it should be. He spotted a big generator
working busily—and then saw a gang of about fifty men, or mandrakes,
turning a big capstan that kept it going. Here and there were neat racks
of miscellaneous tools. Some were museum pieces. There was even a gandy
cart, though no rails for it to run on.
They were almost at the main tent when a crow flew down and yelled
something in Nema's ear. She scowled, and nodded. "I'm needed back," she
said. "Most of the men here—" She pointed to the gangs that moved about
busily doing nothing, all in costumes similar to his, except for the
boots and hat. "They're mandrakes, conjured into existence, but without
souls. The engineers we have are snatched from Duality just after dying
and revived here while their brains still retain their knowledge. They
have no true souls either, of course, but they don't know it. Ah. The
short man there—he's Garm. Sersa Garm, an apprentice to Ser Perth. He's
to be your foreman, and he's real."
She headed back to the outskirts, then turned to shout back. "Sather
Karf says you may have ten days to fix the sky," she called. Her hand
waved toward him in friendly good-bye. "Don't worry, Dave Hanson. I have
faith in you." [Pg 44]
Then she was running toward her reluctant carpet.
Dave stared up at the mottled dome above him and at the dull
clod—certainly a mandrake—who was still carrying the sample. With all
this preparation and a time limit, he couldn't even afford to stall.
He'd never fully understood why some plastics melted and others turned
hard when heated, but he had to find what was wrong with the dome above
and how to fix it. And maybe the time limit could be stretched a little,
once he came up with the answer. Maybe. He'd worry about that after he
worried about the first steps.
Sersa Garm proved to be a glum, fat young man, overly aware of his
importance in training for serhood. He led Dave through the big tent,
taking pride in the large drafting section—under the obvious belief
that it was used for designing spells. Maybe it could have been useful
for that if there had been a single man who knew anything about
draftsmanship. There were four engineers, supposedly. One, who had died
falling off a bridge while drunk, was curing himself of the shock by
remaining dead drunk. One had been a chemical engineer specializing in
making yeast and dried soya meal into breakfast cereals. Another knew
all about dredging canals and the last one was an electronics
engineer—a field in which Dave was far more competent.
He dismissed them. Whatever had been done to them—or perhaps the
absence of a true soul, whatever that was—left them rigidly bound to
their past ideas and totally incapable of doing more than following
orders by routine now. Even Sersa Garm was more useful.
That young man could offer little information, however. The sky, he
explained pompously, was a great mystery that only an adept might
communicate to another. He meant that he didn't know about it, Dave
gathered.[Pg 45] Everything, it turned out, was either a mystery or a rumor.
He also had a habit of sucking his thumb when pressed too hard for
details.
"But you must have heard some guesses about what started the cracks in
the sky?" Dave suggested.
"Oh, indeed, that is common knowledge," Sersa Garm admitted. He changed
thumbs while he considered. "'Twas an experiment most noble, but through
mischance going sadly awry. A great Sather made the sun remain in one
place too long, and the heat became too great. It was like the Classic
experiment—"
"How hot is your sun?"
There was a long pause. Then Sather Germ shrugged. "'Tis a great
mystery. Suffice to say it has no true heat, but does send forth an
activating principle against the phlogiston layer, which being excited
grows vengeful against the air ... but you have not the training to
understand."
"Okay, so they didn't tell you, if they knew." Dave stared up at the
sun, trying to guess. The light looked about like what he was used to,
where the sky was still whole. North light still was like what a color
photographer would consider 5500° Kelvin, so the sun must be pretty hot.
Hot enough to melt anything he knew about. "What's the melting point of
this sky material?"
He never did manage to make Sather Garm understand what a melting point
was. But he found that one of the solutions tried had been the bleeding
of eleven certified virgins for seven days. When the blood was mixed
with dragonfeathers and frogsdown and melded with a genuine
philosopher's stone, they had used it to ink in the right path of the
planets of a diagram. It had failed. The sky had cracked and a piece had
fallen into [Pg 46] the vessel of blood, killing a Sather who was less than two
thousand years old.
"Two thousand?" Dave asked. "How old is Sather Karf?"
"None remembers truly. He has always been the Sather Karf—at least ten
thousand years or more. To attain the art of a Sather is the work of a
score of centuries, usually."
That Sather had been in sad shape, it seemed. No one had been able to
revive him, though bringing the dead back to life when the body was
reasonably intact was routine magic that even a sersa could perform. It
was after that they'd begun conjuring back to Dave's world for all the
other experts.
"All whose true names they could find, that is," Garm amended. "The
Egyptian pyramid builder, the man who discovered your greatest science,
dianetics, the great Cagliostro—and what a time we had finding his true
name! I was assigned to the helping of one who had discovered the
secrets of gravity and some strange magic which he termed
relativity—though indeed it had little to do with kinship, but was a
private mystery. But when he was persuaded by divers means to help us,
he gave up after one week, declaring it beyond his powers. They were
even planning what might best be done to chastise him when he discovered
in some manner a book of elementary conjuration and did then devise some
strange new formula from the elements with which magic he disappeared."
It was nice to know that Einstein had given up on the problem, Dave
thought bitterly. As nice as the discovery that there was no fuel for
the equipment here. He spent an hour rigging up a portable saw to use in
attempting to cut off a smaller piece of the sky, and then saw the [Pg 47]
motor burn out when he switched it on. It turned out that all
electricity here was d.c., conjured up by commanding the electrons in a
wire to move in one direction, and completely useless with a.c. motors.
It might have been useful for welding, but there was no electric torch.
"'Tis obviously not a thing of reason," Garm told him severely. "If the
current in such a form moves first in one direction and then in the
other, then it cancels out and is useless. No, you must be wrong."
As Dave remembered it, Tesla had been plagued by similar doubts from
such men as Edison. He gave up and settled finally for one of the native
welding torches, filled with a dozen angry salamanders. The flame or
whatever it was had enough heat, but it was hard to control. By the time
he learned to use it, night had fallen, and he was too tired to try
anything more. He ate a solitary supper and went to sleep.
During the next three days he learned a few things the hard way,
however. In spite of Garm's assurance that nothing could melt the sky,
he found that his sample would melt slowly under the heat of the torch.
In the liquid state, it was jet black, though it cooled back to complete
transparency. It was also without weight when in liquid form—a fact he
discovered when it began rising through the air and spattering over
everything, including his bare skin. The burns were nasty, but somehow
seemed to heal with remarkable speed. Sersa Garm was impressed by the
discoveries, and went off to suck his thumbs and brood over the new
knowledge, much to Dave's relief.
More work established the fact that welding bits of the sky together was
not particularly difficult. The liquid sky was perfectly willing to bond
onto anything, including other bits of itself.[Pg 48]
Now, if he could get a gang up the thousand miles to the sky with enough
torches to melt the cracks, it might recongeal as a perfect sphere. The
stuff was strong, but somewhat brittle. He still had no idea of how to
get the stars and planets back in the right places.
"The mathematician thought of such an idea," Sersa Garm said sourly.
"But 'twould never work. Even with much heat, it could not be done. For
see you, the upper air is filled with phlogiston, which no man can
breathe. Also, the phlogiston has negative weight, as every school child
must know. Your liquid sky would sink through it, since negative weight
must in truth be lighter than no weight, while nothing else would rise
through the layer. And phlogiston will quench the flame of a rocket, as
your expert von Braun discovered."
The man was a gold mine of information, all bad. The only remaining
solution, apparently, was to raise a scaffolding over the whole planet
to the sky, and send up mandrakes to weld back the broken pieces. They
wouldn't need to breathe, anyhow. With material of infinite
strength—and an infinite supply of it—and with infinite time and
patience, it might have been worth considering.
Nema came out the next day with more cheering information. Her
multi-times great grandfather, Sather Karf, regretted it, but he must
have good news to release at once; the populace was starving because the
food multipliers couldn't produce reliable supplies. Otherwise, Dave
would find venom being transported into his blood in increasing amounts
until the pain drove him mad. And, just incidentally, the Sons of the
Egg who'd attacked him in the hospital had tried to reach the camp twice
already, once by interpenetrating into a shipment of mandrakes, which
indicated to what measures [Pg 49]they would resort. They meant to kill him
somehow, and the defense of him was growing too costly unless there were
positive results.
Dave hinted at having nearly reached the solution, giving her only a bit
of his wild idea of welding the sky. She took off with that, but he was
sure it wouldn't satisfy the Sather. In that, he was right. By
nightfall, when she came back from the city, he was groaning in pain.
The venom had arrived ahead of her, and his blood seemed to be on fire.
She laid a cool hand on his forehead. "Poor Dave," she said. "If I were
not registered and certified, sometimes I feel that I might ... but no
more of that. Ser Perth sends you this unguent which will hold back the
venom for a time, cautioning you not to reveal his softness." Ser Perth,
it seemed, had reverted to his pre-Sagittarian character as expected.
"And Sather Karf wants the full plans at once. He is losing patience."
He began rubbing on the ointment, which helped slightly. She peeled back
his shirt and began helping, apparently delighted with the hair which
he'd sprouted on his chest since his reincarnation. The unguent helped,
but it wasn't enough.
"He never had any patience to lose. What the hell does he expect me to
do?" Dave asked hotly. "Snap my fingers thus, yell abracadabra and
give him egg in his beer?"
He stopped to stare at his hand, where a can of beer had suddenly
materialized!
Nema squealed in delight. "What a novel way to conjure, Dave. Let me try
it." She began snapping her fingers and saying the word eagerly, but
nothing happened. Finally she turned back to him. "Show me again."[Pg 50]
He was sure it wouldn't work twice, and he hesitated, not too willing to
have his stock go down with her. Then he gave in.
"Abracadabra!" he said, and snapped his fingers.
There were results at once. This time an egg appeared in his hand, to
the delighted cry of Nema. He bent to look at it uncertainly. It was a
strange looking egg—more like one of the china eggs used to make hens
think they were nesting when their eggs were still being taken from
them.
Abruptly Nema sprang back. But she was too late. The egg was growing. It
swelled to the size of a football, then was man-sized, and growing to
the size of a huge tank that filled most of the tent. Suddenly it split
open along one side and a group of men in dull robes and masks came
spilling out of it.
"Die!" the one in front yelled. He lifted a double-bladed knife, charged
for Dave, and brought the knife down.
The blades went through clothing, skin, flesh and bones, straight for
Dave's heart.[Pg 51]
V
The knife had pierced Dave's chest until the hilt pressed against his
rib cage. He stared down at it, seeing it rise with the heaving of his
lungs. Yet he was still alive!
Then the numbness of shock wore off and the pain nerves carried their
messages to his brain. He still lived, but there was unholy agony where
the blade lay. Coughing and choking on what must be his own blood, he
scrabbled at the knife and ripped it out. Blood jetted from the gaping
rent in his clothing. It gushed forth—and slowed; it
frothed—trickled—and stopped entirely.
As he ripped his shirt back to look, the wound was closed already. But
there was no easing of the pain that threatened to make him black out at
any second.
He heard shouting, quarreling voices, but nothing made sense through the
haze of his agony. He felt someone grab at him—more than one
person—and they were dragging him willy-nilly across the ground.
Something was clutched around his throat, almost choking him. He opened
his eyes just as something clicked behind him.
The huge, translucent walls of the monstrous egg were all around him and
the opened side was closing.
The pain began to abate. The bleeding had already stopped entirely and
his lungs seemed to have cleared themselves of the blood and froth in
them. Now with the ache of the wound ceasing, Dave could still feel the
venom burning in his blood, and the constriction around his throat was
still there, making it hard to breathe. He [Pg 52] sat up, trying to free
himself. The constriction came from an arm around his neck, but he
couldn't see to whom it belonged, and there was no place to move aside
in the corner of the egg.
From inside, the walls of the egg were transparent enough for him to see
cloudy outlines of what lay beyond. He could see the ground sweeping
away beneath them from all points. A man had run up and was standing
beside the egg, beating at it. The man suddenly shot up like a fountain,
growing huge; he towered over them, until he seemed miles high and the
giant structures Dave could see were only the turned-up toes of the
man's shoes. One of those shoes was lifting, as if the man meant to step
on the egg.
They must be growing smaller again.
A voice said tightly: "We're small enough, Bork. Can you raise the wind
for us now?"
"Hold on." Bork's voice seemed sure of itself.
The egg tilted and soared. Dave was thrown sidewise and had to fight for
balance. He stared unbelievingly through the crystal shell. They rose
like a Banshee jet. There was a shaggy, monstrous colossus in the
distance, taller than the Himalayas—the man who had been beside them.
Bork grunted. "Got it! We're all right now." He chanted something in a
rapid undertone "All right, relax. That will teach them not to work
resonance magic inside a protective ring; the egg knows how we could
have got through otherwise. Lucky we were trying at the right time,
though. The Satheri must be going crazy. Wait a minute, this tires the
fingers."
The man called Bork halted the series of rapid passes he had been
making, flexing his fingers with a grimace. The spinning egg began to
drop at once, but he let out a long, keening cry, adding a slight flip
of his other [Pg 53] arm. Outside, something like a mist drew near and swirled
around them. It looked huge to Dave, but must have been a small thing in
fact. Now they began speeding along smoothly again. The thing was
probably another sylph, strong enough to move them in their present
reduced size.
Bork pointed his finger. "There's the roc!" He leaned closer to the wall
of the tiny egg and shouted. The sylph changed direction, and began to
bob about.
It drifted gently, while Bork pulled a few sticks with runes written on
them toward him and made a hasty assembly of them. At once, there was a
feeling of growing, and the sylph began to shrink away from them. Now
they were falling swiftly, growing as they dropped. Dave felt his
stomach twist, until he saw they were heading toward a huge bird that
was cruising along under them, drawing closer. It looked like a cross
between a condor and a hawk, but its wing span must have been over three
hundred feet. It slipped under the egg, catching the falling object
deftly on a cushion-like attachment between its wings, and then struck
off briskly toward the east.
Bork snapped the side of the egg open and stepped out while the others
followed. Dave tried to crawl out, but something held him back. It
wasn't until Bork's big hand reached in to help him that he made it.
When all were out, Bork tapped the egg-shaped object and caught it as it
shrank. When it was small enough, he pocketed it.
Dave sat up again, examining himself, now that he had more room. His
clothing was a mess, spattered with drying blood, but he seemed unharmed
now. Even the burning of the venom was gone. He reached for the [Pg 54] arm
around his neck and began breaking it free from its stranglehold.
From behind an incredulous cry broke out. Nema sprawled across him,
staring at his face and burying her head against his shoulder. "Dave!
You're not dead! You're alive!"
Dave was still amazed at that himself. But Bork snorted. "Of course he
is. Why'd we take him along with you hanging on in a faint if he were
dead? When the snetha-knife kills, it kills completely. They stay dead,
or they don't die. Sagittarian?"
She nodded, and the big man seemed to be doing some calculations in his
head.
"Yeah," he decided. "It would be. There was one second there around
midnight when all the signs were at their absolute maximum
favorableness. Someone must have said some pretty dangerous health
spells over him then." He turned to Dave, as if aware that the other was
comparatively ignorant of such matters. "Happened once before, without
this mess-up of the signs. They revived a corpse and found he was
unkillable from then on. He lasted eight thousand years, or something
like that, before he got burned trying to control a giant salamander.
They cut off his head once, but it healed before the axe was all the way
through. Woops!"
The bird had dipped downward, rushing toward the ground. It landed at a
hundred miles an hour and managed to stop against a small entrance to a
cave in the hillside. Except for the one patch where the bird had
lighted, they were in the middle of a dense forest.
Dave and Nema were hustled into the cave, while the others melted into
the woods, studying the skies. She clung to Dave, crying something about
how the Sons of the Egg would torture them.[Pg 55]
"All right," he said finally. "Who are these sons of eggs? And what have
they got against me?"
"They're monsters," she told him. "They used to be the antimagic
individualists. They wanted magic used only when other means wouldn't
work. They fought against the Satheri. While magic produced their food
and made a better world for them, they hated it because they couldn't do
it for themselves. And a few renegade priests like my brother joined
them."
"Your brother?"
"She means me," Bork said. He came in to drop on his haunches and grin
at Dave. There was no sign of personal hatred in his look. "I used to be
a stooge for Sather Karf, before I got sick of it. How do you feel, Dave
Hanson?"
Dave considered it, still in wonder at the truth. "I feel good. Even the
venom they were putting in my blood doesn't seem to hurt any more."
"Fine. Means the Sather Karf must believe we killed you—he must have
the report by now. If he thinks you're dead, there's no point in his
giving chase; he knows I wouldn't let them kill Nema, even if she is a
little fool. Anyhow, he's not really such a bad old guy, Dave—not, like
some of those Satheri. Well, you figure how you'd like it if you were
just a simple man and some priest magicked her away from you—and then
sent her back with enough magic of her own to be a witch and make life
hell for you because she'd been kicked out by the priest, but he hadn't
pulled the wanting spell off her. Or anything else you wanted and
couldn't keep against magic. Sure, they fed us. They had to, after they
took away our fields and the kine, and got everyone into the habit of
taking their dole instead of earning our living in the old way. They
made slaves of [Pg 56] us. Any man who lets another be responsible for him is
a slave. It's a fine world for the Satheri, if they can keep the egg
from breaking."
"What's all this egg nonsense?"
Bork shrugged. "Plain good sense. Why should there be a sky shell around
the planet? Look, there's a legend here. You should know it, since for
all I know it has some meaning for you. Long ago—or away, or
whatever—there was a world called Tharé and another called Erath. Two
worlds, separate and distinct, on their own branching time paths. They
must have been that way since the moment of creation. One was a world of
rule and law. One plus one might not always equal two, but it had to
equal something. There seems to be some similarity to your world in
that, doesn't there? The other was—well, you'd call it chaos, though it
had some laws, if they could be predicted. One plus one there
depended—or maybe there was no such thing as unity. Mass-energy wasn't
conserved. It was deserved. It was a world of anarchy, from your point
of view. It must have been a terrible place to live, I guess."
He hesitated somberly. "As terrible as this one is getting to be," he
said at last. "Anyway, there were people who lived there. There were the
two inhabited worlds in their own time lines, or probability orbits, or
whatever. You know, I suppose, how worlds of probability would separate
and diverge as time goes on? Of course. Well, these two worlds
coalesced."
He looked searchingly at Dave. "Do you see it? The two time lines came
together. Two opposites fused into one. Don't ask me to explain it; it
was long ago, and all I know for sure is that it happened. The two
worlds met and fused, and out of the two came this world, in what the
books call the Dawnstruggle. When it was over,[Pg 57] our world was as it
has been for thousands of centuries. In fact, one result was that in
theory, neither original world could have a real past, and the fusion
was something that had been—no period of change. It's pretty
complicated."
"It sounds worse than that," Dave grumbled. "But while that might
explain the mystery of magic working here, it doesn't explain your sky."
Bork scratched his head. "No, not too well," he admitted. "I've always
had some doubts about whether or not all the worlds have a shell around
them. I don't know. But our world does, and the shell is cracking. The
Satheri don't like it; they want to stop it. We want it to happen. For
the two lines that met and fused into one have an analogue. Doesn't the
story of that fusion suggest something to you, Dave Hanson? Don't you
see it, the male principle of rule and the female principle of whim;
they join, and the egg is fertile! Two universes join, and the result is
a nucleus world surrounded by a shell, like an egg. We're a universe
egg. And when an egg hatches, you don't try to put it back together!"
He didn't look like a fanatic, Dave told himself. Crazy or not, he took
this business of the hatching egg seriously. But you could never be sure
about anyone who joined a cult. "What is your egg going to hatch into?"
he asked.
The big man shrugged. "Does an egg know it is going to become a hen—or
maybe a fish? We can't possibly tell, of course."
Dave considered it. "Don't you even have a guess?"
Bork answered shortly, "No." He looked worried, Dave thought, and
guessed that even the fanatics were not quite sure they wanted to be
hatched. Bork shrugged again.[Pg 58]
"An egg has got to hatch," he said. "That's all there is to it. We
prophesied this, oh, two hundred years ago. The Satheri laughed. Now
they've stopped laughing, but they want to stop it. What happens to a
chick when it is stopped from hatching? Does it go on being a chick, or
does it die? It dies, of course. And we don't want to die. No, Dave
Hanson, we don't know what happens next—but we do know that we must go
through with it. I have nothing against you personally—but I can't let
you stop us. That's why we tried to kill you. If I could, I'd kill you
now, with the snetha-knife so they couldn't revive you."
Dave said reasonably, "You can't expect me to like it, you know. The
Satheri, at least, saved my life—" He stopped in confusion. Bork was
staring at him in hilarious incredulousness that broke into roars of
laughter.
"You mean ... Dave Hanson, do you believe everything they tell you?
Don't you know that the Satheri arranged to kill you first? They needed
a favorable death conjunction to bring you back to life; they got it—by
arranging an accident!"
Nema cried out in protest. "That's a lie!"
"Of course," Bork said mildly. "You always were on their side, little
sister. You were also usually a darned nuisance, fond as I was of you.
Come here."
He caught her and yanked a single hair out of her head. She screamed and
tried to claw him, then fought for the hair. Bork was immovable. He held
her off easily with one hand while the fingers of the other danced in
the air. He spoke what seemed to be a name, though it bore no
resemblance to Nema. She quieted, trembling.
"You'll find a broom near the entrance, little sister. Take it and go
back, to forget that Dave Hanson lives.[Pg 59] You saw him die and were
dragged off with us and his body. You escaped before we reached our
hideaway. By the knot I tie in your true hair and by your secret name,
this I command."
She blinked slowly and looked around as Bork burned the knotted hair.
Her eyes swept past Bork and Dave without seeing them and centered on
the broom one man held out to her, without appearing to see him, either.
She seized the broom. A sob came to her throat. "The devil! The renegade
devil! He didn't have to kill Dave! He didn't—"
Her voice died away as she ran toward the clearing. Dave made no
protest. He suspected Bork was putting the spell on her for her own
good, and he agreed that she was better out of all this.
"Now where were we?" Bork asked. "Oh, yes, I was trying to convert you
and knowing I'd failed already. Of course, I don't know that they killed
you first—but those are their methods. Take it from me, I know. I was
the youngest Ser ever to be accepted for training as a Sather. They
wanted you, so they got you."
Dave considered it. It seemed as likely as anything else. "Why me?" he
asked.
"Because you can put back the sky. At least, the Satheri think so, and I
must admit that in some ways they are smarter than we."
Dave started to protest, but Bork cut him off.
"I know all about your big secret. You're not the engineer, whose true
name was longer. We know all that. Our pools are closer to perfection
than theirs, not being contaminated by city air, and we see more. But
there is a cycle of confirmation; if prophecy indicates a thing will
happen, it will happen—though not always as expected. [Pg 60]The prophecy
fulfills itself, rather than being fulfilled. Then there are the words
on the monument—a monument meant for your uncle, but carrying your true
name, because his friends felt the short form sounded better. It was
something of a coincidence that they had the wrong true name. But
prophecy is always strongest when based on coincidence—that is a prime
rule. And those words coupled with our revelations prophesy that
you—not your uncle—can do the impossible. So what are we going to do
with you?"
Bork's attitude was reassuring, somehow. It was nearer his own than any
Dave had heard on this world. And the kidnapping was beginning to look
like a relief. The Sons of the Egg had gotten him off the hook with
Sather Karf. He grinned and stretched back. "If I'm unkillable, Bork,
what can you do?"
The big man grinned back. "Flow rock around you up to your nose and toss
you into a lake. You'd live there—but you'd always be drowning and
you'd find it slightly unpleasant for the next few thousand years! It's
not as bad as being turned into a mangrove with your soul intact, but it
would last longer. And don't think the Satheri can't pull a lot worse
than that. They have your name—everyone has your secret name here—and
parts of you."
The conversation was suddenly less pleasant. Dave thought it over. "I
could stay here and join your group. I might as well, since I can't
really help the Satheri anyhow."
"They'd spot your aura eventually. They'll be checking around here for
us for a while. Of course, we might do something about it, if you really
converted. But I don't think you would, if you knew more." Bork got up
and headed for the entrance. "I wasn't going to let [Pg 61] you see the
risings, but now maybe I will. If you still want to join, it might be
worked. Otherwise, I'll think of something else."
Dave followed the man out into the clearing. A few men were just
planning to leave, and they looked at Dave suspiciously, but made no
protest. One, whom Dave recognized as the leader with the snetha-knife,
scowled.
"The risings are almost due, Bork," he said.
Bork nodded. "I know, Malok. I've decided to let Dave Hanson watch.
Dave, this is our leader here, Res Malok."
Dave felt no strong love for his would-be murderer, and it seemed to be
mutual. But no protest was lodged. Apparently Bork was their top
conjurer, and privileged. They crossed the clearing and went through the
woods toward another, smaller one. Here a group of some fifty men were
watching the sky, obviously waiting. Others stood around, watching them
and avoiding looking up. Almost directly overhead, there was a rent
place where the strange absence of color or feature indicated a hole in
the dome over them. As it drew nearer true vertical, a chanting began
among the men with up-turned faces. Their hands went upwards, fingers
spread and curled into an unnatural position. Then they stood waiting.
"I don't like it," Bork whispered to Dave. "This is one of the reasons
we're growing too weak to fight the Satheri."
"What's wrong with a ceremony of worship, if you must worship your
eggshell?" Dave asked.
"You'll see. That was all it was once—just worship. But now for weeks,
things are changing. They think it's a sign of favor, but I don't know.
There, watch!"
The hole in the sky was directly overhead now, and [Pg 62] the moaning had
risen in pitch. Across the little clearing, Malok began backing quietly
away, carefully not looking upwards. Nobody but Dave seemed to notice
his absence. There was a louder moan.
One of the men in the clearing began to rise upwards slowly. His body
was rigid as it lifted a foot, ten feet, then a hundred above the
ground. Now it picked up speed, and rushed upwards. Another began to
rise, and another. In seconds, more than half of those who had waited
were screaming upwards toward the hole in the sky. They disappeared in
the distance.
Those who had merely stood by and those who had worshipped waited a few
seconds more, but no more rose. The men sighed and began moving out of
the clearing. Dave arose to follow, but Bork gestured for him to wait.
"Sometimes—" he said.
They were alone now. Still Bork waited, staring upwards. Then Dave saw
something in the sky. A speck appeared and came hurtling down. In
seconds, it was the body of one of the men who had risen. Dave felt his
stomach tighten and braced himself. There was no slowing as the body
fell. It landed in the center of the clearing, without losing speed, but
with less noise than he had expected.
When they reached the shattered body, there could be no question of its
being dead.
Bork's face was solemn. "If you're thinking of joining, you'd better
know the worst. You're too easily shocked to make a good convert unless
you're prepared. The risings have been going on for some time. Malok
swears it proves we are right. But I've seen five other bodies come down
like this. What does it mean? Are [Pg 63] they stillborn? We don't know. Shall
I revive him for you?"
Dave felt sick as he stared at the ghastly terror on the face of the
corpse. The last thing he wanted to see was its revival, but his
curiosity about the secret in the sky could not be denied. He nodded.
Bork drew a set of phials and implements in miniature size from under
his robe. "This is routine," he said. He snapped his fingers and
produced a small flame over the heart of the corpse. Into that he began
dusting powders, mixing them with something that looked like blood.
Finally he called a name and a command. There was a sharp explosion, a
hissing, and Bork's voice calling.
The dead man flowed together and was whole. He stood up woodenly, with
his face frozen. "Who calls?" he asked in an uninflected, hollow voice.
"Why am I called? I have no soul."
"We call," Bork answered. "Tell us what you saw at the hole in the sky."
A scream tore from the throat of the thing, and its hands came up to its
eyes, tearing at them. Its mouth worked soundlessly, and breath sucked
in. Then a single word came out.
"Faces!"
It fell onto the grass, distorted in death again. Bork shuddered.
"The others were the same," he said. "And he can't be revived again.
Even the strongest spell can't bring back his soul. That is gone,
somehow."
Dave shivered. "And knowing that, you'd still fight against repairing
the sky?"
"Hatching is probably always horrible from inside the shell," Bork
answered. "Do you still want to join us? No, I thought not. Well, then,
let's go back. We might [Pg 64] as well try to eat something while I think
about what to do with you."
Malok and most of the others were gone when they reached the cave again.
Bork fell to work with some scraps of food, cursing the configurations
of the planets as his spell refused to work. Then suddenly the scraps
became a mass of sour-smelling stuff. Bork made a face as he tasted it,
but he ate it in silence. Dave couldn't force himself to put it in his
mouth, though he was hungry by then.
He considered, and then snapped his fingers. "Abracadabra," he cried. He
swore as something wet and slimy that looked like seaweed plopped into
his hand. The next time he got a limp fish that had been dead far too
long. But the third try worked better. This time, a whole bunch of
bananas appeared. They were a little riper than he liked, but some of
them were edible enough. He handed some to the other man, who quickly
abandoned his own creation.
Bork was thoughtful as he ate. Finally he grimaced. "New magic!" he
said. "Maybe that's the secret of the prophecy. I thought you knew no
magic."
"I didn't," Dave admitted. He was still tingling inside himself at this
confirmation of his earlier discovery. It was unpredictable magic, but
apparently bore some vague relationship to what he was wishing for.
"So the lake's out," Bork decided. "With unknown powers at your command,
you might escape in time. Well, that settles it. There's one place where
nobody will look for you or listen to you. You'll be nothing but another
among millions, and that's probably the best hiding place for you. With
the overseers they have, you couldn't even turn yourself back to the
Satheri, though I'll admit I'm hoping you don't want them to find you." [Pg 65]
"And I was beginning to think you liked me," Dave commented bitterly.
Bork grinned. "I do, Dave Hanson. That's why I'm picking the easiest
place to hide you I can think of. It will be hell, but anything else
would be worse. Better strip and put this cloth on."
The thing he held out was little more than a rag, apparently torn from
one of the robes. "Come on, strip, or I'll burn off your clothes with a
salamander. There, that's better. Now wrap the cloth around your waist
and let it hang down in front. It'll be easier on you if you don't
attract much attention. The sky seems to indicate the planets favor
teleportation now. Be quick before I change my mind and think of
something worse!"
Dave didn't see what he did this time, but there was a puff of flame in
front of his eyes.
The next second, he stood manacled in a long line of men loaded with
heavy stones. Over their backs fell the cutting lashes of a whip. Far
ahead was a partially finished pyramid. Dave was obviously one of the
building slaves.[Pg 66]
VI
Sunrise glared harshly over the desert. It was already hot enough to
send heat waves dancing over the sand as Hanson wakened under the bite
of a lash. The overseers were shouting and kicking the slaves awake.
Overhead the marred sky shone in crazy quilt patterns.
Hanson stood up, taking the final bite of the whip without flinching. He
glanced down at his body, noticing that it had somehow developed a
healthy deep tan during the few hours of murderous labor the day before.
He wasn't particularly surprised. Something in his mind seemed also to
have developed a "tan" that let him face the bite of chance without
flinching. He'd stopped wondering and now accepted; he meant to get away
from here at the first chance and he was somehow sure he could.
It was made easier by the boundless strength of his new body. He showed
no signs of buckling under physical work that would have killed him on
his own world.
Not all the slaves got up. Two beside him didn't move at all. Sleeping
through that brutal awakening seemed impossible. When Hanson looked
closer, he saw that they weren't asleep; they were dead.
The overseer raged back along the line and saw them. He must be one of
those conjured into existence here from the real Egypt of the past. He
might have no soul, but a lifetime of being an overseer had given him
habits that replaced the need for what had been a pretty slim soul [Pg 67]
to begin with.
"Quitters!" he yelled. "Lazy, worthless, work-dodging goldbrick
artists!" He knelt in fury, thumbing back the eyelids of the corpses.
There was little need for the test. They were too limp, too waxen to be
pretending.
The overseer cut them out of the chain and kicked at Hanson. "Move
along!" he bellowed. "Menes himself is here, and he's not as gentle as I
am."
Hanson joined the long line, wondering what they were going to do about
breakfast. How the devil did they expect the slaves to put in sixteen
hours of work without some kind of food? There had been nothing the
night before but a skin of water. There was not even that much this
morning. No wonder the two beside him had died from overwork, beatings
and plain starvation.
Menes was there, all right. Hanson saw him from the distance, a skinny
giant of a man in breechclout, cape and golden headdress. He bore a whip
like everyone else who seemed to have any authority at all, but he
wasn't using it. He was standing hawklike on a slight rise in the sandy
earth, motionless and silent. Beside him was a shorter figure: a pudgy
man with a thin mustache, on whom the Egyptian headdress looked
strangely out of place. It could only be Ser Perth!
Hanson's staring came to an end as the lash cut down across his
shoulders, biting through to the shoulder-bone. He stumbled forward,
heedless of the overseers' shouting voices. Someday, if he had the
chance, he'd flay his own overseer, but that could wait. Even the agony
of the cut couldn't take his mind from Ser Perth's presence. Had Bork
slipped up—did the Satheri know that Hanson was still alive, and had
they sent Ser Perth here to locate him? It seemed unlikely, however. The
man was paying no attention to the lines of [Pg 68] slaves. It would be hard to
spot one among three million, anyhow. More likely, Hanson decided, Ser
Perth was supervising the supervisors, making an inspection tour of all
this.
Of all what? Apparently then this must be another of their frenzied
efforts to find a way to put back the sky. He'd heard that they had
called up the pyramid builder, but hadn't fully realized it would lead
to this type of activity.
He looked around him appraisingly. The long lines of slaves that had
been carrying rock and rubble the day before now were being formed into
hauling teams. Long ropes were looped around enormous slabs of quarried
rock. Rollers underneath them and slaves tugging and pushing at them
were the only means of moving them. The huge stones slid remorselessly
forward onto the prepared beds of rubble. Casting back in his memory,
Hanson could not recall seeing the rock slabs the night before. They had
appeared as if by magic—
Obviously, they had really been conjured up by magic. But if the rocks
could be conjured, what was the need of all the slaves and the sadistic
overseers? Why not simply magic the entire construction, whatever it was
to be?
The whip hit him again, and the raging voice of the overseer ranted in
his ears. "Get on, you blundering slacker. Menes himself is looking at
you. Ho there—what the devil?"
The overseer's hand spun Hanson around. The man's eyes, large and
opaque, stared at Hanson. He frowned cruelly. "Yeah, you're the same
one! Didn't I take the hide off your back twice already? And now you
stand there without a scar or a drop of blood!"
Hanson grunted feebly. He didn't want attention [Pg 69] called to himself while
Ser Perth was around. "I—I heal quickly." It was no more than the
truth. Either the body they'd given him or the conjuring during the
right split second had enabled him to heal almost before a blow was
struck.
"Magic!" The overseer scowled and gave Hanson a shove that sent him
sprawling. "Blithering magic again! Magic stones that melt when you get
them in place—magic slaves that the whip won't touch! And they expect
us to do a job of work such as not even Thoth could dream up! They won't
take honest work. No, they have to come snooping and conjuring and
interfering. Wheels on rollers! Tools of steel and the gods know what
instead of honest stone. Magic to lift things instead of honest ropes
that shrink and wood that swells. Magic that fails, and rush, rush, rush
until I'm half ready to be tortured for falling behind, and—you! You
would, would you!" His voice trailed off into a fresh roar of rage as he
caught sight of other slaves taking advantage of his attention to Hanson
to relax. He raced off, brandishing the whip.
Hanson tried to make himself inconspicuous after that. The wounds would
heal, and the beatings could never kill him; but there had been no
provision in his new body for the suppression of pain. He hungered,
thirsted and suffered like anyone else. Maybe he was learning to take
it, here, but not to like it.
At the expense of a hundred slaves and considerable deterioration of the
whips, one block of stone was in place before the sun was high overhead
in the coppery, mottled sky. Then there was the blessing of a moment's
pause. Men were coming down the long lines, handing something to the
slaves. Food, Hanson anticipated.[Pg 70]
He was wrong. When the slave with the wicker basket came closer he could
see that the contents were not food but some powdery stuff that was
dipped out with carved spoons into the eager hands of the slaves. Hanson
smelled his portion dubiously. It was cloying, sickly sweet.
Hashish! Or opium, heroin, hemp—Hanson was no expert. But it was
certainly some kind of drug. Judging by the avid way the other slaves
were gulping it down, each one of them had been exposed to it before.
Hanson cautiously made the pretense of swallowing his before he allowed
it to slip through his fingers to mingle with the sand. Drug addiction
was obviously a convenient way to make the slaves forget their aches and
fears, to keep them everlasting anxious to please whatever was necessary
to make sure the precious, deadly ration never stopped.
There was still no sign of food. The pause in the labor was only for the
length of time it took the drug-bearing slaves to complete their task.
Ten minutes, or fifteen at the outside; then the overseers were back
with the orders and the lashes.
The slaves regrouped on new jobs, and Hanson found himself in a bunch of
a dozen or so. They were lashing the hauling ropes around a twelve-foot
block of stone; the rollers were already in place, with the crudely
plaited ropes dangling loosely. Hanson found himself being lifted by a
couple of the other slaves to the shoulders of a third. His clawing
hands caught the top of the block and the slaves below heaved him
upward. He scrambled to the top and caught the ropes that were flung up
to him.
From his vantage point he saw what he had not seen before—the amazing
size of the construction project.[Pg 71] This was no piffling little Gizeh
pyramid, no simple tomb for a king. Its base was measured in kilometers
instead of yards, and its top was going to be proportionally high,
apparently. It hardly seemed that there could be enough stone in the
whole world to finish the job. As far as Hanson could see, over the
level sand, the ground was black with the suffering millions of slaves
in their labor gangs.
The idiots must be trying to reach the sky with their pyramid. There
could be no other answer to the immense bulk planned for this structure.
Like the pride-maddened men of Babel, they were building a sky-high
thing of stone. It was obviously impossible, and even Menes must be
aware of that. Yet perhaps it was no more impossible than all the rest
of the things in this impossible world.
When the warlocks of this world had discovered that they could not solve
the problem of the sky, they must have gone into a state of pure
hysteria, like a chicken dashing back and forth in front of a car. They
had sought through other worlds and ages for anyone with a reputation as
a builder, engineer or construction genius, without screening the
probability of finding an answer. The size of the ancient pyramid must
have been enough to sway them. They had used Hanson, Menes, Einstein,
Cagliostro—for some reason of their own, since he'd never been a
builder—and probably a thousand more. And then they had half-supplied
all of them, rather than picking the most likely few and giving full
cooperation. Magic must have made solutions to most things so easy that
they no longer had the guts to try the impossible themselves. A pyramid
seemed like a ridiculous solution, but for an incredible task, an
impossible solution had to be tried.[Pg 72]
And maybe, he thought, they'd overlooked the obvious in their own
system. The solution to a problem in magic should logically be found in
magic, not in the methods of other worlds. His mind groped for something
that almost came into his consciousness—some inkling of what should
have been done, or how they had failed. It was probably only an idle
fancy, but—
"Hey!" One of the slaves below was waving at him. While Hanson looked
down, the slave called to another, got a shoulder to lean on, and walked
his way up the side of the block, pushed from below and helped by
Hanson's hands above. He was panting when he reached the top, but he
could still talk. "Look, it's your skin, but you're going to be in
trouble if you don't get busy. Look out for that overseer up there.
Don't just stand around when he's in sight." He picked up a loop of rope
and passed it to Hanson, making a great show of hard work.
Hanson stared up at the overseer who was staring back at him. "Why is he
any worse than the rest of this crowd?"
The slave shuddered as the dour, slow-moving overseer began walking
stiffly toward them. "Don't let the fact that he's an overseer fool you.
He's smarter than most of his kind, but just as ugly. He's a mandrake,
and you can't afford to mess with him."
Hanson looked at the ancient, wrinkled face of the mandrake and
shuddered. There was the complete incarnation of inhumanity in the
thing's expression. He passed ropes around the corners until the
mandrake turned and rigidly marched away, the blows of his whip falling
metronome-like on the slaves he passed. "Thanks," Hanson said "I wonder
what it's like, being a true mandrake?" [Pg 73]
"Depends," the slave said easily. He was obviously more intelligent than
most, and better at conserving himself. "Some mandrake-men are real. I
mean, the magicians want somebody whom they can't just call back—direct
translation of the body usually messes up the brain patterns enough to
make the thinkers hard to use, especially with the sky falling. So they
get his name and some hold on his soul and then rebuild his body around
a mandrake root. They bind his soul into that, and in some ways he's
almost human. Sometimes they even improve on what he was. But the true
mandrake—like that one—never was human. Just an ugly, filthy
simulacrum. It's bad business. I never liked it, even though I was in
training for sersa rating."
"You're from this world?" Hanson asked in surprise. He'd been assuming
that the man was one of the things called back.
"A lot of us are. They conscripted a lot of the people they didn't need
for these jobs. But I was a little special. All right, maybe you don't
believe me—you think they wouldn't send a student sersa here now. Look,
I can prove it. I managed to sneak one of the books I was studying back
with me. See?"
He drew a thin volume from his breechclout cautiously, then slipped it
back again. "You don't get such books unless you're at least of student
rating." He sighed, then shrugged. "My trouble is that I could never
keep my mouth shut. I was attendant at one of the revivatoria, and I got
drunk enough to let out some information about one of the important
revival cases. So here I am."
"Umm." Hanson worked silently for a minute, wondering how far
coincidence could go. It could go a long ways here, he decided. "You
wouldn't have been [Pg 74] sentenced to twenty lifetimes here by the Sather
Karf, would you?"
The slave stared at him in surprise. "You guessed it. I've died only
fourteen times so far, so I've got six more lives to go. But—hey, you
can't be! They were counting on you to be the one who really fixed
things. Don't tell me my talking out of turn did this to you."
Hanson reassured him on that. He recognized the man now for another
reason. "Aren't you the one I saw dead on his back right next to me this
morning?"
"Probably. Name's Barg." He stood up to take a careful look at the net
of cording around the stone. "Looks sound enough. Yeah, I died this
morning, which is why I'm fairly fresh now. Those overseers won't feed
us because it takes time and wastes food; they let us die and then have
us dragged back for more work. It's a lot easier on the ones they
dragged back already dead; dying doesn't matter so much without a soul."
"Some of them seem to be Indians," Hanson noted. He hadn't paid too
much attention, but the slaves seemed to be from every possible
background.
Barg nodded. "Aztecs from a place called Tenochtitlan. Twenty thousand
of them got sacrificed in a bunch for some reason or other. Poor devils.
They think this is some kind of heaven. They tell me this is easy work
compared to the type they had to undergo. The Satheri like to get big
bunches through in one conjuration, like the haul they made from the
victims of somebody named Tamerlane." He tested a rope, then dropped to
a sitting position on the edge of the block. "I'll let you stay up to
call signals from here. Only watch it. That overseer has his eyes on
you. Make sure the ropes stay tight while we see if the thing can be
moved."
He started to slip over the side, hanging by his [Pg 75] fingertips. Something
caught, and he swore. With one hand, he managed to free his breechclout
and drag out the thin volume that was lodged between his groin and the
block. "Here, hold this for me until we meet tonight. You've got more
room to hide it in your cloth than I have." He tossed it over quickly,
then dropped from sight to land on the ground below.
Hanson shoved the book out of sight and tried to act busy again. The
mandrake overseer had started ponderously toward him. But in a moment
the thing's attention was directed to some other object of torture.
Hanson braced himself as the lines of slaves beneath him settled
themselves to the ropes. There was a loud cracking of whips and a chorus
of groans. A small drum took up a beat, and the slaves strained and
tugged in unison. Ever so slowly, the enormous block of stone began to
move, while the ropes drew tighter.
Hanson checked the rigging with half his mind, while the other half
raced in a crazy circle of speculation. Mandrakes and mandrake-men,
zombie-men, from the past and multiple revivals! A sky that fell in
great chunks. What came next in this ridiculous world in which he seemed
to be trapped?
As if in answer to his question, there was a sudden, coruscating flare
from above.
Hanson's body reacted instinctively. His arm came up over his eyes,
cutting off the glare. But he managed to squint across it, upwards
toward what was happening in the cracked dome. For a split second, he
thought that the sun had gone nova.
He was wrong, but not by too much. Something had happened to the sun.
Now it was flickering and flaming, shooting enormous jets of fire from
its rim. It hovered at the edge of a great new hole and seemed to be [Pg 76]
wobbling, careening and losing its balance.
There was a massive shriek of fear and panic from the horde of slaves.
They began bellowing like the collective death-agony of a world. Most of
them dropped their ropes and ran in blind panic, trampling over each
other in their random flight for safety. The human overseers were part
of the same panic-stricken riot. Only the mandrakes stood stolidly in
place, flicking each running man who passed them.
Hanson flung himself face down on the stone. There was a roar of
tortured air from overhead and a thundering sound that was unlike
anything except the tearing of an infinity of cloth combined with a
sustained explosion of atomic bombs. Then it seemed as if the
thunderbolt of Thor himself had blasted in Hanson's ears.
The sky had ripped again, and this time the entire dome shook with the
shock. But that wasn't the worst of it.
The sun had broken through the hole and was falling![Pg 77]
VII
The fall of the sun was seemingly endless. It teetered out of the hole
and seemed to hover, spitting great gouts of flame as it encountered the
phlogiston layer. Slowly, agonizingly, it picked up speed and began its
downward rush. Unlike the sky, it seemed to obey the normal laws of
inertia Hanson had known. It swelled bit by bit, raging as it drew
nearer. And it seemed to be heading straight for the pyramid.
The heat was already rising. It began to sear the skin long before the
sun struck the normal atmosphere. Hanson could feel that he was being
baked alive. The blood in his arteries seemed to bubble and boil, though
that must have been an illusion. But he could see his skin rise in giant
blisters and heal almost at once to blister again. He screamed in agony,
and heard a million screams around him. Then the other screams began to
decrease in numbers and weaken in volume, and he knew that the slaves
were dying.
Through a slit between two fingers, he watched the ponderous descent.
The light was enough to sear his retinas, but even they healed faster
than the damage. He estimated the course of the sun, amazed to find that
there was no panic in him, and doubly amazed that he could think at all
over the torture that wracked his body.
Finally, convinced that the sun would strike miles to the south, he
rolled across the scorching surface of the stone block and dropped to
the north side of it. The [Pg 78] shock of landing must have broken bones, but
a moment later he could begin to breathe again. The heat was still
intense, even behind the stone block, but it was bearable—at least for
him.
Pieces were breaking off the sun as it fell, and already striking the
ground. One fell near, and its heat seared at him, giving him no place
of shelter. Then the sun struck, sending up earth tremors that knocked
him from his feet. He groped up and stared around the block.
The sun had struck near the horizon, throwing up huge masses of
material. Its hissing against the ground was a tumult in his ears, and
superheated ash and debris began to fall.
So far as he could see, there were no other survivors in the camp. Three
million slaves had died. Those who had found some shelter behind the
stonework had lived longer than the others, but that had only increased
their suffering. And even his body must have been close to its limits,
if it could be killed at all.
He was still in danger. If a salamander could destroy even such a body
as his, then the fragments of sun that were still roiling across the
landscape would be fatal. The only hope he had was to get as far away
from the place where the sun had struck as he could.
He braced himself to leave even the partial shelter. There was a pile of
water skins near the base of the block, held in the charred remains of
an attendant's body. The water was boiling, but there was still some
left. He poured several skins together and drank the stuff, forcing
himself to endure the agony of its passage down his throat. Without it,
he'd be dehydrated before he could get a safe distance away.
Then he ran. The desert was like molten iron under his bare feet, and
the savage radiation on his back was [Pg 79] worse than any overseer's whip.
His mind threatened to blank out with each step, but he forced himself
on. And slowly, as the distance increased, the sun's pyre sank further
and further over the horizon. The heat should still have been enough to
kill any normal body in fifteen minutes, but he could endure it. He
stumbled on in a trot, guiding himself by the stars that shone in the
broken sky toward a section of this world where there had been life and
some measure of civilization before. After a few hours, the tongues of
flame no longer flared above the horizon, though the brilliant radiance
continued. And Hanson found that his strong and nearly indestructible
body still had limits. It could not go on without rest forever. He was
sobbing with fatigue at every step.
He managed to dig a small hollow in the sand before dropping off to
sleep. It was a sleep of total exhaustion, lacking even a sense of time.
It might have been minutes or hours that he slept, and he had no way of
knowing which. With the sun gone and the stars rocking into dizzy new
configurations, there was no night or day, nor any way to guess the
passage of time.
He woke to a roaring wind that sent cutting blasts of sand driving
against him. He staggered up and forced himself against it, away from
the place where the sun had fallen. Even through the lashing sandstorm,
he could see the glow near the horizon. Now a pillar of something that
looked like steam but was probably vapor from molten and evaporated
rocks was rising upwards, like the mushroom clouds of his own days. It
was spreading, apparently just under the phlogiston layer, reflecting
back the glare. And the wind was caused by the great rising column of
superheated gases over the sun.
He staggered on, while the sand gave way slowly to [Pg 80] patches of green.
With the sun gone and the sky falling into complete shreds, this world
was certainly doomed. He'd assumed that the sun of this world must be
above the sky, but he'd been wrong; like the other heavenly bodies, it
had been embedded inside the shell. He had discovered that the sky
material resisted any sudden stroke, but that other matter could be
interpenetrated into it, as the stars were. He had even been able to
pass his hand and arm completely through the sample. Apparently the sun
had passed through the sky in a similar manner.
Then why hadn't the shell melted? He had no real answer. The sun must
have been moving fast enough so that no single spot became too hot, or
else the phlogiston layer somehow dissipated the heat.
The cloud of glowing stuff from the rising air column was spreading out
now, reflecting the light and heat back to the earth. There was a chance
that most of one hemisphere might retain some measure of warmth, then.
At least there was still light enough for him to travel safely.
By the time he was too tired to go on again, he had come to the
beginnings of fertile land. He passed a village, but it had been looted,
and he skirted around it rather than stare at the ghastly ghoul-work of
the looters. The world was ending, but civilization seemed to have ended
already. Beyond it, he came to a rude house, now abandoned. He staggered
in gratefully.
For a change, he had one piece of good luck. His first attempt at magic
produced food. At the sound of the snapping fingers and his
hoarse-voiced "abracadabra," a dirty pot of hot and greasy stew came
into existence. He had no cutlery, but his hands served well enough.
When it was gone, he felt better. He wiped his hands [Pg 81] on the
breechclout. Whatever the material in the cloth, it had stood the sun's
heat almost as well as he had.
Then he paused as his hand found a lump under the cloth. He drew out the
apprentice magician's book. The poor devil had never achieved his twenty
lifetimes, and this was probably all that was left of him. Hanson stared
at it, reading the title in some surprise.
Applied Semantics.
He propped himself up and began to scan it, wondering what it had to do
with magic. He'd had a course of semantics in college and could see no
relationship. But he soon found that there were differences.
This book began with the axiomatic statement that the symbol is the
thing. From that it developed in great detail the fact that any part of
a whole bearing similarity to the whole was also the whole; that each
seven was the class of all sevens; and other details of the science of
magical similarity followed quite logically from the single axiom.
Hanson was surprised to find that there was a highly developed logic to
it. Once he accepted the axiom—and he was no longer prepared to doubt
it here—he could follow the book far better than he'd been able to
follow his own course in semantics. Apparently this was supposed to be a
difficult subject, from the constant efforts of the writer to make his
point clear. But after learning to deal with electron holes in
transistors, this was elementary study for Hanson.
The second half of the book dealt with the use of the true name. That,
of course, was the perfect symbol, and hence the true whole. There was
the simple ritual of giving a secret name. Apparently any man who
discovered a principle or device could use a name for it, just as
parents could give one to their children. And there were the laws for
using the name. Unfortunately,[Pg 82] just when Hanson was beginning to make
some sense of it, the book ended. Obviously, there was a lot more to be
covered in later courses.
He tossed the book aside, shivering as he realized that his secret name
was common knowledge. The wonder was that he could exist at all. And
while there was supposed to be a ritual for relinquishing one name and
taking another, that was one of the higher mysteries not given.
In the morning, he stopped to magic up some more food and the clothing
he would need if he ever found the trace of civilized people again. The
food was edible, though he'd never particularly liked cereal. He seemed
to be getting the hang of abracadabraing up what was in his mind. But
the clothing was a problem. Everything he got turned out to be the right
size, but he couldn't see himself in hauberk and greaves, nor in a filmy
nightgown. Finally, he managed something that was adequate, if the
brilliant floral sportshirt could be said to go with levi pants and a
morning frock. But he felt somewhat better in it. He finally left the
frock behind, however. It was still too hot for that.
He walked on briskly, watching for signs of life and speculating on the
principles of applied semantics, name magic and similarity. He could
begin to understand how an Einstein might read through one of the
advanced books here and make leaps in theory beyond what the Satheri had
developed. They'd had it too easy. Magic that worked tended to overcome
the drive for the discipline needed to get the most out of it. Any good
theoretician from Hanson's world could probably make fools of these
people. Maybe that was why the Satheri had gone scrounging back through
other worlds to find men who had the necessary drive to get things done [Pg 83]
when the going was tough.
Twice he passed abandoned villages, but there was nothing there for him.
He was coming toward forested ground now, something like the country in
which the Sons of the Egg had found refuge. The thought of that made him
go slower. But for a long time, there was no further sign of life. The
woods thinned out to grasslands, and he went on for hours more before he
spotted a cluster of lights ahead.
As he drew nearer, he saw that the lights seemed to be fluorescents.
They were coming from corrugated iron sheds that looked like aircraft
hangars strung together. There was a woven-wire fence around the
structures, and a sign that said simply: Project Eighty-Five. In the
half-light from the sky, he could see a well-kept lawn, and there were a
few groups of men standing about idly. Most wore white coveralls, though
two were dressed in simple business suits.
Hanson moved forward purposefully, acting as if he had urgent business.
If he stopped, there would be questions, he suspected; he wanted to find
answers, not to answer idle questions.
There was no one at the desk in the little reception alcove, but he
heard the sound of voices through a side door leading out. He went
through it, to find a larger yard with more men idling. There should be
someone here who knew more of what was going on in this world than he
did now.
His choice, in the long run, seemed to lie between Bork and the Satheri,
unless he could find some way of hiding himself from both sides. At the
moment, he was relatively free for the first time since they had brought
him here, and he wanted to make sure that he could make the most use of
the fact.[Pg 84]
Nobody asked anything. He slowed, drifting along the perimeter of the
group of men, and still nobody paid him any attention. Finally, he
dropped onto the ground near a group of half a dozen men who looked more
alert than the rest. They seemed to be reminiscing over old times.
"—two thirty-eight an hour with overtime—and double time for
the swing shift. We really had it made then! And every
Saturday, never fail, the general would come out from Muroc and
tell us we were the heros of the home front—with overtime pay
while we listened to him!"
"Yeah, but what if you wanted to quit? Suppose you didn't like
your shift boss or somebody? You go down and get your time, and
they hand you your draft notice. Me, I liked it better in '46.
Not so much pay, but—"
Hanson pricked up his ears. The conversation told him more than he
needed to know. He stood up and peered through the windows of the shed.
There, unattended under banks of lights, stood half-finished aircraft
shapes.
He wouldn't get much information here, it seemed. These were obviously
reanimates, men who'd been pulled from his own world and set to work.
They could do their duties and their memories were complete, but they
were lacking some essential thing that had gone out of them before they
were brought here. Unless he could find one among them who was either a
mandrake-man housing a soul or one of the few reanimates who seemed
almost fully human, he'd get little information. But he was curious as
to what the Satheri had expected to do with aircraft. The rocs had
better range and altitude than any planes of equal hauling power.[Pg 85]
He located one man who seemed a little brighter than the others. The
fellow was lying on the ground, staring at the sky with his hands
clasped behind his head. From time to time, he frowned, as if the sight
of the sky was making him wonder. The man nodded as Hanson dropped down
beside him. "Hi. Just get here, Mac?"
"Yeah," Hanson assented. "What's the score?"
The man sat up and made a disgusted noise. "Who knows?" he answered.
There was more emotion in his voice than might be expected from a
reanimate; in real life on his own world, he must have had an amazing
potential for even that much to carry over. "We're dead. We're dead, and
we're here, and they tell us to make helicopters. So we make them,
working like dogs to make a deadline. Then, just as the first one comes
off the line, the power fails. No more juice. The head engineer took off
in the one we finished. He was going to find out what gives, but he
never came back. So we sit." He spat on the ground. "I wish they'd left
me dead after the plant blew up. I'm not myself since then."
"What in hell would they need with helicopters?" Hanson asked.
The man shrugged. "Beats me. But I'm beginning to figure some things
out. They've got some kind of trouble with the sky. I figure they got
confused in bringing us here. This shop is one that made those big cargo
copters they call 'Sky Hooks' and maybe they thought the things were
just what they're called. All I know is they kept us working five solid
weeks for nothing. I knew the power was going to fail; they had the
craziest damn generating plant you ever saw, and it couldn't last. The
boilers kept sizzling and popping their safety valves with no fire in
the box! Just some little old man [Pg 86] sitting in a corner, practicing the
Masonic grip or something over a smudgepot."
Hanson gestured back to the sheds. "If there's no power, what are those
lights?"
"Witch lights, they told us," the man explained. "Saved a lot of wiring,
or something. They—hey, what's that?"
He was looking up, and Hanson followed his gaze. There was something
whizzing overhead at jet-plane speed. "A piece of the sky falling?" he
said.
The man snorted. "Falling sidewise? Not likely, even here. I tell you,
pal, I don't like this place. Nothing works right. There was no fuel for
the 'copter we finished—the one we called Betsy Ann. But the little
geezer who worked the smudgepot just walked up to it and wiggled his
finger. 'Start your motor going, Betsy Ann,' he ordered with some other
mumbo-jumbo. Then the motor roared and he and the engineer, took off at
double the speed she could make on high-test gas. Hey, there it is
again! Doesn't look like the Betsy Ann coming back, either."
The something whizzed by again, in the other direction, but lower and
slower. It made a gigantic but erratic circle beyond the sheds and
swooped back. It looked nothing like a helicopter. It looked like a
Hallowe'en decoration of a woman on a broomstick. As it came nearer,
Hanson saw that it was a woman on a broomstick, flying erratically.
She straightened out in a flat glide.
She came in for a one-point landing a couple of yards away. The tip of
the broom handle hit the ground, and she went sailing over it, to land
on her hands and knees. She got up, facing the shed.
The woman was Nema. Her face was masklike, her [Pg 87] eyes tortured. She was
staring searchingly around her, looking at every man.
"Nema!" Hanson cried.
She spun to face him, and gasped. Her skin seemed to turn gray, and her
eyes opened to double their normal size. She took one tottering step
toward him and halted.
"Illusion!" she whispered hoarsely, and slumped to the ground in a
faint.
She was reviving before he could raise her from the ground. She swayed a
moment, staring at him. "You're not dead!"
"What's so wonderful about that around here?" he asked, but not with
much interest. With the world going to pot and only a few days left, the
girl's face and the slim young body under it were about all the reality
left worth thinking about. He grabbed for her, pulling her to him.
Bertha had never made him feel like that.
She managed to avoid his lips and slid away from him. "But they used the
snetha-knife! Dave Hanson, you never died! It was only induced illusion
by that—that Bork! And to think that I nearly died of grief while you
were enjoying yourself here! You ... you mandrake-man!"
He grunted. He'd almost managed to forget what he was, and he didn't
enjoy having the aircraft worker find out. He turned to see what the
reaction was, and then stared open-mouthed at his surroundings.
There were no lights from the plane factory. In fact, there was no plane
factory. In the half-light of the sky, he saw that the plant was gone.
No men were left. There was only barren earth, with a tiny, limp sapling
in the middle of empty acres.[Pg 88]
"What happened?"
Nema glanced around briefly and sighed. "It's happening all over. They
created the plane plant by the law of identities from that little plane
tree sapling, I suppose; it is a plane plant, after all. But with the
conjunctions and signs failing, all such creations are returning to
their original form, unless a spell is used continually over them. Even
then, sometimes, we fail. Most of the projects vanished after the sun
fell."
Hanson remembered the man with whom he'd been talking before Nema
appeared. He'd have liked to know such a man before death and
revivification had ruined him. It wasn't fair that anyone with character
enough to be that human even as a zombie should be wiped out without
even a moment's consideration. Then he remembered the man's own estimate
of his current situation. Maybe he was better off returned to the death
that had claimed him.
Reluctantly, he returned to his own problems. "All right, then, if you
thought I was dead, what are you doing here, Nema?"
"I felt the compulsion begin even before I returned to the city. I
thought I was going mad. I tried to forget you, but the compulsion grew
until I could fight it no longer." She shuddered. "It was a terrible
flight. The carpets will not work at all now, and I could hardly control
the broom. Sometimes it wouldn't lift. Twice it sailed so high I could
hardly breathe. And I had no hope of finding you, yet I went on. I've
been flying when I could for three days now."
Bork, of course, hadn't known of her spell with which she'd forced
herself to want him "well and truly." Apparently it had gone on
operating even when she thought he was dead, and with a built-in sense
of his [Pg 89] direction. Well, she was here—and he wasn't sorry.
Hanson took another look across the plains toward the glowing hell of
the horizon. He reached for her and pulled her to him. She was firm and
sweet against him, and she was trembling in response to his urging.
At the last moment she pulled back. "You forget yourself, Dave Hanson!
I'm a registered and certified virgin. My blood is needed for—"
"For spells that won't work anyhow," he told her harshly. "The sky isn't
falling now, kid. It's down—or most of it."
"But—" She hesitated and then let herself come a trifle closer. Her
voice was doubtful. "It's true that our spells are failing. Not even the
surest magic is reliable. The world has gone mad, and even magic is no
longer trustworthy. But—"
He was just pulling her close enough again and feeling her arms lift to
his neck when the ground shook behind them and there was a sound of
great, jarring, thudding steps.
Hanson jerked around to see a great roc making its landing run, heading
straight for them. The huge bird braked savagely, barely stopping before
they were under its feet.
From its back, a ladder of some flexible material snaked down and men
began descending. The first were mandrakes in the uniform of the
Satheri, all carrying weapons with evil-looking blades or sharp
stickers.
The last man off was Bork. He came toward Hanson and Nema with a broad
grin on his face. "Greetings, Dave Hanson. You do manage to survive,
don't you? And my little virgin sister, without whose flight I might not
have found you. Well, come along. The roc's growing impatient!" [Pg 90]
VIII
The great roc's hard-drumming wings set up a constant sound of rushing
air and the distance flowed behind them. There was the rush of wind all
around them, but on the bird's back they were in an area where
everything seemed calm. Only when Hanson looked over toward the ground
was he fully conscious of the speed they were making. From the height,
he could see where the sun had landed. It was sinking slowly into the
earth, lying in a great fused hole. For miles around, smaller drops of
the three-mile-diameter sun had spattered and were etching deeper holes
in the pitted landscape.
Then they began passing over desolate country, scoured by winds, gloomy
from the angry, glaring clouds above. Once, two bodies went hurtling
upwards toward the great gaps in the sky.
"Those risings were from men who were no worshippers of the egg's
hatching," Bork commented. "It's spreading. Something is drawing them up
from all over the planet."
Later, half a square mile of the shell cracked off. The roc squawked
harshly, but it had learned and had been watching above. By a frantic
effort of the great wings, it missed the hurtling chunk. They dropped a
few thousand feet in the winds that followed the piece of sky, but their
altitude was still safe.
Then they passed over a town, flying low. The sights below were out of a
ghoul's bacchanalia. As the roc swept over, the people stopped their
frenzied pursuit [Pg 91] of sensation and ran for weapons. A cloud of arrows
hissed upwards, all fortunately too late.
"They blame all their troubles on the magicians," Bork explained.
"They've been shooting at everything that flies. Not a happy time to
associate with the Satheri, is it?"
Nema drew further back from him. "We're not all cowards like you! Only
rats desert a sinking ship."
"Nobody thought it was sinking when I deserted," Bork reminded her.
"Anyhow, if you'd been using your eyes and seen the way we are
traveling, you'd know I've rejoined the crew. I've made up with the
Sather Karf—and at a time like this, our great grandfather was glad to
have me back!"
Nema rushed toward him in delight, but Hanson wasn't convinced. "Why?"
he asked.
Bork sobered. "One of the corpses that fell back from the risings added
a word to what the others had said. No, I'll bear the weight of it
myself, and not burden you with it. But I'm convinced now that his egg
should not hatch. I had doubts before, unlike our friend Malok, who also
heard the words but is doubly the fanatic now. Perhaps the hatching
cannot be stopped—but I've decided that I am a man and must fight like
one against the fates. So, though I still oppose much that the Satheri
have done, I've gone back to them. We'll be at the camp of the Sather
Karf shortly."
That sewed everything up neatly, Hanson thought. Before, he had been
torn between two alternatives. Now there was only one and he had no
choice; he could never trust the Sons of the Egg with Bork turned
against them. He stared up at the sky, realizing that more than half of
it had already fallen. The rest seemed too weak to last much longer. It
probably didn't make [Pg 92] much difference what he did now or who had him;
time was running out for this world.
The light was dimmer by the time they reached the great capital city—or
what was left of it. They had left the sun pyre far to the south. The
air was growing cold already.
The roc flew low over the city. The few people on the streets looked up
and made threatening gestures, but there was no flight of arrows from
the ground. Probably the men below had lost even the strength to hate.
It was hard to see, since there was no electric lighting system now. But
it seemed to Hanson that only the oldest and ugliest buildings were
still standing. Honest stone and metal could survive, but the work of
magic was no longer safe.
One of the remaining buildings seemed to be a hospital, and the empty
space in front of it was crammed with people. Most of them seemed to be
dead or unconscious. Squat mandrakes were carrying off bodies toward a
great fire that was burning in another square. Plague and pestilence had
apparently gotten out of hand.
They flew on, beyond the city toward the construction camp that had been
Hanson's headquarters. The roc was beginning to drop into a long landing
glide, and details below were easier to see. Along the beach beyond the
city, a crowd had collected. They had a fire going and were preparing to
cook one of the mermaids. A fight was already going on over the prey.
Food must have been exhausted days before.
The camp was a mess when they reached it. One section had been ripped
down by the lash of wind from a huge piece of the sky, which now lay
among the ruins with a few stars glowing inside it. There was a [Pg 93]
brighter glow beyond. Apparently one blob of material from the sun had
been tossed all the way here and had landed against a huge rock to
spatter into fragments. The heat from those fragments cut through the
chill in the air, and the glow furnished light for most of the camp.
The tents had been burned, but there was a new building where the main
tent had been. This was obviously a hasty construction job, thrown
together of rocks and tree trunks, without the use of magic. It was more
of an enormous lean-to than a true building, but it was the best
protection now available. Hanson could see Sather Karf and Sersa Garm
waiting outside, together with less than a hundred other warlocks.
The mandrakes prodded Hanson down from the roc and toward the new
building, then left at a wave of the Sather Karf's hand. The old man
stared at Hanson intently, but his expression was unreadable. He seemed
to have aged a thousand years. Finally he lifted his hand in faint
greeting, sighed and dropped slowly to a seat. His face seemed to
collapse, with the iron running out of it. He looked like a beaten, sick
old man. His voice was toneless. "Fix the sky, Dave Hanson!"
There were angry murmurs from other warlocks in the background, but
Sather Karf shook his head slowly, still facing Hanson. "No—what good
to threaten dire punishments or to torture you when another day or week
will see the end of everything? What good to demand your reasons for
desertion when time is so short? Fix the sky and claim what reward you
will afterwards. We have few powers now that the basis of astrology is
ruined. But repair our sky and we can reward you beyond your dreams. We
can find ways to return you to your own world intact. You have near
immortality [Pg 94] now. We can fill that entire lifetime with pleasures. We'll
give you jewels to buy an empire. Or if it is vengeance against whatever
you feel we are, you shall know my secret name and the name of everyone
here. Do with us then what you like. But fix the sky!"
It shook Hanson. He had been prepared to face fury, or to try lying his
way out if there was a chance with some story of having needed to study
Menes's methods. Or of being lost. But he had no defense prepared
against such an appeal.
It was utterly mad. He could do nothing, and their demands were
impossible. But before the picture of the world dying and the decay of
the old Sather's pride, even Hanson's own probable death with the dying
world seemed unimportant. He might at least give them something to hope
for while the end came.
"Maybe," he said slowly. "Maybe, if all of the men you brought here to
work on the problem were to pool their knowledge, we might still find
the answer. How long will it take to get them here for a council?"
Ser Perth appeared from the group. Hanson had thought the man dead in
the ruins of the pyramid, but somehow he had survived. The fat was going
from his face, and his mustache was untrimmed, but he was uninjured. He
shook his head sadly. "Most have disappeared with their projects. Two
escaped us. Menes is dead. Cagliostro tricked us successfully. You are
all we have left. And we can't even supply labor beyond those you see
here. The people no longer obey us, since we have no food to give them."
"You're the only hope," Bork agreed. "They've saved what they could of
the tools from the camp and what magical instruments are still useful.
They've held on only for your return." [Pg 95]
Hanson stared at them and around at the collection of bric-a-brac and
machinery they had assembled for him. He opened his mouth, and his
laughter was a mockery of their hopes and of himself.
"Dave Hanson, world saver! You got the right name but the wrong man,
Sather Karf," he said bitterly. He'd been a pretender long enough, and
what punitive action they took now didn't seem to matter. "You wanted my
uncle, David Arnold Hanson. But because his friends called him Dave and
cut that name on his monument, and because I was christened by the name
you called, you got me instead. He'd have been helpless here, probably,
but with me you have no chance. I couldn't even build a doghouse. I
wasn't even a construction engineer. Just a computer operator and
repairman."
He regretted ruining their hopes, almost as he said it. But he could see
no change on the old Sather's face. It seemed to stiffen slightly and
become more thoughtful, but there was no disappointment.
"My grandson Bork told me all that," he said. "Yet your name was on the
monument, and we drew you back by its use. Our ancient prophecy declared
that we should find omnipotence carved on stone in a pool of water, as
we found your name. Therefore, by the laws of rational magic, it is
you to whom nothing is impossible. We may have mistaken the direction
of your talent, but nonetheless it is you who must fix the sky. What
form of wonder is a computer?"
Dave shook his head at the old man's monomania. "Just a tool. It's a
little hard to explain, and it couldn't help."
"Humor my curiosity, then. What is a computer, Dave Hanson?"
Nema's hand rested on Hanson's arm pleadingly, and [Pg 96] he shrugged. He
groped about for some answer that could be phrased in their language,
letting his mind flicker from the modern electronic gadgets back to the
old-time tide predicter.
"An analogue computer is a machine that ... that sets up conditions
mathematically similar to the conditions in some problem and then lets
all the operations proceed while it draws a graph—a prediction—of how
the real conditions would turn out. If the tides change with the
position of some heavenly body, then we can build cams that have shapes
like the effect of the moon's orbit, and gear them together in the right
order. If there are many factors, we have a cam for each factor, shaped
like the periodic rise and fall of that factor. They're all geared to
let the various factors operate at the proper relative rate. With such a
machine, we can run off a graph of the tides for years ahead. Oh,
hell—it's a lot more complicated than that, but it takes the basic
facts and draws a picture of the results. We use electronic ones now,
but the results are the same."
"I understand," Sather Karf said. Dave doubted it, but he was happy to
be saved from struggling with a more detailed explanation. And maybe the
old man did understand some of it. He was no fool in his own subject,
certainly. Sather Karf pondered for a moment, and then nodded with
apparent satisfaction. "Your world was more advanced in understanding
than I had thought. This computer is a fine scientific instrument,
obeying natural law well. We have applied the same methods, though less
elaborately. But the basic magical principle of similarity is the
foundation of true science."
Dave started to protest, and then stopped, frowning. In a way, what the
other had said was true. Maybe [Pg 97] there was some relation between science
and magic, after all; there might even be a meeting ground between the
laws of the two worlds he knew. Computers set up similar conditions,
with the idea that the results would apply to the original. Magic used
some symbolic part of a thing in manipulations that were to be effective
for the real thing. The essential difference was that science was
predictive and magic was effective—though the end results were often
the same. On Dave's world, the cardinal rule of logic was that the
symbol was not the thing—and work done on symbols had to be translated
by hard work into reality. Maybe things were really more logical here
where the symbol was the thing, and all the steps in between thought and
result were saved.
"So we are all at fault," Sather Karf said finally. "We should have
studied you more deeply and you should have been more honest with us.
Then we could have obtained a computer for you and you could have
simulated our sky as it should be within your computer and forced it to
be repaired long ago. But there's no time for regrets now. We cannot
help you, so you must help yourself. Build a computer, Dave Hanson!"
"It's impossible."
Sudden rage burned on the old man's face, and he came to his feet. His
arm jerked back and snapped forward. Nothing happened. He grimaced at
the ruined sky. "Dave Hanson," he cried sharply, "by the unfailing power
of your name which is all of you, I hold you in my mind and your throat
is in my hand—"
The old hands squeezed suddenly, and Hanson felt a vise clamp down
around his throat. He tried to break free, but there was no escape. The
old man mumbled, and the vise was gone, but something clawed at [Pg 98]Hanson's
liver. Something else rasped across his sciatic nerve. His kidneys
seemed to be wrenched out of him.
"You will build a computer," Sather Karf ordered. "And you will save
our world!"
Hanson staggered from the shock of the pain, but he was no longer unused
to agony. He had spent too many hours under the baking of the sun, the
agony of the snetha-knife and the lash of an overseer's whip. The agony
could not be stopped, but he'd learned it could be endured. His
fantastic body could heal itself against whatever they did to him, and
his mind refused to accept the torture supinely. He took a step toward
Sather Karf, and another. His hands came up as he moved forward.
Bork laughed suddenly. "Let up, Sather Karf, or you'll regret it. By the
laws, you're dealing with a man this time. Let up, or I'll free him to
meet you fairly."
The old man's eyes blazed hotly. Then he sighed and relaxed. The
clutching hands and the pain were gone from Hanson as the Sather Karf
slumped back wearily to his seat.
"Fix our sky," the old man said woodenly.
Hanson staggered back, panting from his efforts. But he nodded. "All
right," he agreed. "Like Bork, I think a man has to fight against his
fate, no matter how little chance he has. I'll do what I can. I'll build
the damned computer. But when I'm finished, I'll wait for your true
name!"
Suddenly Sather Karf laughed. "Well said, Dave Hanson. You'll have my
name when the time comes. And whatever else you desire. Also what poor
help we can give you now. Ser Perth, bring food for Dave Hanson!"
Ser Perth shook his head sadly. "There is none. None at all. We hoped
that the remaining planets would find a favorable conjunction, but—" [Pg 99]
Dave Hanson studied his helpers with more bitterness. "Oh, hell!" he
said at last. He snapped his fingers. "Abracadabra!"
His skill must be improving, since he got exactly what he had wished
for. A full side of beef materialized against his palm, almost breaking
his arm before he could snap it out of the way. The others swarmed
hungrily toward it. At their expressions of wonder, Hanson felt more
confidence returning to him. He concentrated and went through the little
ritual again. This time loaves of bread rained down—fresh bread, and
even of the brand he had wished for. Maybe he was becoming a magician
himself, with a new magic that might still accomplish something.
Sather Karf smiled approvingly. "The theory of resonance, I see.
Unreliable generally. More of an art than a science. But you show
promise of remarkable natural ability to apply it."
"You know about it?" Dave had assumed that it was completely outside
their experience and procedures.
"We knew it. But when more advanced techniques took over, most of us
forgot it. The syllables resonate in a sound pattern with your world, to
which you also still resonate. It won't work for you with anything from
this world, nor will anything work thus for us from yours. We had
different syllables, of course, for use here." Sather Karf considered
it. "But if you can control it and bring in one of your computers or the
parts for one—"
Sixteen tries later, Dave was cursing as he stared at a pile of useless
items. He'd gotten transistors at first. Then he lost control with too
much tension or fatigue and began getting a bunch of assorted junk, such
as old 201-A tubes, a transit, a crystal vase and resistors. But the
chief trouble was that he couldn't secure working batteries.[Pg 100] He had
managed a few, but all were dead.
"Like the soul, electrical charges will not transfer," Sather Karf
agreed sadly. "I should have told you that."
There was no electricity here with which to power anything, and their
spells could not be made to work now. Even if he could build a computer
out of what was obtainable, there would be no way to power it.
Overhead, the sky shattered with a roar, and another piece fell, tearing
downwards toward the city. Sersa Garm stared upwards in horror.
"Mars!" he croaked. "Mars has fallen. Now can there be no conjunction
ever!"
He tautened and his body rose slowly from the ground. A scream ripped
from his lips and faded away as he began rushing upwards with increasing
speed. He passed but of their sight, straight toward the new hole in the
sky.[Pg 101]
IX
In the hours that followed, Dave's vague plans changed a dozen times as
he found each idea unworkable. His emotional balance was also
erratic—though that was natural, since the stars were completely
berserk in what was left of the sky. He seemed to fluctuate between
bitter sureness of doom and a stupidly optimistic belief that something
could be done to avert that doom. But whatever his mood, he went on
working and scheming furiously. Maybe it was the desperate need to keep
himself occupied that drove him, or perhaps it was the pleading he saw
in the eyes around him. In the end, determination conquered his
pessimism.
Somewhere in the combination of the science he had learned in his own
world and the technique of magic that applied here there had to be an
answer—or a means to hold back the end of the world until an answer
could be found.
The biggest problem was the number of factors with which he had to deal.
There were seven planets and the sun, and three thousand fixed stars.
All had to be ordered in their courses, and the sky had to be complete
in his calculations.
He had learned his trade where the answer was always to add one more
circuit in increasing complexity. Now he had to think of the simplest
possible similarity computer. Electronics was out, obviously. He tried
to design a set of cams, like the tide machine, to make multiple
tracings on paper similar to a continuous horoscope, but [Pg 102] finally gave
it up. They couldn't build the parts, even if there had been time.
He had to depend on what was available, since magic couldn't produce any
needed device and since the people here had depended on magic too long
to develop the other necessary skills. When only the broadest powers of
magic remained, they were hopeless. Names were still potent, resonance
worked within its limits, and the general principles of similarity still
applied; but those were not enough for them. They depended too heavily
on the second great principle of contagion, and that seemed to be
wrapped up with some kind of association through the signs and houses
and the courses of the planets.
He found himself thinking in circles of worry and pulled himself back to
his problem. Normally, a computer was designed for flexibility and to
handle varying conditions. This one could be designed to handle only one
set of factors. It had to duplicate the courses of the objects in their
sky and simulate the general behavior of the dome. It was not necessary
to allow for all theoretical courses, but only for the normal orbits.
And finally he realized that he was thinking of a model—the one thing
which is functionally the perfect analogue.
It brought him back to magic again. Make a doll like a man and stick
pins in it—and the man dies. Make a model of the universe within the
sky, and any changes in that should change reality. The symbol was the
thing, and a model was obviously a symbol.
He began trying to plan a model with three thousand stars in their
orbits, trying to find some simple way of moving them. The others
watched in fascination. They apparently felt that the diagrams he was
drawing were some kind of scientific spell. Ser Perth was closer than [Pg 103]
the others, studying the marks he made. The man suddenly pointed to his
computations.
"Over and over I find the figure seven and the figure three thousand. I
assume that the seven represents the planets. But what is the other
figure?"
"The stars," Hanson told him impatiently.
Ser Perth shook his head. "That is wrong. There were only two thousand
seven hundred and eighty-one before the beginnings of our trouble."
"And I suppose you've got the exact orbits of every one?" Hanson asked.
He couldn't see that the difference was going to help much.
"Naturally. They are fixed stars, which means they move with the sky.
Otherwise, why call them fixed stars? Only the sun and the planets move
through the sky. The stars move with the sky over the world as a unity."
Dave grunted at his own stupidity. That really simplified things, since
it meant only one control for all of them and the sky itself. But
designing a machine to handle the planets and the sun, while a lot
simpler, was still a complex problem. With time, it would have been easy
enough, but there was no time for trial and error.
He ripped up his plans and began a new set. He'd need a glass sphere
with dots on it for the stars, and some kind of levers to move the
planets and sun. It would be something like the orreries he'd seen used
for demonstrations of planetary movement.
Ser Perth came over again, staring down at the sketch. He drowned in
doubt. "Why waste time drawing such engines? If you want a model to
determine how the orbits should be, we have the finest orrery ever built
here in the camp. We brought it with us when we moved, since it would be
needed to determine how the sky should be repaired and to bring the time
and the positions [Pg 104]into congruence. Wait!"
He dashed off, calling two of the mandrakes after him. In a few minutes,
they staggered back under a bulky affair in a protective plastic case.
Ser Perth stripped off the case to reveal the orrery to Hanson.
It was a beautiful piece of workmanship. There was an enormous sphere of
thin crystal to represent the sky. Precious gems showed the stars,
affixed to the dome. The whole was nearly eight feet in diameter. Inside
the crystal, Hanson could see a model of the world on jeweled-bearing
supports. The planets and the sun were set on tracks around the outside,
with a clockwork drive mechanism that moved them by means of stranded
spiderweb cords. Power came from weights, like those used on an
old-fashioned clock. It was obviously all hand work, which must make it
a thing of tremendous value here.
"Sather Fareth spent his life designing this," Ser Perth said proudly.
"It is so well designed that it can show the position of all things for
a thousand centuries in the past or future by turning these cranks on
the control, or it will hold the proper present positions for years from
its own engine."
"It's beautiful workmanship," Hanson told him. "As good as the best done
on my world."
Ser Perth went away, temporarily pleased with himself, and Hanson stood
staring at the model. It was as good as he'd said it was—and completely
damning to all of his theories and hopes. No model he could make would
equal it. But in spite of it and all its precise analogy to the universe
around him, the sky was still falling in shattered bits!
Sather Karf and Bork had come over to join Hanson. They waited
expectantly, but Hanson could think of nothing to do. It had already
been done—and had failed.[Pg 105] The old man dropped a hand on his shoulder.
There was the weight of all his centuries on the Sather, yet a curious
toughness showed through his weariness. "What is wrong with the orrery?"
he asked.
"Nothing—nothing at all, damn it!" Hanson told him. "You wanted a
computer—and you've got it. You can feed in data as to the hour, day,
month and year, turn the cranks, and the planets there will turn to
their proper position exactly as the real planets should run. You don't
need to read the results off graph paper. What more could any analogue
computer do? But it doesn't influence the sky."
"It was never meant to," the old man said, surprise in his voice. "Such
power—"
Then he stopped, staring at Hanson while something almost like awe
spread over his face. "Yet ... the prophecy and the monument were right!
You have unlocked the impossible! Yet you seem to know nothing of the
laws of similarity or of magic, Dave Hanson. Is that crystal similar to
the sky, by association, by contagion, or by true symbolism? A part may
be a symbol for the whole—or so may any designated symbol, which may
influence the thing it is. If I have a hair from your head, I can model
you with power over you. But not with the hair of a pig! That is no true
symbol!"
"Suppose we substituted bits of the real thing for these
representations?" Hanson asked.
Bork nodded. "It might work. I've heard you found the sky material could
be melted, and we've got enough of that where it struck the camp. Any
one of us who has studied elementary alchemy could blow a globe of it to
the right size for the sky dome. And there are a few stars from which we
can chip pieces enough. We can polish them and put them into the sphere
where [Pg 106] they belong. And it will be risky, but we may even be able to
shape a bit of the sun stuff to represent the great orb in the sky."
"What about the planets?" Hanson was beginning to feel the depression
lift. "You might get a little of Mars, since it fell near here, but that
still leaves the other six."
"That long associated with a thing achieves the nature of the thing,"
Sather Karf intoned, as if giving a lesson to a kindergarten student.
"With the right colors, metals and bits of jewels—as well as more
secret symbols—we can simulate the planets. Yet they cannot be
suspended above the dome, as in this orrery—they must be within the
sky, as in nature."
"How about putting some iron in each and using a magnet on the control
tracks to move the planets?" Hanson suggested. "Or does cold iron ruin
your conjuring here?"
Sather Karf snorted in obvious disgust, but Bork only grinned. "Why
should it? You must have heard peasant superstitions. Still, you'd have
a problem if two tracks met, as they do. The magnets would then affect
both planets alike. Better make two identical planets for each—and two
suns—and put one on your track controls. Then one must follow the
other, though the one remain within the sky."
Hanson nodded. He'd have to shield the cord from the sun stuff, but that
could be done. He wondered idly whether the real universe was going to
wind up with tracks beyond the sky on which little duplicate planets
ran—just how much similarity would there be between model and reality
when this was done, if it worked at all? It probably didn't matter, and
it could hardly be worse than whatever the risers had run into beyond
the hole in the present sky. Metaphysics was a subject with [Pg 107] which he
wasn't yet fully prepared to cope.
The model of the world inside the orrery must have been made from
earthly materials already, and it was colored to depict land and sea
areas. It could probably be used. At their agreement, he nodded with
some satisfaction. That should save some time, at least. He stared
doubtfully at the rods and bearings that supported the model world in
the center of the orrery.
"What about those things? How do we hold the globe in the center of
everything?"
Bork shrugged. "It seems simple enough. We'll fashion supports of more
of the sky material."
"And have real rods sticking up from the poles in the real universe?"
Hanson asked sarcastically.
"Why not?" Bork seemed surprised at Hanson's tone. "There have always
been such columns connecting the world and the sky. What else would keep
us from falling?"
Hanson swore. He might have guessed it! The only wonder was that simple
rods were used instead of elephants and turtles. And the doubly-damned
fools had let Menes drive millions of slaves to death to build a pyramid
to the sky when there were already natural columns that could have been
used!
"There remains only one step," Sather Karf decided after a moment more.
"To make symbol and thing congruent, all must be invoked with the true
and secret name of the universe."
Hanson suddenly remembered legends of the tetragrammaton and the tales
of magic he'd read in which there was always one element lacking. "And I
suppose nobody knows that or dares to use it?"
There was hurt pride of the aged face and the ring of vast authority in
his voice. "Then you suppose wrong,[Pg 108] Dave Hanson! Since this world first
came out of Duality, a Sather Karf has known that mystery! Make your
device and I shall not fail in the invocation!"
For the first time, Hanson discovered that the warlocks could work when
they had to, however much they disliked it. And at their own
specialties, they were superb technicians. Under the orders of Sather
Karf, the camp sprang into frenzied but orderly activity.
They lost a few mandrakes in prying loose some of the sun material, and
more in getting a small sphere of it shaped. But the remainder gave them
the heat to melt the sky stuff. When it came to glass blowing, Hanson
had to admit they were experts; it should have come as no surprise,
after the elaborate alchemical apparatus he'd seen. Once the crystal
shell was cracked out of the orrery, a fat-faced Ser came in with a long
tube and began working the molten sky material, getting the feel of it.
He did things Hanson knew were nearly impossible, and he did them with
the calm assurance of an expert. Even when another rift in the sky
appeared with a crackling of thunder, there was no faltering on his
part. The sky shell and world supports were blown into shape around the
world model inside the outer tracks in one continuous operation. The Ser
then clipped the stuff from his tube and sealed the tiny opening
smoothly with a bit of sun material on the end of a long metal wand.
"Interesting material," he commented, as if only the technical nature of
the stuff had offered any problem to him.
Tiny, carefully polished chips from the stars were ready, and men began
placing them delicately on the shell. They sank into it at once and
began twinkling. The planets had also been prepared, and they also went
into the shell, while a mate to each was attached to the [Pg 109] tracking
mechanism. The tiny sun came last. Hanson fretted as he saw it sink into
the shell, sure it would begin to melt the sky material. It seemed to
have no effect, however; apparently the sun was not supposed to melt the
sky when it was in place—so the little sun didn't melt the shell. Once
he was sure of that, he used a scrap of the sky to insulate the second
little sun that would control the first sympathetically from the track.
He moved the control delicately by hand, and the little sun followed
dutifully.
The weights on the control mechanism were in place, Hanson noted.
Someone would probably have to keep them wound from now on, unless they
could devise a foolproof motor. But that was for the future. He bent to
the hand cranks. Sather Karf was being called to give the exact settings
for this moment, but Hanson had a rough idea of where the planets should
be. He began turning the crank, just as the Sather came up.
There was a slight movement. Then the crank stuck, and there was a
whirring of slipping gears! The fools who had moved the orrery must have
been so careless that they'd sprung the mechanism. He bent down to study
the tiny little jeweled gears. A whole gear train was out of place!
Sather Karf was also inspecting it, and the words he cried didn't sound
like an invocation, though they were strange enough. He straightened,
still cursing. "Fix it!"
"I'll try," Hanson agreed doubtfully. "But you'd better get the man who
made this. He'll know better than I—"
"He was killed in the first cracking of the sky when a piece hit him.
Fix it, Dave Hanson. You claimed to be a repairman for such devices."
Hanson bent to study it again, using a diamond lens [Pg 110] one of the warlocks
handed him. It was a useful device, having about a hundred times
magnification without the need for exact focusing. He stared at the
jumble of fine gears, then glanced out through the open front: of the
building toward the sky. There was even less of it showing than he had
remembered. Most of the great dome was empty. And now there were
suggestions of ... shadows ... in the empty spots. He looked away
hastily, shaken.
"I'll need some fine tools," he said.
"They were lost in moving this," Ser Perth told him. "This is the best
we can do."
The jumble of tools had obviously been salvaged from the kits on the
tractors in the camp. There was one fairly small pair of pliers, a small
pick and assorted useless junk. He shook his head hopelessly.
"Fix it!" Sather Karf ordered again. The old man's eyes were also on the
sky. "You have ten minutes, perhaps—no more."
Hanson's fingers steadied as he found bits of wire and began improvising
tools to manipulate the tiny gears. The mechanism was a piece of superb
craftsmanship that should have lasted for a million years, but it had
never been meant to withstand the heavy shock of being dropped, as it
must have been. And there was very little space inside. It should have
been disassembled and put back piece by piece, but there was no time for
that.
Another thunder of falling sky sounded, and the ground heaved.
"Earthquakes!" Sather Karf whispered. "The end is near!"
Then a shout went up, and Hanson jerked his eyes from the gears to focus
on a group of rocs that were landing at the far end of the camp. Men
were springing from their backs before they stopped running—men in [Pg 111]
dull robes with elaborate masks over their faces. At the front was
Malok, leader of the Sons of the Egg, brandishing his knife.
His voice carried clearly. "The egg hatches! To the orrery and smash it!
That was the shadow in the pool. Destroy it before Dave Hanson can
complete his magic!"
The men behind him yelled. Around Hanson, the magicians cried out in
shocked fear. Then old Sather Karf was dashing out from under the cover
of the building, brandishing a pole on which a drop of the sun-stuff was
glowing. His voice rose into a command that rang out over the cries of
the others.
Dave reached for a heavy hammer, meaning to follow. The old Sather
seemed to sense it without looking back. "Fix the engine, Dave Hanson,"
he called.
It made sense. The others could do the fighting, but only he had
training with such mechanisms. He turned back to his work, just as the
warlocks began rallying behind Sather Karf, grabbing up what weapons
they could find. There was no magic in this fight. Sticks, stones,
hammers and knives were all that remained workable.
Dave Hanson bent over the gears, cursing. Now there was another rumble
of thunder from the falling sky. The half-light from the reflected
sunlight dimmed, and the ground shook violently. Another set of gears
broke from the housing. Hanson caught up a bit of sun-stuff on the sharp
point of the awl and brought it closer, until it burned his hands. But
he had seen enough. The mechanism was ruined beyond his chance to repair
it in time.
He slapped the cover shut and stuck the sun-tipped awl where it would
light as much of the orrery as possible.[Pg 112] As always, the skills of his
own world had failed. To the blazes with it, then—when in magic land,
magic had to do.
He thought of calling Ser Perth or Sather Karf, but there was no time
for that, and they could hardly have heard him over the sounds of the
desperate fight going on.
He bent to the floor, searching until he found a ball of the sky
material that had been pinched off when the little opening was sealed.
Further hunting gave him a few bits of dust from the star bits and some
of the junk that had gone into shaping the planets. He brushed in some
dirt from the ground that had been touched by the sun stuff and was
still glowing faintly. He wasn't at all sure of how much he could
extrapolate from what he'd read in the book on Applied Semantics, but he
knew he needed a control—a symbol of the symbol, in this case. It was
crude, but it might serve to represent the orrery.
He clutched it in his hand and touched it against the orrery, trying to
remember the formula for the giving of a true name. He had to improvise,
but he got through a rough version of it, until he came to the end: "I
who created you name you—" What the deuce did he name it? "I name you
Rumpelstilsken and order you to obey me when I call you by your name."
He clutched the blob of material tighter in his hand, mentally trying to
shape an order that wouldn't backfire, as such orders seemed to in the
childhood stories of magic he had learned. Finally his lips whispered
the simplest order he could find. "Rumpelstilsken, repair yourself!"
There was a whirring and scraping inside the mechanism, and Hanson let
out a yell. He got only a hasty glimpse of gears that seemed to be back
on their tracks [Pg 113] before Sather Karf was beside him, driving the cranks
with desperate speed.
"We have less than a minute!" the old voice gasped.
The Sather's fingers spun on the controls. Then he straightened, moving
his hands toward the orrery in passes too rapid to be seen. There was a
string of obvious ritual commands in their sacred language. Then a
single word rang out, a string of sounds that should have come from no
human vocal chords.
There was a wrench and twist through every atom of Hanson's body. The
universe seemed to cry out. Over the horizon, a great burning disc rose
and leaped toward the heavens as the sun went back to its place in the
sky. The big bits of sky-stuff around also jerked upwards, revealing
themselves by the wind they whipped up and by the holes they ripped
through the roof of the building. Hanson clutched at the scrap he had
pocketed, but it showed no sign of leaving, and the tiny blob of
sun-stuff remained fixed to the awl.
Through the diamond lens, Hanson could see the model of the world in the
orrery changing. There were clouds apparently painted on it where no
clouds had been. And there was an indication of movement in the green of
the forests and the blue of the oceans, as if trees were whipping in the
wind and waves lapping the shores.
When he jerked his eyes upward, all seemed serene in the sky. Sunlight
shone normally on the world, and from under the roof he could see the
gaudy blue of sky, complete, with the cracks in it smoothing out as he
watched.
The battle outside had stopped with the rising of the sun. Half the
warlocks were lying motionless, and the other half had clustered
together, close to the building [Pg 114] where Hanson and Sather Karf stood. The
Sons of the Egg seemed to have suffered less, since they greatly
out-numbered the others, but they were obviously more shocked by the
rising of the sun and the healing of the sky.
Then Malok's voice rang out sharply. "It isn't stable yet! Destroy the
machine! The egg must hatch!"
He leaped forward, brandishing his knife, while the Sons of the Egg fell
in behind him. The warlocks began to close ranks, falling back to make a
stand under the jutting edge of the roof, where they could protect the
orrery. Bork and Ser Perth were among them, bloody but hopelessly
determined.
One look at Sather Karf's expression was enough to convince Hanson that
Malok had cried the truth and that their work could still be undone. And
it was obvious that the warlocks could never stand the charge of the
Sons. Too many of them had already been killed, and there was no time
for reviving them.
Sather Karf was starting forward into the battle, but Hanson made no
move to follow. He snapped the diamond lens to his eye and his fingers
caught at the drop of sun-stuff on the awl. He had to hold it near the
glowing bit for steadiness, and it began searing his fingers. He forced
control on his muscles and plunged his hand slowly through the sky
sphere, easing the glowing blob downward toward the spot on the globe he
had already located with the lens. His thumb and finger moved downward
delicately, with all the skill of practice at working with nearly
invisibly fine wires on delicate instruments.
Then he jerked his eyes away from the model and looked out. Something
glaring and hot was suspended in the air five miles away. He moved his
hand carefully,[Pg 115] steadying it on one of the planet tracks. The glowing
fire in the air outside moved another mile closer—then another. And
now, around it, he could see a monstrous fingertip and something that
might have been miles of thumbnail.
The warlocks leaped back under the roof. The Sons of the Egg screamed
and panicked. Jerking horribly, the monstrous thing moved again. For
part of a second, it hovered over the empty camp. Then it was gone.
Hanson began pulling his hand out through the shell of the model,
whimpering as his other hand clenched against the blob in his pocket. He
had suddenly realized what horrors were possible to anyone who could use
the orrery now. "Rumpelstilsken, I command you to let no hand other than
mine enter and to respond to no other controls." He hoped it would offer
enough protection.
His hand came free and he threw the sun-bit away with a flick of his
wrist. His hand ached with the impossible task of steadiness he had set
it, and his finger and thumb burned and smoked. But the wound was
already healing.
In the exposed section of the camp, the Sons of the Egg were charred
corpses. There was a fire starting on the roof of the building, but
others had already run out to quench that. It sounded like the snuffling
progress of an undine across the roof! Maybe magic was working again.
Bork turned back from the sight of his former companions. His face was
sick, but he managed to grin at Hanson. "Dave Hanson, to whom nothing is
impossible," he said.
Hanson had located Nema finally as she approached. He caught her hand
and grabbed Bork's arm. Like his [Pg 116] own, it was trembling with fatigue and
reaction.
"Come on," he said. "Let's find some place where we can see whether it's
impossible now for you to magic up a decent meal. And a drink strong
enough to scare away the sylphs."
The sylph that found them wasn't scared by the Scotch, but there was
enough for all of them.[Pg 117]
X
Three days can work magic—in a world where magic works. The planets
swung along their paths again and the sun was in the most favorable
house for conjuration. The universe was stable again.
There was food for all, and houses had been conjured hastily to shelter
the people. The plagues were gone. Now the strange commerce and industry
of this world were humming again. Those who had survived and those who
could be revived were busily rebuilding. Some were missing, of course.
Those who had risen and—hatched—were beyond recall, but no one spoke
of them. If any Sons of the Egg survived, they were quiet in their
defeat.
Hanson had been busy during most of the time. It had been taken for
granted that he would tend to the orrery, setting it for the most
favorable conditions when some special major work of magic required it,
and he had taken the orders and moved the controls as they wanted them.
The orrery was housed temporarily in the reconstituted hall of the
Satheri in the capital city. They were building a new hall for it, to be
constructed only of natural materials and hand labor, but that was a
project that would take long months still.
Now the immediate pressure was gone, and Hanson was relaxing with Bork
and Nema.
"Another week," Bork was saying. "Maybe less. And then gangs of the
warlocks can spread out to fix up all the rest of the world—and to take
over control of their [Pg 118] slaves again. Are you happy with your victory,
Dave Hanson?"
Hanson shrugged. He wasn't entirely sure, now. There was something in
the looks of the Sather who gave him orders for new settings that
bothered him. And some of the developments he watched were hardly what
he would have preferred. The warlocks had good memories, it seemed, and
there had been manifold offenses against them while the world was
falling apart.
He tried to put it out of his mind as he drew Nema to him. She snuggled
against him, admiring him with her eyes. But old habits were hard to
break. "Don't, Dave. I'm a registered and certified—"
She stopped then, blushing, and Bork chuckled.
Ser Perth appeared at the doorway with two of the mandrakes. He motioned
to Hanson. "The council of Satheri want you," he said. His eyes avoided
the other, and he seemed uncomfortable.
"Why?" Bork asked.
"It's time for Dave Hanson's reward," Ser Perth said. The words were
smooth enough, but the eyes turned away again.
Hanson got up and moved forward. He had been wondering when they would
get around to this. Beside him, Bork and Nema also rose. "Never trust a
Sather," Bork said softly.
Nema started to protest, then changed her mind. She frowned, torn
between old and new loyalties.
"The summons was only for Dave Hanson," Ser Perth said sternly as the
three drew up to him. But as Hanson took the arms of the other two, the
Ser shrugged and fell in behind. Very softly, too low for the hearing of
the mandrakes, his words sounded in [Pg 119] Hanson's ear. "Guard yourself, Dave
Hanson!"
So there was to be treachery, Hanson thought. He wasn't surprised. He
was probably lucky to have even three friends. The Satheri would hardly
feel very grateful to a mandrake-man who had accomplished something
beyond their power, now that the crisis was over. They had always been a
high-handed bunch, apparently, and he had served his purpose. But he
covered his thoughts in a neutral expression and went forward quietly
toward the huge council room.
The seventy leading Satheri were all present, with Sather Karf
presiding, when Hanson was ushered into their presence. He moved down
the aisle, not glancing at the seated Satheri, until he was facing the
old man, drawing Nema and Bork with him. There were murmurs of protest,
but nobody stopped him. Above him, the eyes of Sather Karf were
uncertain. For a moment, there seemed to be a touch of friendliness and
respect in them, but there was something else that Hanson liked far
less. Any warmth that was there vanished at his first words.
"It's about time," Hanson said flatly. "When you wanted your world
saved, you were free enough with offers of reward. But three days have
passed without mention of it. Sather Karf, I demand your secret name!"
He heard Nema gasp, but felt Bork's fingers press against his arm
reassuringly. There was a rising mutter of shock and anger from the
others, but he lifted his voice over it. "And the secret names of all
those present. That was also part of the promised reward."
"And do you think you could use the names, Dave Hanson?" Sather Karf
asked. "Against the weight of all our knowledge, do you think you could
become our master that easily?" [Pg 120]
Hanson had his own doubts. There were counter-magical methods against
nearly all magic, and the book he had read had been only an elementary
one. But he nodded. "I think with your name I could get my hands on your
hearts, even if you did your worst. It doesn't matter. I claim my
reward."
"And you shall have it. The word of Sather Karf is good," the old man
told him. "But there was no mention of when you would be given those
names. You said that when the computer was finished you would wait for
my true name, and I promised that you should have it when the time came,
but not what the time would be. So you will wait, or the agreement shall
be broken by you, not by me. When you are dying or otherwise beyond
power over us, you shall have the names, Dave Hanson. No, hear me!"
He lifted his hand in a brief gesture and Hanson felt a thickness over
his lips that made speech impossible.
"We have discussed your reward, and you shall indeed have it," Sather
Karf went on. "Exactly as I promised it to you. I agreed to find ways to
return you to your own world intact, and you shall be returned."
For a moment, the thickness seemed to relax, and Hanson choked a few
words out through it. "What's the world of a mandrake-man, Sather Karf?
A mandrake swamp?"
"For a mandrake-man, yes. But not for you." There was something like
amusement in the old man's voice. "I never said you were a mandrake-man.
That was told you by Ser Perth who knew no better. No, Dave Hanson, you
were too important to us for that. Mandrake-men are always less than
true men, and we needed your best. You were conjured atom by atom, id
and ka and soul, from your world. Even the soul may be [Pg 121] brought over
when enough masters of magic work together and you were our greatest
conjuration. Even then, we almost failed. But you're no mandrake-man."
A load of sickness seemed to leave Hanson's mind. He had never fully
realized how much the shame of what he thought himself to be had weighed
on him. Then his mind adjusted to the new facts, dismissing his past
worries.
"I promised you that we would fill your entire lifetime with pleasures,"
Sather Karf went on. "And you were assured of jewels to buy an empire.
All this the council is prepared to give you. Are you ready for your
reward?"
"No!" Bork's cry broke out before Hanson could answer. The big man was
writhing before he could finish the word, but his own fingers were
working in conjurations that seemed to hold back enough of the spells
against him to let him speak. "Dave Hanson, your world was a world of
rigid laws. You died there. And there would be no magic to avoid the
fact that there you must always be dead."
Hanson's eyes riveted on the face of Sather Karf. The old man looked
back and finally nodded his head. "That is true," he admitted. "It would
have been kinder for you not to know, but it is the truth."
"And jewels enough to buy an empire on a corpse," Hanson accused. "A
lifetime of pleasures—simple enough when that lifetime would be over
before it began. What were the pleasures, Sather Karf? Having you reveal
your name just before I was sent back and feeling I'd won?" He grimaced.
"I reject the empty rewards of your empty promises!"
"I also rejected the interpretation, but I was out-voted," Sather Karf
said, and there was a curious reluctance [Pg 122]as he raised his hand. "But it
is too late. Dave Hanson prepare to receive your reward. By the power of
your name—"
Hanson's hand went to his pocket and squeezed down on the blob of sky
material there. He opened his mouth, and found that the thickness was
back. For a split second, his mind screamed in panic as he realized he
could not even pronounce the needed words.
Then coldness settled over his thoughts as he drove them to shape the
unvoiced words in his mind. Nobody had told him that magic incantations
had to be pronounced aloud. It seemed to be the general law, but for all
he knew, ignorance of the law here might change the law. At least he
meant to die trying, if he failed.
"Rumpelstilsken, I command the sun to set!"
He seemed to sense a hesitation in his mind, and then the impression of
jeweled gears turning. Outside the window, the light reddened, dimmed,
and was gone, leaving the big room illuminated by only a few witch
lights.
The words Sather Karf had been intoning came to a sudden stop, even
before they could be drowned in the shouts of shock and panic from the
others. His eyes centered questioningly on Hanson and the flicker of a
smile crossed his face. "To the orrery!" he ordered. "Use the manual
controls."
Hanson waited until he estimated the men who left would be at the
controls. The he clutched the sky-blob again. The thoughts in his mind
were clearer this time.
"Rumpelstilsken, let the sun rise from the west and set in the east!"
Some of the Satheri were at the windows to watch what happened this
time. Their shouts were more frightened than before. A minute later, the
others were back,[Pg 123] screaming out the news that the manual controls could
not be moved—could not even be touched.
The orrery named Rumpelstilsken was obeying its orders fully, and the
universe was obeying its symbol.
Somehow, old Sather Karf brought order out of the frightened mob that
had been the greatest Satheri in the world. "All right, Dave Hanson," he
said calmly. "Return the sun to its course. We agree to your
conditions."
"You haven't heard them yet!"
"Nevertheless," Sather Karf answered firmly, "we agree. What else can we
do? If you decided to wreck the sky again, even you might not be able to
repair it a second time." He tapped his hands lightly together and the
sound of a huge gong reverberated in the room. "Let the hall be cleared.
I will accept the conditions in private."
There were no objections. A minute later Hanson, Bork and Nema were
alone with the old man. Sunlight streamed in through the window, and
there were fleecy clouds showing in the blue sky.
"Well?" Sather Karf asked. There was a trace of a smile on his face and
a glow of what seemed to be amusement in his eyes as he listened, though
Hanson could see nothing amusing in the suggestions he was making.
First, of course, he meant to stay here. There was no other place for
him, but he would have chosen to stay in any event. Here he had
developed into what he had never even thought of being, and there were
still things to be learned. He'd gone a long way on what he'd found in
one elementary book. Now, with a chance to study all their magical lore
and apply it with the methods he had learned in his own world, there
were amazing [Pg 124]possibilities opening up to him. For the world, a few
changes would be needed. Magic should be limited to what magic did best;
the people needed to grow their own food and care for themselves. And
they needed protection from the magicians. There would have to be a code
of ethics to be worked out later.
"You've got all the time you need to work things out, Sathator Hanson,"
Sather Karf told him. "It's your world, literally, so take your time.
What do you want first?"
Hanson considered it, while Nema's hand crept into his. Then he grinned.
"I guess I want to get your great granddaughter turned into a registered
and certified wife and take her on a long honeymoon," he decided. "After
what you've put me through, I need a rest."
He took her arm and started down the aisle of the council room. Behind
him, he heard Bork's chuckle and the soft laughter of Sather Karf. But
their faces were sobering by the time he reached the doorway and looked
back.
"I like him, too, grandfather," Bork was saying. "Well, it seems your
group was right, after all. Your prophecy is fulfilled. He may have a
little trouble with so many knowing his name, but he's Dave Hanson, to
whom nothing is impossible. You should have considered all the
implications of omnipotence."
Sather Karf nodded. "Perhaps. And perhaps your group was also right,
Bork. It seems that the world-egg has hatched." His eyes lifted and
centered on the doorway.
Hanson puzzled over their words briefly as he closed the door and went
out with Nema. He'd probably have to do something about his name, but
the rest of the conversation was a mystery to him. Then he dismissed [Pg 125]
it. He could always remember it when he had more time to think about it.
It was many millenia and several universes later when Dave Hanson
finally remembered. By then it was no mystery, of course. And there was
no one who dared pronounce his true name.[Pg 126]
THE END.
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