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THE SKY IS FALLING
By
LESTER DEL REY
[Illustration: THE SKY IS FALLING
WHEN MEN RULED THE STARS--AND THE STARS RULED MEN!]
Transcriber 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
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_
* * * * *
THE SKY IS FALLING
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 answered. "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 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. 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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.
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.
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."
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 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.
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.
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 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--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 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 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 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 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.
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. 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, 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.
"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.
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 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 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
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 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."