The Sky Is Falling

by Lester Del Rey

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 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 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."