The Sky Is Falling

ncing over the sand as Hanson wakened under the bite of a lash. The overseers were shou

g 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

new body. He showed no signs of buckling under physi

eping through that brutal awakening seemed impossible. When Hanso

nce here from the real Egypt of the past. He might have no soul, but a lifetime of being an overs

" He knelt in fury, thumbing back the eyelids of the corpses. There was

d at Hanson. "Move along!" he bellowed. "Menes h

to put in sixteen hours of work without some kind of food? There had been nothing the night before but a skin of water. Th

e 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.

, 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 unlikel

o find a way to put back the sky. He'd heard that they had called up the pyra

ooped 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 remorse

ld be conjured, what was the need of all the slaves and the sadistic overs

eer ranted in his ears. "Get on, you blundering slacker.

Hanson. He frowned cruelly. "Yeah, you're the same one! Didn't I take the hide off

"I-I heal quickly." It was no more than the truth. Either the body they'd given him or the c

ey 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 ru

ever kill him; but there had been no provision in his new body for the suppression of pain. He hungere

place before the sun was high overhead in the coppery, mottled sky. Then there was the blessing of a momen

nts were not food but some powdery stuff that was dipped out with carved spoons into the ea

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 co

f time it took the drug-bearing slaves to complete their task. Ten minutes, or fi

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

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 sto

s structure. Like the pride-maddened men of Babel, they were building a sky-high thing of stone. It was obviously impossible, and

ction 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 a

ically be found in magic, not in the methods of other worlds. His mind groped for something that almost came into his c

ed 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 do

was staring back at him. "Why is he a

them. "Don't let the fact that he's an overseer fool you. He's smarter than most of

the thing's expression. He passed ropes around the corners until the mandrake turned and rigidly marched away, the blows of h

ally 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 s

in surprise. He'd been assuming that th

little special. All right, maybe you don't believe me-you think they wouldn't send a student sersa h

east of student rating." He sighed, then shrugged. "My trouble is that I could never keep my mouth shut. I was attendant at one

e could go. It could go a long ways here, he decided. "You wouldn't have

r, so I've got six more lives to go. But-hey, you can't be! They were counting on you to

n now for another reason. "Aren't you the one I sa

orning, 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 hav

. He hadn't paid too much attention, but the sl

k 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

chclout and drag out the thin volume that was lodged between his groin and the block. "Here, hold this for me until we meet tonight. Yo

mandrake overseer had started ponderously toward him. But in a mome

ud cracking of whips and a chorus of groans. A small drum took up a beat, and the slaves strained and tu

eculation. Mandrakes and mandrake-men, zombie-men, from the past and multiple revivals! A sky tha

tion, there was a sudden, c

the glare. But he managed to squint across it, upwards toward what was happening

ckering and flaming, shooting enormous jets of fire from its rim. It hovered at the

. Most of them dropped their ropes and ran in blind panic, trampling over each other in their random flight for safety. The human over

ng sound that was unlike anything except the tearing of an infinity of cloth combined with a sustained exp

ime the entire dome shook with the s

n through the hol