The Sky Is Falling

The Sky Is Falling, by Lester del Rey

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Title: The Sky Is Falling
Author: Lester del Rey
Release Date: July 6, 2006 [EBook #18768]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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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