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 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