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.