clod--certainly a mandrake--who was still carrying the sample. With all
this preparation and a time limit, he couldn't even afford to stall.
He'd never fully understood why some plastics melted and others turned
hard when heated, but he had to find what was wrong with the dome above
and how to fix it. And maybe the time limit could be stretched a little,
once he came up with the answer. Maybe. He'd worry about that after he
worried about the first steps.

Sersa Garm proved to be a glum, fat young man, overly aware of his
importance in training for serhood. He led Dave through the big tent,
taking pride in the large drafting section--under the obvious belief
that it was used for designing spells. Maybe it could have been useful
for that if there had been a single man who knew anything about
draftsmanship. There were four engineers, supposedly. One, who had died
falling off a bridge while drunk, was curing himself of the shock by
remaining dead drunk. One had been a chemical engineer specializing in
making yeast and dried soya meal into breakfast cereals. Another knew
all about dredging canals and the last one was an electronics
engineer--a field in which Dave was far more competent.

He dismissed them. Whatever had been done to them--or perhaps the
absence of a true soul, whatever that was--left them rigidly bound to
their past ideas and totally incapable of doing more than following
orders by routine now. Even Sersa Garm was more useful.

That young man could offer little information, however. The sky, he
explained pompously, was a great mystery that only an adept might
communicate to another. He meant that he didn't know about it, Dave
gathered. Everything, it turned out, was either a mystery or a rumor.
He also had a habit of sucking his thumb when pressed too hard for