erves carried their
messages to his brain. He still lived, but there was unholy agony
where the blade lay. Coughing and choking on what must be his own
blood, he scrabbled at the knife and ripped it out. Blood jetted from
the gaping rent in his clothing. It gushed forth--and slowed; it
frothed--trickled--and stopped entirely.

As he ripped his shirt back to look, the wound was closed already. But
there was no easing of the pain that threatened to make him black out at
any second.

He heard shouting, quarreling voices, but nothing made sense through the
haze of his agony. He felt someone grab at him--more than one
person--and they were dragging him willy-nilly across the ground.
Something was clutched around his throat, almost choking him. He opened
his eyes just as something clicked behind him.

The huge, translucent walls of the monstrous egg were all around him and
the opened side was closing.

The pain began to abate. The bleeding had already stopped entirely and
his lungs seemed to have cleared themselves of the blood and froth in
them. Now with the ache of the wound ceasing, Dave could still feel the
venom burning in his blood, and the constriction around his throat was
still there, making it hard to breathe. He sat up, trying to free
himself. The constriction came from an arm around his neck, but he
couldn't see to whom it belonged, and there was no place to move aside
in the corner of the egg.

From inside, the walls of the egg were transparent enough for him to see
cloudy outlines of what lay beyond. He could see the ground sweeping
away beneath them from all points. A man had run up and was standing
beside the egg, beating at it. The man suddenly shot up like a fountain,
growing huge; he towered over them, until he seemed miles high and the
giant structures Dave could see were only the turned-up toes of the
man's shoes. One of those shoes was lifting, as if the man meant to step
on the egg.

They must be growing smaller again.

A voice said tightly: "We're small enough, Bork. Can you raise the wind
for us now?"

"Hold on." Bork's voice seemed sure of itself.

The egg tilted and soared. Dave was thrown sidewise and had to fight for
balance. He stared unbelievingly through the crystal shell. They rose
like a Banshee jet. There was a shaggy, monstrous colossus in the
distance, taller than the Himalayas--the man who had been beside them.
Bork grunted. "Got it! We're all right now." He chanted something