Nightfall and Other Stories, Page 4

  Sheerin smiled slyly. “He shifted to some old-cycle tongue, probably their traditional second cycle. That was the language in which the Book of Revelations was originally written, you know.”

  “It doesn’t matter; I’ve heard enough.” Theremon shoved his chair back and brushed his hair back with hands that no longer shook. “I feel much better now.”

  “You do?” Sheerin seemed mildly surprised.

  “I’ll say I do. I had a bad case of jitters just a while back. Listening to you and your gravitation and seeing that eclipse start almost finished me. But this” -- he jerked a contemptuous thumb at the yellow-bearded Cultist -- “this is the sort of thing my nurse used to tell me. I’ve been laughing at that sort of thing all my life. I’m not going to let it scare me now.”

  He drew a deep breath and said with a hectic gaiety, “But if I expect to keep on the good side of myself. I’m going to turn my chair away from the window.”

  Sheerin said, “Yes, but you’d better talk lower. Aton just lifted his head out of that box he’s got it stuck into and gave you a look that should have killed you.”

  Theremon made a mouth. “I forgot about the old fellow.” With elaborate care he turned the chair from the window, cast one distasteful look over his shoulder, and said, “It has occurred to me that there must be considerable immunity against this Star madness.”

  The psychologist did not answer immediately. Beta was past its zenith now, and the square of bloody sunlight that outlined the window upon the floor had lifted into Sheerin’s lap. He stared at its dusky color thoughtfully and then bent and squinted into the sun itself.

  The chip in its side had grown to a black encroachment that covered a third of Beta. He shuddered, and when he straightened once more his florid cheeks did not contain quite as much color as they had had previously.

  With a smile that was almost apologetic, he reversed his chair also. “There are probably two million people in Saro City that are all trying to join the Cult at once in one gigantic revival.” Then, ironically. “The Cult is in for an hour of unexampled prosperity. I trust they’ll make the most of it. Now, what was it you said?”

  “Just this. How did the Cultists manage to keep the Book of Revelations going from cycle to cycle, and how on Lagash did it get written in the first place? There must have been some sort of immunity, for if everyone had gone mad, who would be left to write the book?”

  Sheerin stared at his questioner ruefully. “Well, now, young man, there isn’t any eyewitness answer to that, but we’ve got a few damned good notions as to what happened. You see. there are three kinds of people who might remain relatively unaffected. First, the very few who don’t see the Stars at all: the seriously retarded or those who drink themselves into a stupor at the beginning of the eclipse and remain so to the end. We leave them out -- because they aren’t really witnesses.

  “Then there are children below six, to whom the world as a whole is too new and strange for them to be too frightened at Stars and Darkness. They would be just another item in an already surprising world. You see that, don’t you?”

  The other nodded doubtfully. “I suppose so.”

  “Lastly, there are those whose minds are too coarsely grained to be entirely toppled. The very insensitive would be scarcely affected -- oh, such people as some of our older, work-broken peasants. Well, the children would have fugitive memories, and that, combined with the confused, incoherent babblings of the half-mad morons, formed the basis for the Book of Revelations.

  “Naturally, the book was based, in the first place, on the testimony of those least qualified to serve as historians; that is, children and morons; and was probably edited and re-edited through the cycles.”

  “Do you suppose,” broke in Theremon, “that they carried the book through the cycles the way we’re planning on handing on the secret of gravitation?”

  Sheerin shrugged. “Perhaps, but their exact method is unimportant. They do it, somehow. The point I was getting at was that the book can’t help but be a mass of distortion, even if it is based on fact. For instance, do you remember the experiment with the holes in the roof that Faro and Yimot tried -- the one that didn’t work?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know why it didn’t w -- “ He stopped and rose in alarm, for Aton was approaching, his face a twisted mask of consternation. “What’s happened?”

  Aton drew him aside and Sheerin could feel the fingers on his elbow twitching.

  “Not so loud!” Aton’s voice was low and tortured. “I’ve just gotten word from the Hideout on the private line.”

  Sheerin broke in anxiously. “They are in trouble?”

  “Not they.” Aton stressed the pronoun significantly. “They sealed themselves off just a while ago, and they’re going to stay buried till day after tomorrow. They’re safe. But the city. Sheerin -- it’s a shambles. You have no idea -- “ He was having difficulty in speaking.

  “Well?” snapped Sheerin impatiently. “What of it? It will get worse. What are you shaking about?” Then, suspiciously, “How do you feel?”

  Aton’s eyes sparked angrily at the insinuation, and then faded to anxiety once more. “You don’t understand. The Cultists are active. They’re rousing the people to storm the Observatory -- promising them immediate entrance into grace, promising them salvation, promising them anything. What are we to do, Sheerin?”

  Sheerin’s head bent, and he stared in long abstraction at his toes. He tapped his chin with one knuckle, then looked up and said crisply, “Do? What is there to do? Nothing at all. Do the men know of this?”

  “No, of course not!”

  “Good! Keep it that way. How long till totality?”

  “Not quite an hour.”

  “There’s nothing to do but gamble. It will take time to organize any really formidable mob, and it will take more time to get them out here. We’re a good five miles from the city -- “

  He glared out the window, down the slopes to where the farmed patches gave way to clumps of white houses in the suburbs; down to where the metropolis itself was a blur on the horizon -- a mist in the waning blaze of Beta.

  He repeated without turning. “It will take time. Keep on working and pray that totality comes first.”

  Beta was cut in half, the line of division pushing a slight concavity into the still-bright portion of the Sun. It was like a gigantic eyelid shutting slantwise over the light of a world.

  The faint clatter of the room in which he stood faded into oblivion, and he sensed only the thick silence of the fields outside. The very insects seemed frightened mute. And things were dim.

  He jumped at the voice in his ear. Theremon said. “Is something wrong?”

  “Eh? Er -- no. Get back to the chair. We’re in the way.” They slipped back to their comer, but the psychologist did not speak for a time. He lifted a finger and loosened his collar. He twisted his neck back and forth but found no relief. He looked up suddenly.

  “Are you having any difficulty in breathing?”

  The newspaperman opened his eyes wide and drew two or three long breaths. “No. Why?”

  “I looked out the window too long, I suppose. The dimness got me. Difficulty in breathing is one of the first symptoms of a claustrophobic attack. “

  Theremon drew another long breath. “Well, it hasn’t got me yet. Say, here’s another of the fellows.”

  Beenay had interposed his bulk between the light and the pair in the corner, and Sheerin squinted up at him anxiously. “Hello, Beenay.”

  The astronomer shifted his weight to the other foot and smiled feebly. “You won’t mind if I sit down awhile and join in the talk? My cameras are set, and there’s nothing to do till totality.” He paused and eyed the Cultist, who fifteen minutes earlier had drawn a small, skin-bound book from his sleeve and had been poring intently over it ever since.

  “That rat hasn’t been making trouble, has he?”

  Sheerin shook his head. His sho
ulders were thrown back and he frowned his concentration as he forced himself to breathe regularly. He said, “Have you had any trouble breathing, Beenay?”

  Beenay sniffed the air in his turn. “It doesn’t seem stuffy to me.”

  “A touch of claustrophobia,” explained Sheerin apologetically.

  “Ohhh! It worked itself differently with me. I get the impression that my eyes are going back on me. Things seem to blur and -- well, nothing is clear. And it’s cold, too.”

  “Oh, it’s cold, all right. That’s no illusion.” Theremon grimaced. “My toes feel as if I’ve been shipping them cross-country in a refrigerating car.”

  “What we need,” put in Sheerin, “is to keep our minds busy with extraneous affairs. I was telling you a while ago, Theremon, why Faro’s experiments with the holes in the roof came to nothing.”

  “You were just beginning,” replied Theremon. He encircled a knee with both arms and nuzzled his chin against it.

  “Well, as I started to say, they were misled by taking the Book of Revelations literally. There probably wasn’t any sense in attaching any physical significance to the Stars. It might be, you know, that in the presence of total Darkness, the mind finds it absolutely necessary to create light. This illusion of light might be all the Stars there really are.”

  “In other words,” interposed Theremon, “you mean the Stars arc the results of the madness and not one of the causes. Then, what good will Beenay’s photographs be?”

  “To prove that it is an illusion, maybe; or to prove the opposite; for all I know. Then again -- “

  But Beenay had drawn his chair closer, and there was an expression of sudden enthusiasm on his face. “Say, I’m glad you two got onto this subject.” His eyes narrowed and he lifted one finger. “I’ve been thinking about these Stars and I’ve got a really cute notion. Of course it’s strictly ocean foam, and I’m not trying to advance it seriously, but I think it’s interesting. Do you want to hear it?”

  He seemed half reluctant, but Sheerin leaned back and said, “Go ahead! I’m listening.”

  “Well, then, supposing there were other suns in the universe.” He broke off a little bashfully. “I mean suns that are so far away that they’re too dim to see. It sounds as if I’ve been reading some of that fantastic fiction, I suppose.”

  “Not necessarily. Still, isn’t that possibility eliminated by the fact that, according to the Law of Gravitation, they would make themselves evident by their attractive forces?”

  “Not if they were far enough off,” rejoined Beenay, “really far off -- maybe as much as four light years, or even more. We’d never be able to detect perturbations then, because they’d be too small. Say that there were a lot of suns that far off; a dozen or two, maybe.”

  Theremon whistled melodiously. “What an idea for a good Sunday supplement article. Two dozen suns in a universe eight light years across. Wow! That would shrink our world into insignificance. The readers would eat it up.”

  “Only an idea,” said Beenay with a grin, “but you see the point. During an eclipse, these dozen suns would become visible because there’d be no real sunlight to drown them out. Since they’re so far off, they’d appear small, like so many little marbles. Of course the Cultists talk of millions of Stars, but that’s probably exaggeration. There just isn’t any place in the universe you could put a million suns -- unless they touch one another.”

  Sheerin had listened with gradually increasing interest. “You’ve hit something there, Beenay. And exaggeration is just exactly what would happen. Our minds, as you probably know, can’t grasp directly any number higher than five; above that there is only the concept of “many”. A dozen would become a million just like that. A damn good idea!”

  “And I’ve got another cute little notion,” Beenay said. “Have you ever thought what a simple problem gravitation would be if only you had a sufficiently simple system? Supposing you had a universe in which there was a planet with only one sun. The planet would travel in a perfect ellipse and the exact nature of the gravitational force would be so evident it could be accepted as an axiom. Astronomers on such a world would start off with gravity probably before they even invented the telescope. Naked-eye observation would be enough.”

  “But would such a system be dynamically stable?” questioned Sheerin doubtfully.

  “Sure! They call it the “one-and-one” case. It’s been worked out mathematically, but it’s the philosophical implications that interest me.”

  “It’s nice to think about,” admitted Sheerin, “as a pretty abstraction -- like a perfect gas, or absolute zero.”

  “Of course,” continued Beenay, “there’s the catch that life would be impossible on such a planet. It wouldn’t get enough heat and light, and if it rotated there would be total Darkness half of each day. You couldn’t expect life -- which is fundamentally dependent upon light -- to develop under those conditions. Besides -- “

  Sheerin’s chair went over backward as he sprang to his feet in a rude interruption. “Aton’s brought out the lights.”

  Beenay said, “Huh,” turned to stare, and then grinned halfway around his head in open relief.

  There were half a dozen foot-long, inch-thick rods cradled in Aton’s arms. He glared over them at the assembled staff members.

  “Get back to work, all of you. Sheerin, come here and help me!”

  Sheerin trotted to the older man’s side and, one by one, in utter silence, the two adjusted the rods in makeshift metal holders suspended from the walls.

  With the air of one carrying through the most sacred item of a religious ritual, Sheerin scraped a large, clumsy match into spluttering life and passed it to Aton, who carried the flame to the upper end of one of the rods.

  It hesitated there awhile, playing futilely about the tip, until a sudden, crackling flare cast Aton’s lined face into yellow highlights. He withdrew the match and a spontaneous cheer rattled the window.

  The rod was topped by six inches of wavering flame! Methodically, the other rods were lighted, until six independent fires turned the rear of the room yellow.

  The light was dim, dimmer even than the tenuous sunlight. The flames reeled crazily, giving birth to drunken, swaying shadows. The torches smoked devilishly and smelled like a bad day in the kitchen. But they emitted yellow light.

  There was something about yellow light, after four hours of somber, dimming Beta. Even Latimer had lifted his eyes from his book and stared in wonder.

  Sheerin warmed his hands at the nearest, regardless of the soot that gathered upon them in a fine, gray powder, and muttered ecstatically to himself. “Beautiful! Beautiful! I never realized before what a wonderful color yellow is.”

  But Theremon regarded the torches suspiciously. He wrinkled his nose at the rancid odor and said, “What are those things?”

  “Wood,” said Sheerin shortly.

  “Oh, no, they’re not. They aren’t burning. The top inch is charred and the flame just keeps shooting up out of nothing.”

  “That’s the beauty of it. This is a really efficient artificial-light mechanism. We made a few hundred of them, but most went to the Hideout, of course. You see” -- he turned and wiped his blackened hands upon his handkerchief -- “you take the pithy core of coarse water reeds, dry them thoroughly, and soak them in animal grease. Then you set fire to it and the grease burns, little by little. These torches will burn for almost half an hour without stopping. Ingenious, isn’t it? It was developed by one of our own young men at Saro University.”

  After the momentary sensation, the dome had quieted. Latimer had carried his chair directly beneath a torch and continued reading, lips moving in the monotonous recital of invocations to the Stars. Beenay had drifted away to his cameras once more, and Theremon seized the opportunity to add to his notes on the article he was going to write for the Saro City Chronicle the next day -- a procedure he had been following for the last two hours in a perfectly methodical, perfectly consci
entious and, as he was well aware, perfectly meaningless fashion. But, as the gleam of amusement in Sheerin’s eyes indicated, careful note-taking occupied his mind with something other than the fact that the sky was gradually turning a horrible deep purple-red, as if it were one gigantic, freshly peeled beet; and so it fulfilled its purpose.

  The air grew, somehow, denser. Dusk, like a palpable entity, entered the room, and the dancing circle of yellow light about the torches etched itself into ever-sharper distinction against the gathering grayness beyond. There was the odor of smoke and the presence of little chuckling sounds that the torches made as they burned; the soft pad of one of the men circling the table at which he worked, on hesitant tiptoes; the occasional indrawn breath of someone trying to retain composure in a world that was retreating into the shadow.

  It was Theremon who first heard the extraneous noise. It was a vague, unorganized impression of sound that would have gone unnoticed but for the dead silence that prevailed within the dome.

  The newsman sat upright and replaced his notebook. He held his breath and listened; then, with considerable reluctance, threaded his way between the solarscope and one of Beenay’s cameras and stood before the window.

  The silence ripped to fragments at his startled shout: ‘Sheerin!”

  Work stopped! The psychologist was at his side in a moment. Aton joined him. Even Yimot 70, high in his little lean-back seat at the eyepiece of the gigantic solarscope, paused and looked downward.

  Outside, Beta was a mere smoldering splinter, taking one last desperate look at Lagash. The eastern horizon, in the direction of the city, was lost in Darkness, and the road from Saro to the Observatory was a dull-red line bordered on both sides by wooded tracts, the trees of which had somehow lost individuality and merged into a continuous shadowy mass.

  But it was the highway itself that held attention, for along it there surged another, and infinitely menacing, shadowy mass.