Folimun nodded. “The point is simply this. Your ill-advised and blasphemous attempt to gain information by means of your devilish instruments must be stopped. I only regret that I could not have destroyed your infernal devices with my own hands.”
“Is that what you had in mind? It wouldn’t have done you much good. All our data, except for the direct evidence we intend collecting right now, is already safely cached and well beyond the possibility of harm.”
“Bring it forth. Destroy it.”
“What?”
“Destroy all your work. Destroy your instruments. In return for which, I will see to it that you and all your people are protected against the chaos that is certain to break loose when Nightfall comes.”
Now there was laughter in the room.
“Crazy,” someone said. “Absolutely nuts.”
“Not at all,” Folimun said. “Devout, yes. Dedicated to a cause beyond your comprehension, yes. But not crazy. I’m quite sane, I assure you. I think this man here”—he indicated Theremon—“would testify to that, and he’s not known for his
gullibility. But I place my cause above all other things. This night is crucial in the history of the world, and when tomorrow dawns, Godliness must triumph. I offer you an ultimatum. You people are to end your blasphemous attempt to provide rational explanations for the coming of Darkness this evening and accept His Serenity Mondior 71 as the true voice of the gods’ will. When morning comes, you will go forth to do Mondior’s work among mankind, and no more will be heard of eclipses, or orbits, or the Law or Universal Gravitation, or the rest of your foolishness.”
“And if we refuse?” said Athor, looking almost amused by Folimun’s presumptuousness.
“Then,” said Folimun coolly, “a band of angry people led by the Apostles of Flame will ascend this hill and destroy your Observatory and everything within it.”
“Enough,” Athor said. “Call Security. Have this man thrown out of here.”
“You have exactly one hour,” Folimun said, unperturbed. “And then the Army of Holiness will attack.”
“He’s bluffing,” Sheerin said suddenly.
Athor, as though he hadn’t heard, said again, “Call Security. I want him out of here!”
“Damn it, Athor, what’s wrong with you?” Sheerin cried. “If you turn him loose, he’ll get out there to fan the flames. Don’t you see, chaos is what all these Apostles have been living for? And this man’s a master at creating it.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“Lock him up,” Sheerin said. “Stash him away in a closet and slap a padlock on him, and keep him there for the duration of the time of Darkness. It’s the worst possible thing we could do to him. If he’s locked away like that, he won’t see the Darkness, and he won’t see the Stars. It doesn’t take much of a knowledge of the fundamental creed of the Apostles to realize that for him to be hidden from the Stars when they appear will mean the loss of his immortal soul. Lock him up, Athor. It’s not only what’s safest for us, it’s what he deserves.”
“And afterward,” breathed Folimun fiercely, “when you have all lost your minds, there’ll be no one to let me out. This is a sentence of death. I know as well as you do what the coming of the Stars will mean—I know it far better than you. With
your minds gone, you won’t give any thought to freeing me. Suffocation or slow starvation, is it? About what I might have expected from a group of—of
scientists.
” He made the word sound obscene. “But it won’t work. I’ve taken the precaution of letting my followers know that they are to attack the Observatory precisely an hour from now,
unless
I appear and order them not to. Locking me away, then, will achieve nothing useful to you. Within an hour it’ll bring your own destruction upon you, that’s all. And then my people will free me, and together—joyously, ecstatically—we will watch the coming of the Stars.” A vein throbbed in Folimun’s temple. “Then, tomorrow, when you all are babbling madmen, damned forever by your deeds, we will set about the creation of a wondrous new world.”
Sheerin glanced doubtfully at Athor. But Athor looked hesitant too.
Beenay, standing next to Theremon, murmured, “What do you think? Is he bluffing?”
But the newspaperman didn’t reply. He had gone pale to the lips. “Look at that!” The finger he pointed toward the window was shaking, and his voice was dry and cracked.
There was a simultaneous gasp as every eye followed the pointing finger and, for one moment, stared frozenly.
Dovim was chipped on one side!
The tiny bit of encroaching blackness was perhaps the width of a fingernail, but to the staring watchers it magnified itself into the crack of doom.
For Theremon the sight of that small arc of darkness struck with terrible force. He winced and put his hand to his forehead and turned away from the window. He was shaken to the roots of his soul by that little chip in Dovim’s side. Theremon the skeptic—Theremon the mocker—Theremon the tough-minded analyst of other people’s folly—
Gods! How wrong I was!
As he turned, his eyes met Siferra’s. She was at the other side
of the room, looking at him. There was contempt in her eyes—or was it pity? He forced himself to meet her gaze and shook his head sadly, as though to tell her with all the humility there was in him,
I fouled things up and I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
It seemed to him that she smiled. Maybe she had understood what he was trying to say.
Then the room dissolved in shrieking confusion for a moment, as everyone began to rush frenziedly around; and a moment after that, the confusion gave way to an orderly scurry of activity as the astronomers leaped to their assigned tasks, some running upstairs to the Observatory dome to watch the eclipse through the telescopes, some going to the computers, some using hand-held instruments to record the changes in Dovim’s disk. At this crucial moment there was no time for emotion. They were merely scientists with work to do. Theremon, alone in the midst of it all, looked about for Beenay and found him, finally, sitting at a keyboard, madly working out some sort of problem. Of Athor there was no sign at all.
Sheerin appeared at Theremon’s side and said prosaically, “First contact must have been made five or ten minutes ago. A little early, but I suppose there were plenty of uncertainties involved in the calculations despite all the effort that went into them.” He smiled. —“You ought to get away from that window, man.”
“Why is that?” said Theremon, who had swung around again to stare at Dovim.
“Athor is furious,” the psychologist whispered. “He missed first contact on account of this fuss with Folimun. You’re in a vulnerable position, standing where you are. If Athor comes by this way he’s likely to try to throw you out the window.”
Theremon nodded shortly and sat down. Sheerin looked at him, eyes wide with surprise.
“The devil, man! You’re shaking.”
“Eh?” Theremon licked dry lips and then tried to smile. “I don’t feel very well, and that’s a fact.”
The psychologist’s eyes hardened. “You’re not losing your nerve, are you?”
“No!” cried Theremon in a flash of indignation. “Give me a chance, will you? You know, Sheerin, I wanted to believe all this eclipse rigmarole, but I couldn’t, I honestly couldn’t, it all
seemed like the sheerest woolly fantasy to me. I wanted to believe it for Beenay’s sake, for Siferra’s sake—even for Athor’s sake, in a strange way. But I couldn’t. Not until just this minute. Give me a chance to get used to the idea, all right? You’ve had months. It’s all hitting me at once.”
“I see what you mean,” Sheerin said thoughtfully. “Listen. Have you got a family—parents, wife, children?”
Theremon shook his head. “No. Nobody I need to worry about. Well, I have a sister, but she’s two thousand miles away. I haven’t even spoken with her in a couple of years.”
“Well then, what about yourself?”
“What do you mean?”
“You could try to get to our Sanctuary. They’d have room for you there. There’s probably still time—I could call them and say that you’re on the way, and they’d unlock the gate for you—”
“So you think I’m scared stiff, do you?”
“You said yourself you didn’t feel so good.”
“Maybe I don’t. But I’m here to cover the story. That’s what I intend to do.”
There was a faint smile on the psychologist’s face. “I see. Professional honor, is that it?”
“You might call it that.” Wearily Theremon said, “Besides, I helped in a big way to undermine Athor’s preparedness program, or have you forgotten? Do you really think I’d have the gall now to go running for shelter into the very Sanctuary I was poking fun at, Sheerin?”
“I hadn’t seen it that way.”
“I wonder if there’s any more of that miserable wine hidden around here somewhere. If ever there was a time when a fellow needed a drink—”
“Shh!” Sheerin said. He nudged Theremon violently. “Do you hear that? Listen!”
Theremon glanced in the direction Sheerin was indicating. Folimun 66 stood by the window, a look of wild elation on his face. The Apostle was droning something to himself in a low singsong tone. It made the newspaperman’s skin crawl.
“What’s he saying?” he whispered. “Can you make it out?”
“He’s quoting the Book of Revelations, fifth chapter,” replied Sheerin. Then, urgently, “Keep quiet and listen, will you?”
The Apostle’s voice rose suddenly in an increase of fervor:
“ ‘
And it came to pass in those days that the sun, Dovim, held lone vigil in the sky for ever longer periods as the revolutions passed; until such time as for full half a revolution, it alone, shrunken and cold, shone down upon Kalgash.
“ ‘
And men did assemble in the public squares and in the highways, there to debate and to marvel at the sight, for a strange fear and misery had seized their spirits. Their minds were troubled and their speech confused, for the souls of men awaited the coming of the Stars.
“ ‘
And in the city of Trigon, at high noon, Vendret 2 came forth and said unto the men of Trigon, “Lo, ye sinners! Though ye scorn the ways of righteousness, yet will the time of reckoning come. Even now the Cave approaches to swallow Kalgash; yea, and all it contains
.”
“ ‘
And in that moment as he spoke the lip of the Cave of Darkness passed the edge of Dovim so that to all Kalgash it was bidden from sight. Loud were the cries and lamentations of men as it vanished, and great the fear of soul with which they were afflicted.
“ ‘
And then it came to pass that the Darkness of the Cave fell full upon Kalgash in all its terrible weight, so that there was no light to be seen anywhere on all the surface of the world. Men were even as blinded, nor could one see his neighbor, though he felt his breath upon his face.
“ ‘
And in this blackness there appeared the Stars in countless number, and their brightness was as the brightness of all the gods in concourse assembled. And with the coming of the Stars there came also a music, which had a beauty so wondrous that the very leaves of the trees turned to tongues that cried out in wonder.
“ ‘
And in that moment the souls of men departed from them and fled upward to the Stars, and their abandoned bodies became even as beasts; yea, even as dull brutes of the wild; so that through the darkened streets of the cities of Kalgash they prowled with wild cries, like the cries of beasts.
“ ‘
From the Stars then there reached down the Heavenly Flames, that was the bearer of the will of the gods; and where the Flames touched, the cities of Kalgash were consumed even to utter destruction, so that of man and of the works of man, nothing whatever remained.
“ ‘
Even then—
’ ”
There was a subtle change in Folimun’s tone. His eyes had not shifted, but somehow it seemed that he had become aware of the absorbed attention of the other two. Easily, without
pausing for breath, he altered the timbre of his voice, so that it rose in pitch and the syllables became more liquid.
Theremon, caught by surprise, frowned. The words seemed to be on the border of familiarity. There had been nothing more than an elusive shift in the accent, a tiny change in the vowel stress—yet Theremon no longer had the slightest idea of what Folimun was saying.
“Maybe Siferra would be able to understand him now,” Sheerin said. “He’s probably speaking the liturgical tongue now, the old language of the previous Year of Godliness that the Book of Revelations was supposedly translated from.”
Theremon gave the psychologist a peculiar look. “You know a lot about this, don’t you? What’s he saying, then?”
“You think I can tell you? I’ve done a little studying lately, yes. But not that much. I’m just guessing at what he’s talking about. —Weren’t we going to lock him in a closet?”
“Let him be,” Theremon said. “What difference does it make now? It’s his big moment. Let him enjoy it.” He shoved his chair back and ran his fingers through his hair. His hands weren’t shaking any longer. “Funny thing,” he said. “Now that it’s all actually begun, I don’t feel jittery any more.”
“No?”
“Why should I?” Theremon said. A note of hectic gaiety had crept into his voice. “There’s nothing I can do to stop what’s going to happen, is there? So I’ll just try to ride it out. —Do you think the Stars are really going to appear?”
“Not a clue,” Sheerin said. “Maybe Beenay would know.”
“Or Athor.”
“Leave Athor alone,” said the psychologist, laughing. “He just passed through the room and gave you a look that should have killed you.”
Theremon made a wry face. “I’ll have plenty of crow to eat when all this is over, I know. What do you think, Sheerin? Is it safe to watch the show outside?”
“When the Darkness is total—”
“I don’t mean the Darkness. I can handle Darkness, I think. I mean the Stars.”
“The Stars?” Sheerin repeated impatiently. “I told you, I don’t know anything about them.”
“They’re probably not as terrifying as the Book of Revelations
would want us to think. If that pinpoint-in-the-ceiling experiment of those two students means anything—” He turned his hands palms upward, as though they might hold the answer. “Tell me, Sheerin, what do you think? Won’t some people be immune to the effects of the Darkness and the Stars?”