Night of Light

by Philip José Farmer

  Carmody became furious enough to curse the group of Earthmen, his own religionists, who had hired Lieftin. How strange that the disciples of Algul and the disciples of Christ had banded together!

  The door-knocker clanged, muffled by the thick iron. Carmody shot the bolt and pushed one side of the door to let it swing out and so notify the policemen that they could enter. The door continued swinging, and two Kareenans stepped through. They had guns in their hands. Behind them, out in the hall, were two other males. They were beginning to drag in the bodies of the guards.

  Carmody, his arms raised, backed up. While one man held a gun on him, the other went back into the hall to help the rest bring in the policemen. These were not dead, as Carmody had first thought. They were unconscious, sleeping as if drugged.

  A Kareenan handed the priest a costume and mask. "Put them on." Carmody obeyed.

  "Are you working for Fratt?" he asked, but none of the five answered him.

  After he had dressed himself and put on the mask, an antlered Ardour head, he was told to come with the others. They would be behind him. If he tried to run or call for help, he would be shot in the leg.

  The Kareenans, also masked now, looking like any other group of merrymakers, took him to the end of the hall. There, they told him to walk up the steps. At the fifteenth floor, he was taken back down the hall to a room exactly above his. One of the group beat the knocker twice rapidly, and after a five-second pause, three times.

  The door swung open, and a gun was stuck in Carmody's back. There was nothing he could do but enter. He had not seen another guest or hotel employee in either hall.

  The door was closed behind him, and the bolt shot home with a thud. The mask taken from his face, he could examine the room. It was furnished like his; the doors to the two other rooms of the suite were open.

  By the stone table in the middle of the room stood Raphael Abdu. An aged Earthwoman sat beside the table. She wore clothes which had been in style thirty years ago, but there were certain features about them that had a colonial look. Carmody could not place their origin. The woman had long white hair plaited and coiled into a huge pile on top of her head. Her wrinkled face looked as if it had once been beautiful. Her eyes were concealed behind large hexagonal sunglasses.

  "Are you absolutely sure it's John Carmody?" she said to Abdu in non-Terrestrial English.

  Impatiently, Abdu said, "Don't be ridiculous! Do you want him to speak so you can recognize his voice?"

  "Yes!"

  "Speak up, Carmody," Abdu growled. "Give us a few phrases from some of your sermons. The lady wants to hear you."

  "Ah, Fratt. I made a natural mistake," Carmody said. "I assumed that you were a man. Obviously, you had a man dictate the letter for you."

  "That's him!" she cried. "I haven't forgotten that voice! Even after all these years!"

  She placed a thick veined hand on Abdu's.

  "Pay the others off. Tell them to get lost."

  "Glad to," Abdu said. He went into the room on Carmody's right and returned immediately with a large bundle of Kareenan paper currency. He counted out each man's share and waited while they checked the amount. Four left the suite, but one stayed behind. He stripped Carmody and taped his arms behind him. He sat Carmody down in one of the huge chairs and taped his ankles together. A rope from underneath his cloak was then used to bind the priest's waist to the chair. Two more strips of tape went over Carmody's shoulders and under his armpits to secure him to the back of the chair.

  "His mouth?" the Kareenan said. Abdu translated into English for her.

  "No," the woman replied. "I can always shut him up if I want to. Just leave the tape on the table here."

  "I still don't know who you are," Carmody said.

  "Your memory is too clogged with evil deeds," she said. "But I haven't forgotten. That's the important thing."

  The Kareenan went through the door, and Abdu bolted it after him. There was silence for a while. Carmody studied her features. Suddenly, memory came swimming up from within.

  She was the woman from whom he had gotten the layout of the fortress in which the Staronif Shootfire jewel was guarded.

  He had gone to the colonial planet of Beulah to hide. Raspold and others had been hot on his trail on Springboard, but he had escaped. On Beulah, a planet settled largely by Englishmen and Scandinavians, he had played the part of a prospector. He had ignored the challenge of the Staronif jewel for a long time because he had been determined to stay out of trouble.

  But when it looked as if Raspold had lost him, he established his assumed identity; he could no longer resist the temptation. His careful planning took four months, really not much time when the size of the job was considered. He had gathered a number of criminals, Lieftin among them. After assuring an escape by spaceship from Beulah, he had bribed one of the guards of the Staronif jewel, a considerable feat in itself; the guards were famous for their honesty. The guard was to open the doors for them, after having silenced the alarm mechanism. He had given them a plan of the rooms and of the warning devices installed in the vault where the Staronif was put at night.

  But the demo who ruled one of the small states of Beulah had decided that things were too stagnant. He had discharged all the guards, hired new ones, and begun making alterations in the protective mechanisms and even in the internal construction of the building. Carmody had been afraid that the guard might start talking if he thought his usefulness was over and he would be cut out of his share. He had to be killed, and Carmody killed him.

  The others in his group had wanted to give up the robbery, but Carmody had insisted they continue. Moreover, they were to stick to the schedule. After some investigation, he found that the demo's secretary had not been discharged or transferred to another job. The rumor was that she was also the demo's mistress; he could not bear to give her up. Carmody had entered the woman's house the night before the robbery was to take place.

  Mrs. Geraldine Fratt, as she called herself, was with a man -- her son. He lived in another state and happened to be visiting his mother. When the mother proved resistant even to Carmody's tortures, and when it looked as if she would die before revealing anything, he began to work on the son. She could not stand watching her son being cut apart, even though he had begged her not to talk because of him.

  Mrs. Fratt had led the way into the fortress. Her son was carried along by Lieftin and another man to make sure that she did not betray them. After the Staronif had been removed from its vault, Carmody had shoved the mother and son into it. Then he had tossed in a grenade and closed the vault door.

  It was the explosion that had set off an alarm and had forced Carmody and his men to run, instead of making the planned leisurely drive to the spaceship. Raspold, having just arrived on Beulah in his search, had joined the chase.

  During the flight, Carmody stole a gravplane. Forced down near the edge of the Big Thorn Forest, he had gone on foot. And it was in that forest that he had been compelled to shove the Staronif down the throat of the lugar. Later, he had made his escape from Beulah and eventually had gone to Dante's Joy.

  "I think I overlooked you, Mrs. Fratt," he said, "because one, I thought a man had sent me that letter and, two, I thought that you and your son were dead."

  "My son protected me with his own body," she said. "He died. My face was mangled, and my eyes were destroyed by flying fragments. I had my face repaired, but these. . ."

  She removed her glasses, and Carmody could see the empty sockets.

  "But you could have had new eyes!" he said.

  "I swore I would never see again until you were paid back for what you did to me and Bart. I've spent a lot of time and money looking for you. I had a great deal of money, you know, because the demo willed me a fortune when he died. But it was almost all gone when I finally heard about your being a priest on Wildenwooly. By that time, I'd quit buying jerries because I wanted to reserve all my money for the search. That's why I'm so old-looking now. I was afraid I'd die before
you were found. But, thank God, I did find you."

  "You've taken all these years to find me?" he said. "Mrs. Fratt, what kind of men did you hire to look for me?"

  "Raphael Abdu conducted the search for me. Don't you say anything against him, you evil-tongued monster! He's a good and faithful man; he's been working tirelessly for me too long. I know him and trust him."

  "So that now, when he's bled you of your money and there's no more coming, he conveniently discovers me?" the priest said. "Well, give him credit for that. At least, he didn't just drop the whole thing. He did give you something for keeping him in what I imagine was a good-paying job for twenty-eight or twenty-nine years. Ah, thou good and faithful servant!"

  "Should I shut his mouth, Mrs. Fratt?" Abdu said. "I could knock his teeth out. It'd be a good starter."

  "No, let him talk. I don't care what he says; he can't change my mind."

  "Mrs. Fratt, Abdu could have found me easily any time after I left this planet. I was in Johns Hopkins for a year. The police knew where I was, and my Church had no reason to hide my identity or location. Abdu's taken you for a sucker."

  "You're a slippery one," she said. "You escaped the first man Abdu sent after you, and you've made it difficult for us to catch you. But you're here now, and nothing anyone can do is going to get you out of this."

  Carmody, despite the mausoleum coolness of the room, was sweating.

  "Mrs. Fratt," he said without any inflection of the desperation he felt, "I can understand why you want revenge on me. I partly understand, anyway, although after all these years and the fact that I am no longer the man you knew. . . Still, I cannot understand or forgive you for having murdered an innocent woman, my wife!"

  She clutched the arms of the chair."What? What are you talking about?"

  "You know damn well what I'm talking about!" he said harshly. "You had my Anna murdered! And when you did that, you became as guilty and as foul as that John Carmody you hate so much. You are as wicked as he was, and you have no right to talk of justice or retribution!"

  "What do you mean?" she shrilled, turning her blind head toward Abdu and then back to Carmody. "What's this about your wife? I didn't even know you had a wife! Murdered, you say? Murdered?"

  Abdu spoke smoothly and even managed a chuckle of amusement, but he glared at Carmody. "I told you you have to be careful of him, Mrs. Fratt. He's slick as Satan himself. He's just saying that about his wife to throw you off the track, to confuse you. And to implant suspicions about me in your mind. His wife's all right. I saw her kiss him good-bye just before he left Wildenwooly."

  Mrs. Fratt's expression was angry. "You liar, Carmody! Would you say anything to save your own skin?"

  "I am telling the truth!" Carmody said. "My wife was killed by a bomb. And shortly after she died, I got a phone call from a man wearing a mask. He said that you were responsible for Anna's murder!"

  "You lie!"

  "Then perhaps you can explain another thing. If you wanted me alive, why did your men try to kill me outside the house of an old friend of mine, here in Rak?"

  She became even paler; her mouth worked soundlessly.

  "In your hatred for me, you not only had my wife killed, you caused the death of an innocent man, one who had nothing to do with me except that he happened to drive the taxi that took me out to Mrs. Kri's. He was killed by the bomb meant for me."

  "He's lying again," Abdu shouted savagely. "He'll say anything to put off the inevitable, the justified inevitable, I'll swear."

  Mrs. Fratt reached out, touched Abdu, slid her hand along him, and gripped his hand. "You didn't do all these terrible things, did you? You didn't kill his wife and that man, did you? Or try to kill Carmody and rob me of him?"

  "I'm telling you the truth, Mrs. Fratt. I think you'd better quit listening to him. He could talk a hungry snake away from a bird."

  He looked at his watch. "Mrs. Fratt, we've ten hours before the last ship leaves. We'd better get started. You didn't want this to be a short thing, remember?"

  "Oh, I made a mistake not getting eyes before I did this!" she said. "I want to see him suffer! But there wasn't time to do it!"

  "Never mind, you can hear him. And feel him."

  "Mrs. Fratt," Carmody said, unable to keep his voice from going hoarse, "I'm making one last appeal. You spoke of God a little while ago, thanked Him. Do you really believe that He'll approve this? If you are a Christian, then for the sake of God don't do this! Even if I were the man who wronged you so. He would not want you to torture me. Revenge is mine, saith the Lord. But I am not. . ."

  "Revenge is mine, saith the Lord." Mrs. Fratt almost hissed. "The Devil may quote scripture, and I guess that is true! But go ahead! Whine, beg, plead for mercy! I begged, for my son's sake, and you laughed at me! Laugh now!"

  Carmody fell silent. He was determined that he would at least try to die with dignity. They would get no pleas or screams of pain until he could stand it no longer. Nevertheless, he could not control the quivering of his body.

  He said, "Mrs. Fratt, while I can talk and think rationally, I want to tell you that I forgive you. I hope you have a chance for God to forgive you, too. So, no matter what I say later, remember that this is my true feeling. God grant you grace."

  Mrs. Fratt had risen to her feet. She started to walk slowly toward him, with Abdu holding her hand. She stopped and put her hand to her heart. She was silent so Abdu said, "It's just another trick, Mrs. Fratt."

  "Help me, Raphael," Mrs. Fratt said in a low voice. "Help me."

  "I'll be your strength," Abdu said. He went to the table and lifted the cloth aside. Steel glittered under the light. Long sharp knives, surgeon's scalpels, a surgical bit and drill, a saw. There were also splinters of the Kareenan duurl, a bamboolike wood; a rubber syringe with a long, slightly curved beak; several wires; a pair of scissors; a pair of pliers with broad thin edges; a club, and a hammer.

  Abdu picked up a scalpel, walked to Mrs. Fratt, placed the scalpel in her hand.

  "I think he ought at least to have his face marked up a little bit. He ought to feel something of the pain you felt, Mrs. Fratt."

  She touched the scalpel gingerly, then drew her hand back.

  "If you get faint-hearted now, Mrs. Fratt, you'll have wasted all those years. Have you gone blind for nothing?"

  She shook her head. "Let me feel his face. I can't see, but maybe if I can see it through my fingers, I can hate as much as I did when I first saw it. God! I never thought I'd shrink from this! I used to cry because I couldn't have him in my power."

  She walked close to Carmody. Her right hand went out, touched his forehead. It jumped back, then returned, moved over his features.

  He closed his teeth on her hand. She cried out and tried to jerk back her hand, but his jaws held her. He brought his feet up; though taped at the ankles, they had not been tied to the chair. They came up together between her legs and in a spasm of power he lifted her a few inches. She cried out again at the blow. Abdu yelled and started to run up to help her.

  Carmody pulled his legs up against his chest in a contortion that cost him pain. His mouth opened; the woman jerked her hand loose and staggered back. His legs straightened; his feet caught her in the pit of the stomach. Doubling over, she reeled against Abdu. Then she straightened and fell to the floor.

  Abdu stared at the bloody scalpel in his hand and at the blood spurting from her back. He dropped the knife and went down on one knee beside Mrs. Fratt.

  He called to her vainly, listened to her heart, and finally rose.

  "The scalpel didn't go in deep enough to kill her. You killed her when you kicked her, you bastard!"

  "I didn't want to," Carrnody gasped. "I wouldn't have had to except for you. But I was damned if I'd just sit here and let her cut me up."

  "You're damned anyway," Abdu said slowly. "That trick won't work twice."

  He picked up the scalpel and moved to one side of Carmody.

  "What's your interest, Abdu? You've made a go
od living from her. Isn't that enough? Why should you want to torture me?"

  "Sure, I led her on, and I lived like a king. But I was fond of the old lady, even if she was a sucker. Besides, I always wanted to see what kind of stuff you're made of."

  Behind the chair now, he crooked his left arm around Carmody's head to hold it steady. The scalpel nicked into Carmody's cheek and cut downward.

  "Does that hurt, Carmody?" Abdu said in the priest's ear.

  "Enough," Carmody whispered.

  "Let's see how tender the skin of your lips is."

  The scalpel slashed the corner of his mouth. Carmody went rigid, but clamped his teeth together to keep from crying out.

  Abdu placed the blade against Carmody's jugular vein. "One slash and it'd be all over. How'd you like that?"

  "I'm afraid I'd like it very much," Carmody said. "God forgive me."

  "Yeah, it'd be a kind of suicide, wouldn't it? Well, if there is a Hell, I hope you go to it. But don't get eager."

  Abdu walked back to the table and picked up several of the bamboolike splints. "Let's try a few of these burning under your toenails. Did you ever use these on anybody?"

  Carmody swallowed and said, "God forgive me again."

  "Yeah? Well, you thought all that was behind you, didn't you? Just goes to show we can't ever get away from our evil deeds; they follow us like a dog scenting an old bone."

  Abdu approached from the side, kneeled, and then leaned his weight on Carmody's legs. He pulled one shoe and the sock off. Carmody tried to writhe, but he could not move his legs. He screamed as the splinter was driven up under the nail of his big toe.

  "Go ahead and yell," Abdusaid. "Nobody can hear you through these walls."

  He took out a box of Kareenan matches and lit one on the bare stone floor. When he had touched off the splint, he arose.

  "That wood's soaked in oil," he said. "It burns like hell, doesn't it?"

  The knocker clanged. Abdu whirled and drew his gun from a holster beneath his cloak. The clanging continued for a moment, then stopped. Abdu breathed out a sigh of relief, only to jump when the phone rang.