by Brian Aldiss
Theremon looked shocked. ‘You mean they refused to come in out of the open. Where’d they sleep?’
‘In the open.’
‘They should have forced them inside.’
‘Oh, they did, they did. Whereupon these people went into violent hysterics and did their best to beat their brains out against the nearest wall. Once you got them inside, you couldn’t keep them there without a strait jacket and a shot of morphine.’
‘They must have been crazy.’
‘Which is exactly what they were. One person out of every ten who went into that tunnel came out that way. They called in the psychologists, and we did the only thing possible. We closed down the exhibit.’ He spread his hands.
‘What was the matter with these people?’ asked Theremon finally.
‘Those people were unfortunates whose mentality did not quite possess the resilience to overcome the claustrophobia that overtook them in the Darkness. Fifteen minutes without light is a long time; you had only two or three minutes, and I believe you were fairly upset.
‘The people of the tunnel had what is called a “claustrophobic fixation”. Their latent fear of Darkness and enclosed places had crystallized and become active, and, as far as we can tell, permanent. That’s what fifteen minutes in the dark will do.’
There was a long silence, and Theremon’s forehead wrinkled slowly into a frown. ‘I don’t believe it’s that bad.’
‘You mean you don’t want to believe,’ snapped Sheerin. ‘You’re afraid to believe. Look out the window!’
Theremon did so, and the psychologist continued without pausing, ‘Imagine Darkness – everywhere. No light, as far as you can see. The houses, the trees, the fields, the earth, the sky – black! And Stars thrown in, for all I know – whatever they are. Can you conceive it?’
‘Yes, I can,’ declared Theremon truculently.
And Sheerin slammed his fist down upon the table in sudden passion. ‘You lie! You can’t conceive that. Your brain wasn’t built for the conception any more than it was built for the conception of infinity or of eternity. You can only talk about it. A fraction of the reality upsets you, and when the real thing comes, your brain is going to be presented with a phenomenon outside its limits of comprehension. You will go mad, completely and permanently! There is no question of it!’
He added sadly, ‘And another couple of millenniums of painful struggle comes to nothing. Tomorrow there won’t be a city standing unharmed in all Lagash.’
Theremon recovered part of his mental equilibrium. ‘That doesn’t follow. I still don’t see that I can go loony just because there isn’t a Sun in the sky – but even if I did, and everyone else did, how does that harm the cities? Are we going to blow them down?’
But Sheerin was angry, too. ‘If you were in Darkness, what would you want more than anything else; what would it be that every instinct would call for? Light, damn you, light!’
‘Well?’
Sheerin said, ‘You’d burn something, mister. Ever see a forest fire? Ever go camping and cook a stew over a wood fire? Heat isn’t the only thing burning wood gives off, you know. It gives off light, and people know that. And when it’s dark they want light, and they’re going to get it.’
‘So they burn wood?’
‘So they burn whatever they can get. They’ve got to have light. They’ve got to burn something, and wood isn’t handy – so they’ll burn whatever is nearest. They’ll have their light – and every centre of habitation goes up in flames!’
Theremon broke away wordlessly. His breathing was harsh and ragged, and he scarcely noted the sudden hubbub that came from the adjoining room behind the closed door.
Sheerin spoke, and it was with an effort that he made it sound matter-of-fact. ‘I think I heard Yimot’s voice. He and Faro are probably back. Let’s go in and see what kept them.’
‘Might as well!’ muttered Theremon. He drew a long breath and seemed to shake himself. The tension was broken.
The room was in an uproar, with members of the staff clustering about two young men who were removing outer garments even as they parried the miscellany of questions being thrown at them.
Aton bustled through the crowd and faced the newcomers angrily. ‘Do you realize that it’s less than half an hour before deadline? Where have you two been?’
Faro 24 seated himself and rubbed his hands. His cheeks were red with the outdoor chill. ‘Yimot and I have just finished carrying through a little crazy experiment of our own. We’ve been trying to see if we couldn’t construct an arrangement by which we could simulate the appearance of Darkness and Stars so as to get an advance notion as to how it looked.’
There was a confused murmur from the listeners, and a sudden look of interest entered Aton’s eyes. ‘There wasn’t anything said of this before. How did you go about it?’
‘Well,’ said Faro, ‘the idea came to Yimot and myself long ago and we’ve been working it out in our spare time. Yimot knew of a low one-storey house down in the city with a domed roof – it had once been used as a museum, I think. Anyway, we bought the place and rigged it up with black velvet from top to bottom so as to get as perfect a Darkness as possible. Then we punched tiny holes in the ceiling and through the roof and covered them with little metal caps, all of which could be shoved aside simultaneously at the close of a switch. At least, we didn’t do that part ourselves; we got a carpenter and an electrician and some others – money didn’t count. The point was that we could get the light to shine through those holes in the roof, so that we could get a starlike effect.’
Not a breath was drawn during the pause that followed. Aton said stiffly:
‘You had no right to make a private –’
Faro seemed abashed. ‘I know, sir – but, frankly, Yimot and I thought the experiment was a little dangerous. If the effect really worked, we half expected to go mad – from what Sheerin says about all this, we thought that would be rather likely. We wanted to take the risk ourselves.’
‘Why, what happened?’
It was Yimot who answered. ‘We shut ourselves in and allowed our eyes to get accustomed to the dark. It’s an extremely creepy feeling because the total Darkness makes you feel as if the walls and ceiling are crushing in on you. But we got over that and pulled the switch. The caps fell away and the roof glittered all over with little dots of light –’
‘Well?’
‘Well – nothing. That was the whacky part of it. Nothing happened. It was a roof with holes in it, and that’s just what it looked like. We tried it over and over again – that’s what kept us so late – but there just isn’t any effect at all.’
There followed a shocked silence, and all eyes turned to Sheerin, who sat motionless, mouth open.
Theremon was the first to speak. ‘You know what this does to this whole theory you’ve built up, Sheerin, don’t you?’ He was grinning with relief.
But Sheerin raised his hand. ‘Now wait a while. Just let me think this through.’ And then he snapped his fingers, and when he lifted his head there was neither surprise nor uncertainty in his eyes. ‘Of course –’
He never finished. From somewhere up above there sounded a sharp clang, and Beenay, starting to his feet, dashed up the stairs with a ‘What the devil!’
The rest followed after.
*
Things happened quickly. Once up in the dome, Beenay cast one horrified glance at the shattered photographic plates and at the man bending over them; and then hurled himself fiercely at the intruder, getting a death grip on his throat. There was a wild threshing, and as others of the staff joined in, the stranger was swallowed up and smothered under the weight of half a dozen angry men.
Aton came up last, breathing heavily. ‘Let him up!’
There was a reluctant unscrambling and the stranger, panting harshly, with his clothes torn and his forehead bruised, was hauled to his feet. He had a short yellow beard curled elaborately in the style affected by the Cultists.
Beenay shifted hi
s hold to a collar grip and shook the man savagely. ‘All right, rat, what’s the idea? These plates –’
‘I wasn’t after them,’ retorted the Cultist coldly. ‘That was an accident.’
Beenay followed his glowering stare and snarled, ‘I see. You were after the cameras themselves. The accident with the plates was a stroke of luck for you, then. If you had touched Snapping Bertha or any of the others, you would have died by slow torture. As it is –’ He drew his fist back.
Aton grabbed his sleeve. ‘Stop that! Let him go!’
The young technician wavered, and his arm dropped reluctantly. Aton pushed him aside and confronted the Cultist. ‘You’re Latimer, aren’t you?’
The Cultist bowed stiffly and indicated the symbol upon his hip. ‘I am Latimer 25, adjutant of the third class to His Serenity, Sor 5.’
‘And’ – Aton’s white eyebrows lifted – ‘you were with His Serenity when he visited me last week, weren’t you?’
Latimer bowed a second time.
Sheerin smiled in a friendly fashion. ‘You’re a determined cuss, aren’t you? Well, I’ll explain something. Do you see that young man at the window? He’s a strong, husky fellow, quite handy with his fists, and he’s an outsider besides. Once the eclipse starts there will be nothing for him to do except keep an eye on you. Beside him, there will be myself – a little too stout for active fisticuffs, but still able to help.’
Sheerin nodded to the columnist. ‘Take a seat next to him, Theremon – just as a formality. Hey, Theremon!’
But the newspaperman didn’t move. He had gone pale to the lips. ‘Look at that!’ The finger he pointed towards the sky shook, and his voice was dry and cracked.
There was one simultaneous gasp as every eye followed the pointing finger and, for one breathless moment, stared frozenly.
Beta 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.
Only for a moment they watched, and after that there was a shrieking confusion that was even shorter in duration and which gave way to an orderly scurry of activity – each man at his prescribed job. At the crucial moment there was no time for emotion. The men were merely scientists with work to do. Even Aton had melted away.
Sheerin said prosaically, ‘First contact must have been made fifteen minutes ago. A little early, but pretty good considering the uncertainties involved in the calculation.’ He looked about him and then tiptoed to Theremon, who still remained staring out of the window, and dragged him away gently.
‘Aton is furious,’ he whispered, ‘so stay away. He missed first contact on account of this fuss with Latimer, and if you get in his way he’ll have you thrown out the window.’
Theremon nodded shortly and sat down. Sheerin stared in surprise at him.
‘The devil, man,’ he exclaimed, ‘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?’
‘No!’ cried Theremon in a flash of indignation. ‘Give me a chance, will you? I haven’t really believed this rigmarole – not way down beneath, anyway – till just this minute. Give me a chance to get used to the idea. You’ve been preparing yourself for two months or more.’
‘You’re right, at that,’ replied Sheerin thoughtfully.
‘You think I’m scared stiff, don’t you? Well, get this, mister. I’m a newspaperman and I’ve been assigned to cover a story. I intend covering it.’
There was a faint smile on the psychologist’s face. ‘I see. Professional honour, is that it?’
‘You might call it that. But, man, I’d give my right arm for another bottle of that sockeroo juice even half the size of the one you hogged. If ever a fellow needed a drink, I do.’
He broke off. Sheerin was nudging him violently. ‘Do you hear that? Listen!’
Theremon followed the motion of the other’s chin and stared at the Cultist, who, oblivious to all about him, faced the window, a look of wild elation on his face, droning to himself the while in singsong fashion.
‘What’s he saying?’ whispered the columnist.
‘He’s quoting “Book of Revelations,” fifth chapter,’ replied Sheerin. Then, urgently, ‘Keep quiet and listen, I tell you.’
The Cultist’s voice had risen in a sudden increase of fervour.
‘ “And it came to pass that in those days the Sun, Beta, 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 Lagash.
‘ “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 Lagash; yea, and all it contains.’
‘ “And even as he spoke the lip of the Cave of Darkness passed the edge of Beta so that to all Lagash it was hidden from sight. Loud were the cries of men as it vanished, and great the fear of soul that fell upon them.
‘ “It came to pass that the Darkness of the Cave fell upon Lagash, and there was no light on all the surface of Lagash. Men were even as blinded, nor could one man see his neighbour, though he felt his breath upon his face.
‘ “And in this blackness there appeared the Stars, in countless numbers, and to the strains of ineffable music of 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 their abandoned bodies became even as beasts; yea, even as brutes of the wild; so that through the blackened streets of the cities of Lagash they prowled with wild cries.
‘ “From the Stars there then reached down the Heavenly Flame, and where it touched, the cities of Lagash flamed to utter destruction, so that of man and of the works of man nought remained.
‘“Even then –”’
There was a subtle change in Latimer’s tone. His eyes had not shifted, but somehow he had become aware of the absorbed attention of the other two. Easily, without pausing for breath, the timbre of his voice shifted and the syllables became more liquid.
Theremon, caught by surprise, stared. The words seemed on the border of familiarity. There was an elusive shift in the accent, a tiny change in the vowel stress; nothing more – yet Latimer had become thoroughly unintelligible.
Sheerin smiled slyly. ‘He shifted to some old-cycle tongue, probably their traditional second cycle. That was the language in which the Book of Revelation was originally written, you know.’
‘It doesn’t matter; I’ve heard enough.’ Theremon moved his chair 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.’
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 colour 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 colour as they 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 do 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?’
‘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 extensively 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 the day after tomorrow. They’re safe. But the city, Sheerin – it’s a shambles. You have no idea –’ He was having difficulty in speaking.