Isaac Asimov - Nightfall (novel)

Be careful, he told himself. Folimun wants to use you.

But that was all right. His position with the newspaper was an influential one. Everyone wanted to use him.

Well, Theremon thought, we’ll see who uses whom.

His footsteps echoed sharply as he walked at a brisk pace through the immense entrance hall of the Apostles’ headquarters and out into the brilliance of a three-sun afternoon.

Back to the Chronicle office now. A couple of pious hours devoted to a close study of the Book of Revelations; and then it was time to begin thinking about tomorrow’s column.

The summer rainy season was in full spate the afternoon Sheerin 501 returned to Saro City. The plump psychologist stepped out of the plane into a stupendous downpour that had turned the airfield into something close to a lake. Gray torrents of rain rode almost horizontally on fierce gusts of wind.

Gray—gray—everything gray—

The suns had to be up there somewhere in all that murk. That faint glimmer in the west was probably Onos, and there were hints of the chilly light of Tano and Sitha off the other way. But the cloud cover was so thick that the day was disagreeably dark. Uncomfortably dark for Sheerin, who still—despite what he had told his hosts in Jonglor—was troubled by the aftereffects of his fifteen-minute ride through the Tunnel of Mystery.

He would have gone on a ten-day fast sooner than he’d admit it to Kelaritan and Cubello and the rest of those people. But he had come perilously close to the danger point in there.

For three or four days thereafter Sheerin had experienced a touch, only a touch, of the kind of claustrophobia that had sent so many citizens of Jonglor to the mental hospital. He would be in his hotel room, working on his report, when suddenly he would feel Darkness closing in on him, and he would find it necessary to get up and go out on his terrace, or even to leave the building entirely for a long stroll in the hotel garden. Necessary? Well, maybe not. But preferable. Certainly preferable. And he always felt better for doing it.

Or he would be asleep and the Darkness would come to him then. Naturally the godlight would be on in his room when he slept—he always slept with one on, he knew nobody who didn’t—and since the Tunnel ride he had taken to using an auxiliary godlight too, in case the battery of the first one should fail, though the indicator clearly said it had six months’ power left. Even so, Sheerin’s sleeping mind would become convinced that his room had been plunged into the depths of lightlessness, utterly black, the true and complete Darkness. And he would awaken, trembling, sweating, convinced he was in Darkness even though the friendly glow of the two godlights was right there on either side of him to tell him that he was not.

So now, to step from his plane into this somber twilight landscape—well, he was glad to be home, but he would have preferred a sunnier arrival. He had to fight off mild distress, or perhaps not so mild, as he entered the flexiglass foul-weather passageway that led from his plane to the terminal. He wished they hadn’t put the passageway up. Better not to be enclosed right now, Sheerin thought, even if it did mean getting wet. Better to be out there under the open sky, under the comforting light (however faint just now, however hidden by clouds) of the friendly suns.

But the queasiness passed. By the time he had claimed his baggage, the cheering reality of being back home again in Saro City had triumphed over the lingering effects of his brush with Darkness.

Liliath 221 was waiting for him outside the baggage pickup area with her car. That made him feel better too. She was a slender, pleasant-looking woman in her late forties, a fellow member of the Psychology Department, though her work was experimental, animals in mazes, no overlap at all with his. They had known each other ten or fifteen years. Sheerin would probably have asked her to marry him long ago if he had been the marrying type. But he wasn’t; nor, for all the indication she had ever given him, was she. Still, the relationship they did have seemed to suit them both.

“Of all the miserable days to pick for coming home—” he said, as he slipped in beside her and reached across to give her a quick friendly kiss.

“It’s been like this for three days. And they say we’re in for three more of it, until next Onos Day. We’ll all be drowned by then, I suppose.—You look as if you’ve lost some weight up there in Jonglor, Sheerin!”

“Have I? Well, you know, northern food—not really to my taste—”

He hadn’t expected that it would be so apparent. A man of his girth ought to be able to drop ten or fifteen pounds without its being noticeable at all. But Liliath had always had sharp eyes. And perhaps he had dropped more than ten or fifteen pounds. Ever since the Tunnel, he had simply pecked at his food. Him! It was hard for him to believe how little he had eaten.

“You look good,” she said. “Healthy. Vigorous.”

“Do I?”

“Not that I think you need to be skinny, not at this late date. But it can’t hurt to take a little off. So you enjoyed yourself in Jonglor?”

“Well—”

“Get to see the Exposition?”

“Yes. Fabulous.” He couldn’t muster much enthusiasm. “My God, this rain, Liliath!”

“It wasn’t raining in Jonglor?”

“Clear and dry all the time. The way it was when I left Saro.”

“Well, seasons change, Sheerin. You can’t hope to have the same weather for six months at a stretch, you know. With a different set of suns in the ascendant every day, we can’t expect the patterns of climate to hold still very long.”

“I can’t tell whether you sound more like a meteorologist or an astrologer,” Sheerin said.

“Neither. I sound like a psychologist.—Aren’t you going to tell me anything about your trip, Sheerin?”

He hesitated. “The Exposition was very fine. I’m sorry you missed it. But most of the time I was hard at work. They’ve got a real mess on their hands up north, this Tunnel of Mystery thing.”

“Is it really true that people have been dying in it?”

“A few. But mainly they’ve been coming out traumatized, disoriented. Claustrophobic. I spoke with some of the victims. They’ll be months recovering. For some it’ll be permanent disability. And even so the Tunnel stayed open for weeks.”

“After the problems began?”

“Nobody seemed to care. Least of all the people who run the Exposition. They were just interested in selling tickets. And the fairgoers were curious about Darkness. Curious about Darkness, can you imagine that, Liliath? They lined up eagerly to put their minds in jeopardy! Of course, they were all convinced that nothing bad was going to happen to them. And nothing bad did, to a lot of them. But not all.—I took a ride in the Tunnel myself.”

“You did?” she said, sounding astonished. “What was it like?”

“A nasty business. I’d pay a good deal not to have to do it again.”

“But obviously you came out all right.”

“Obviously,” he said carefully. “I might come out all right if I swallowed half a dozen live fish, too. But it’s not something I’d be likely to want to repeat. I told them to shut their damned Tunnel down. That was my professional opinion, and I think they’re going to abide by it. We simply weren’t designed to withstand that much Darkness, Liliath. A minute, two minutes, maybe—then we start to snap. It’s an innate thing, I’m convinced of it, millions of years of evolution shaping us to be what we are. Darkness is the most unnatural thing in the world. And the idea of selling it to people as entertainment —” He shuddered. “Well, I’ve had my trip to Jonglor, and now I’m back. What’s been going on at the university?”