Isaac Asimov - Nightfall (novel)

“Who? Faro and Yimot? Of course not. They’re not the type. They’d give everything to be here this evening taking measurements when the eclipse happens. But what if there’s some kind of riot going on in Saro City and they’ve been caught in it?” Beenay shrugged. “Well, they’ll show up sooner or later, I imagine. But if they’re not here as we approach the critical phase, things could get a little sticky when the work piles up. That must be what Athor’s worrying about.”

Sheerin said, “I’m not so sure. Two missing men would be on his mind, yes. But there’s something else. He looks so old , suddenly. Weary. Defeated, even. The last time I saw him he was full of fight, full of talk about the reconstruction of society after the eclipse—the real Athor, the iron man. Now all I see is a sad, tired, pathetic old wreck who’s simply waiting for the end to come. The fact that he didn’t even bother to throw Theremon out—”

“He tried,” Theremon said. “Beenay talked him out of it. And Siferra.”

“There you are. Beenay, did you ever know anyone who was able to talk Athor out of anything?—Here, pass me the wine.”

“It may be my fault,” Theremon said. “Everything that I wrote, attacking his plan to set up Sanctuary-type shelters all across the country. If he genuinely believes that there’s going to be a worldwide Darkness in a few hours and that all mankind will go violently insane—”

“Which he does,” said Beenay. “As do all of us.”

“Then the failure of the government to take Athor’s predictions seriously must be an overwhelming, crushing defeat for him. And I’m responsible as much as anyone. If it turns out that you people were right, I’ll never forgive myself.”

Sheerin said, “Don’t flatter yourself, Theremon. Even if you had written five columns a day calling for a colossal preparedness movement, the government still wouldn’t have done anything. It might have taken Athor’s warnings even less seriously than it did if that’s possible, with a popular crusading journalist like you on Athor’s side.”

“Thanks,” Theremon said. “I really appreciate that.—Is there any wine left?” He looked toward Beenay. “And of course I’m in trouble with Siferra too. She thinks I’m too contemptible for words.”

“There was a time when she seemed really interested in you,” Beenay said. “I was wondering about it for a while, as a matter of fact. Whether you and she were—ah—”

“No,” Theremon said, grinning. “Not quite. And we never will, now. But we were very good friends for a while. A fascinating, fascinating woman.—What about this cyclic theory of prehistory of hers? Is there anything to it?”

“Not if you listen to some of the other people in her department,” Sheerin said. “They’re really scornful of it. Of course, they’ve all got a vested interest in the established archaeological framework, which says that Beklimot was the first urban center and that if you go back more than a couple of thousand years you can’t find any civilization at all, just primitive shaggy jungle-dwelling folk.”

“But how can they argue away these recurrent catastrophes at the Hill of Thombo?” Theremon asked.

“Scientists who think they know the real story can argue away anything that threatens their beliefs,” Sheerin said. “You scratch an entrenched academic and you’ll find he’s pretty similar in some ways to an Apostle of Flame, underneath. It’s just a different kind of robe they wear.” He took the bottle, which Theremon had been idly holding, and helped himself again. “The deuce with them. Even a layman like me can see that Siferra’s discoveries at Thombo turn our picture of prehistory inside out. The question isn’t whether there were recurrent fires over a period of all those thousands of years. It’s why. ”

Theremon said, “I’ve seen plenty of explanations lately, all of them more or less fantastic. Someone from Kitro University was arguing that there are periodic rains of fire every few thousand years. And we got a letter at the newspaper from someone who claims to be a free-lance astronomer and says he’s ‘proved’ that Kalgash passes through one of the suns every so often. I think there were even wilder things proposed.”

“There’s only one idea that makes any sense,” Beenay said quietly. “Remember the concept of the Sword of Thargola. You have to dispense with the hypotheses that require extra bells and whistles in order to make sense. There’s no reason why a rain of fire should fall on us every now and then, and it’s obvious nonsense to talk about passing through suns. But the eclipse theory is accounted for perfectly by mathematical consideration of the orbit of Kalgash as it’s affected by Universal Gravitation.”

“The eclipse theory may stand up, yes. No doubt it does. We’ll find out pretty soon, eh?” Theremon said. “But apply Thargola’s Sword yourself to what you’ve just said. There’s nothing in the eclipse theory that tells us that there’ll necessarily be tremendous fires immediately afterward.”

“No,” Sheerin said. “There’s nothing about that in the theory. But common sense indicates it. The eclipse will bring Darkness. Darkness will bring madness. And madness will bring the Flames. Which wrecks another couple of millenniums of painful struggle. It all comes to nothing tomorrow. Tomorrow there won’t be a city standing unharmed in all Kalgash.”

“You sound just like the Apostles,” Theremon said angrily. “I heard pretty much the same stuff from Folimun 66 months ago. And told you two about it, I recall, at the Six Suns Club.”

He gazed out the window, past the wooded slopes of Observatory Mount to where the spires of Saro City gleamed bloodily on the horizon. The newsman felt the tension of uncertainty grow within him as he cast a quick glance at Dovim. It glowered redly at zenith, dwarfed and evil.

Doggedly Theremon went on, “I can’t buy your chain of reasoning. Why should I go nuts just because there isn’t a sun in the sky? And even if I do—yes, I haven’t forgotten those poor bastards in the Tunnel of Mystery—even if I do, and everyone else does, how does that harm the cities? Are we going to blow them down?”

“I said the same thing at first,” Beenay put in. “Before I stopped to think things through. If you were in Darkness, what would you want more than anything else—what would it be that every instinct would call for?”

“Why, light, I suppose.”

“Yes!” Sheerin cried, shouting now. “Light, yes! Light!”

“So?”

“And how would you get light?”

Theremon pointed to the switch on the wall. “I’d turn it on.”

“Right,” said Sheerin mockingly. “And the gods in their infinite kindness would provide enough current to give you what you wanted. Because the power company certainly wouldn’t be able to. Not with all the generators grinding to a halt, and the people who operate them stumbling around babbling in the dark, and the same with the transmission-line controllers. You follow me?”

Theremon nodded numbly.

Sheerin said, “Where will light come from, when the generators stop? The godlights, I suppose. They’ve all got batteries. But you may not have a godlight handy. You’ll be out there on the street in the Darkness, and your godlight will be sitting at home, right next to your bed. And you want light. So you burn something, eh, Mr. Theremon? 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 are very well aware of that. And when it’s dark they want light, and they’re going to get it. ”

“So they’ll burn logs,” Theremon said without much conviction.