Isaac Asimov - Nightfall (novel)

Then, on what she believed was the fourth day, Siferra remembered about the Sanctuary.

Her cheeks flamed as she realized that there had been no need for her to have been living this cave-woman life all week.

Of course! How could she have been so stupid? Just a few miles from here at this very moment, hundreds of university people were tucked away safe and sound in the old particle-accelerator lab, drinking bottled water and dining pleasantly on the canned foods that they had spent the last few months stashing away. How ridiculous to be skulking around in this forest full of madmen, scratching in the dirt for her meager meals and looking hungrily at the little forest creatures that cavorted beyond her reach on the branches of the trees!

She would go to the Sanctuary. Somehow there would be a way to get them to take her in. It was a measure of the extent to which the Stars had disrupted her mind, she told herself, that it had taken her as long as this to remember that the Sanctuary was there.

Too bad, she thought, that the idea hadn’t occurred to her earlier. She realized now that she had spent the last few days traveling in precisely the wrong direction.

Directly ahead of her now lay the steep chain of hills that marked the southern boundary of the forest. Looking up, she could see the blackened remains of the posh Onos Heights real estate development along the summit of the hill that rose like a dark wall before her. The Sanctuary, if she remembered correctly, was the opposite way entirely, midway between the campus and Saro City on the highway running along the north side of the forest.

It took her another day and a half to make her way back through the forest to the north side. In the course of the journey she had to use her club twice to fight off attackers. She had three non-violent but edgy staring-matches with young men sizing her up to decide whether she could be jumped. And once she blundered into a sheltered copse where five gaunt wild-eyed men with knives were stalking one another in a circle, like dancers moving in some strange archaic ritual. She got away from there as fast as she could.

Finally she saw the wide highway that was University Road ahead of her, just beyond the forest boundary. Somewhere along the north side of that road was the unobtrusive little country lane that led to the Sanctuary.

Yes: there it was. Hidden, insignificant, bordered on both sides by untidy clumps of weeds and thick grass that had gone to seed.

It was late afternoon. Onos was almost gone from the sky, and the hard baleful light of Tano and Sitha cast sharp shadows across the land that gave the day a wintry look, though the air was mild. The little red eye that was Dovim moved through the northern heavens, still very distant, still very high.

Siferra wondered what had become of the unseeable Kalgash Two. Evidently it had done its terrible work and moved on. By this time it might be a million miles out in space, curving away from the world on its long orbit, riding on and on through the airless dark, not to return for another two thousand and forty-nine years. Which would be at least two million years too soon, thought Siferra bitterly.

A sign appeared before her:

PRIVATE PROPERTY

NO TRESPASSING

BY ORDER OF BOARD OF PROCTORS,

SARO UNIVERSITY

And then a second sign, in vivid scarlet:

!!! DANGER !!!

HIGH ENERGY RESEARCH FACILITY

NO ENTRY

Good. She must be going the right way, then.

Siferra had never been to the Sanctuary, even in the days when it had still been a physics laboratory, but she knew what to expect: a series of gates, and then some sort of scanner post that would monitor anyone who had managed to get this far. Within minutes she had come to the first gate. It was a double-hinged screen of tightly woven metal mesh, rising to perhaps twice her height, with a formidable-looking barbed-wire fence stretching off at either end and disappearing into the brambled underbrush that grew uncontrolledly here.

The gate was ajar.

She studied it, puzzled. Some illusion? Some trick of her muddled mind? No. No, the gate was open, all right. And it was the correct gate. She saw the University Security symbol on it. But why was it open? There was no indication that it had been forced.

Troubled now, she went through.

The road inward was nothing more than a dirt track, deeply rutted and cratered. She followed along its edge, and in a little while she saw an inner barrier, no mere barbed-wire fence here but a solid concrete wall, blank, impregnable-looking.

It was broken only by a gateway of dark metal, with a scanner mounted above it.

And this gate was open too.

Stranger and stranger! What about all the vaunted protection that was supposed to have sealed the Sanctuary away from the general madness that had overtaken the world?

She stepped inside. Everything was very quiet here. Ahead of her lay some scruffy-looking wooden sheds and barns. Perhaps the Sanctuary entrance itself—the mouth of an underground tunnel, Siferra knew—lay behind them. She walked around the outbuildings.

Yes, there was the Sanctuary entrance, an oval door in the ground, with a dark passageway behind it.

And there were people, too, a dozen or so of them, standing in front of it, watching her with chilly, unpleasant curiosity. They all had strips of bright green cloth tied about their throats, as a kind of neckerchief. She didn’t recognize any of them. So far as she could tell, they weren’t university people.

A small bonfire was burning just to the left of the door. Beside it was a pile of chopped logs, elaborately stacked, every piece of wood very neatly arranged according to size with astonishing precision and care. It looked more like some sort of meticulous architect’s model than like a woodpile.

A sickening sense of fear and disorientation swept over her. What was this place? Was it really the Sanctuary? Who were these people?

“Stay right where you are,” said the man at the front of the group. He spoke quietly, but there was whip-snapping authority in his tone. “Put your hands in the air.”

He held a small sleek needle-gun in his hand. It was pointing straight at her midsection.

Siferra obeyed without a word.

He appeared to be about fifty years old, a strong, commanding figure, almost certainly the leader here. His clothing looked costly and his manner was poised and confident. The green neckerchief he wore had the sheen of fine silk.

“Who are you?” he asked calmly, keeping the weapon trained on her.

“Siferra 89, Professor of Archaeology, Saro University.”

“That’s nice. Are you planning to do any archaeology around here, Professor?”

The others laughed as though he had said something very, very funny.

Siferra said, “I’m trying to find the university Sanctuary. Can you tell me where it is?”

“I think this might have been it,” the man replied. “The university people all cleared out of here a few days back. This is Fire Patrol headquarters now.—Tell me, are you carrying any combustibles, Professor?”

“Combustibles?”

“Matches, lighter, a pocket generator, anything that could be used to start a fire.”

She shook her head. “Not any of those things.”

“Fire-starting’s prohibited under Article One of the Emergency Code. If you’re in violation of Article One the punishment is severe.”

Siferra stared at him blankly. What was he talking about?

A thin, sallow-faced man standing beside the leader said, “I don’t trust her, Altinol. It was those professors that started all this. Two to one she’s got something hidden away in her clothes, out of sight somewhere.”

“I have no fire-making equipment anywhere on me,” Siferra said, irritated.

Altinol nodded. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. We won’t take the chance, Professor. Strip.”