Isaac Asimov - Nightfall (novel)

“One thing at a time,” Altinol said. His voice was measured. “First we try to stumble back out of anarchy. Then we think about putting the country together again and worry about who’s going to be Prime Executive. We have the problem of the Apostles, for example, who have seized control of the entire north side of the city and the territory beyond, and placed it under religious authority. They won’t be easy to displace.” Altinol smiled coolly. “First things first, my friend.”

“And for Theremon,” Siferra said, “the first thing is a bath, and then a meal. He’s been living in the forest since Nightfall.—Come with me,” she said to him.

Partitions had been set up all along the old particle-accelerator track, carving it up into a long series of little rooms. Siferra showed him to one in which copper pipes mounted overhead carried water to a porcelain tank. “It won’t be really warm,” she warned him. “We only run the boilers a couple of hours a day, because the fuel supply is so low. But it’s bound to be better than bathing in a chilly forest stream.—You knew something about Altinol?”

“Chairman of Morthaine Industries, the big shipping combine. He was in the news a year or two back, something about wangling a contract by possibly irregular means to develop a huge real-estate tract on government land in Nibro Province.”

“What does a shipping combine have to do with real-estate development?” Siferra asked.

“That’s exactly the point. Nothing at all. He was accused of using improper government influence—something about offering lifetime passes on his cruise line to senators, I think—” Theremon shrugged. “Makes no difference now, really. There’s no more Morthaine Industries, no more real-estate developing to be done, no Federal senators to bribe. He probably didn’t like my recognizing him.”

“He probably didn’t care. Running the Fire Patrol is all that matters to him now.”

“For the time being,” said Theremon. “Today the Saro City Fire Patrol, tomorrow the world. You heard him talking about displacing the Apostles who’ve grabbed the far side of the city. Well, someone’s got to do it. And he’s the kind who enjoys running things.”

Siferra went out. Theremon lowered himself into the porcelain tank.

Not exactly sybaritic. But pretty wonderful, after all he had been through lately. He leaned back and closed his eyes and relaxed. And luxuriated.

Siferra took him to the Sanctuary dining hall, a simple tin-roofed chamber, when he was finished with his bath, and left him there by himself, telling him she had to make her day’s report to Altinol. A meal was waiting for him there—one of the packaged dinners that had been stockpiled here in the months that the Sanctuary was being set up. Lukewarm vegetables, tepid meat of some unknown kind, a pale green non-alcoholic drink of nondescript flavor.

It all tasted wondrously delicious to Theremon.

He forced himself to eat slowly, carefully, knowing that his body was unaccustomed to real food after his time in the forest; every mouthful had to be thoroughly chewed or he’d get sick, he knew, though his instinct was to bolt it as fast as he could and ask for a second helping.

After he had eaten Theremon sat back, staring dully at the ugly tin wall. He wasn’t hungry any more. And his frame of mind was beginning to change for the worse. Despite the bath, despite the meal, despite the comfort of knowing he was safe in this well-defended Sanctuary, he found himself slipping into a mood of the deepest desolation.

He felt very weary. And dispirited, and full of gloom.

It had been a pretty good world, he thought. Not perfect, far from it, but good enough. Most people had been reasonably happy, most were prosperous, there was progress being made on all fronts—toward deeper scientific understanding, toward greater economic expansion, toward stronger global cooperation. The concept of war had come to seem quaintly medieval and the age-old religious bigotries were mostly obsolete, or so it had seemed to him.

And now it was all gone, in one short span of hours, in a single burst of horrifying Darkness.

A new world would be born from the ashes of the old, of course. It was always that way: Siferra’s excavations at Thombo testified to that.

But what sort of world would it be? Theremon wondered. The answer to that was already at hand. It would be a world in which people killed other people for a scrap of meat, or because they had violated a superstition about fire, or simply because killing seemed like a diverting thing to do. A world in which the Altinols came forward to take advantage of the chaos and gain power for themselves. A world in which the Folimuns and Mondiors, no doubt, were scheming to emerge as the dictators of thought—probably working hand in hand with the Altinols, Theremon thought morbidly. A world in which—

No. He shook his head. What was the point of all this dark, brooding lamentation?

Siferra had the right notion, he told himself. There was no sense in speculating about what might have been. What we have to deal with is what is . At least he was alive, and his mind was pretty much whole again, and he had come through his ordeal in the forest more or less intact, aside from a few bruises and cuts that would heal in a couple of days. Despair was a useless emotion now: it was a luxury that he couldn’t allow himself, any more than Siferra would allow herself the luxury of still being angry at him over the newspaper pieces he had written.

What was done was done. Now it was time to pick up and move onward, regroup, rebuild, make a fresh start. To look back was folly. To look forward in dismay or despondency was mere cowardice.

“Finished?” Siferra said, returning to the dining hall. “I know, not magnificent food. But it beats eating graben.”

“I couldn’t say. I never actually got to eat any graben.”

“You probably didn’t miss much. Come: I’ll show you to your room.”

It was a low-ceilinged cubicle of no great elegance: a bed with a godlight on the floor beside it, a washstand, a single dangling light fixture. Scattered in one corner were some books and newspapers that must have been left behind by those who had occupied this room on the evening of the eclipse. Theremon saw a copy of the Chronicle opened to the page of his column, and winced: it was one of his last pieces, a particularly intemperate onslaught on Athor and his group. He reddened and pushed it out of sight with his foot.

Siferra said, “What are you going to do now, Theremon?”

“Do?”

“I mean, once you’ve had a chance to rest up a little.”

“I haven’t given it much thought. Why?”

“Altinol wants to know if you’re planning to join the Fire Patrol,” she said.

“Is that an invitation?”

“He’s willing to take you aboard. You’re the kind of person that he needs, someone strong, someone capable of dealing with people.”

“Yes,” Theremon said. “I’d be good here, wouldn’t I?”

“But he’s uneasy about one thing. There’s room for only one boss in the Patrol, and that’s Altinol. If you joined up, he’d want you to understand right from the beginning that what Altinol says goes, without any argument. He’s not sure how good you are at taking orders.”

“I’m not so sure how good I am at that either,” Theremon said. “But I can see Altinol’s point of view.”

“Will you join, then? I know there are problems with the whole Patrol setup. But at least it’s a force for order, and we need something like that now. And Altinol may be highhanded, but he’s not evil. I’m convinced of that. He simply thinks the times call for strong measures and decisive leadership. Which he’s capable of supplying.”