Isaac Asimov - Nightfall (novel)

Amgando was doomed. The world would fall by default to Mondior’s people.

Unless—unless—

He had never imagined himself as a hero. Heroes were people he wrote about in his column—people who functioned at the top of their form under extreme circumstances, performing strange and miraculous deeds that the ordinary individual would never dream of even attempting, let alone of carrying off. And now here he was in this strangely transformed world, blithely talking of overpowering hooded cultists with his needle-gun, commandeering a military truck, speeding off to Amgando Park to sound the warning of the oncoming attack—Crazy. Utterly crazy.

But perhaps it might just work, simply because it was so crazy. Nobody would be expecting two people to appear out of thin air down here in this peaceful bucolic setting and simply run off with a truck.

They edged their way down the highway ramp, Theremon a short distance in the lead. A thickly overgrown field lay between them and the camp of the Apostles. “Maybe,” he whispered, “if we get down and wriggle through the tall grass here, and a couple of the Apostles come wandering out this way for some reason, we can rise up and jump them before they know what’s happening.”

He got down. He wriggled.

Siferra went right after him, keeping pace.

Ten yards. Twenty. Just keep going, head down and wriggle, over to that little knoll, and then wait—wait—

A voice said suddenly, just behind him, “What do we have here? A couple of peculiar serpents, is it?”

Theremon turned, looked, gasped.

Gods! Apostles, seven or eight of them! Where had they come from? A private picnic in the field? Which he and Siferra had crawled right past, all unknowing?

“Run for it!” he barked to her. “You go this way—I’ll go that—”

He began to sprint to his left, toward the towers that supported the highway. Maybe he could outrun them—disappear into the wooded country on the other side of the road—

No. No. He was strong and fast, but they were stronger, faster. He saw them coming up alongside him.

“Siferra!” he yelled. “Keep going! Keep—going!”

Perhaps she had actually made it to safety. He couldn’t see her now. The Apostles were all around him. He reached for his needle-gun, but one of them caught his arm immediately, and another got him by the throat. The gun was yanked from his hand. Legs poked between his, entangling him, tripping him. He fell heavily, rolled over, looked up. Five hooded faces, unsmiling, rigid, looked back. One of the Apostles had his own needle-gun aimed at his chest.

“Get up,” the Apostle said. “Slowly. With your hands in the air.”

Awkwardly Theremon stumbled to his feet.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” the Apostle demanded.

“I live around here. My wife and I were just taking a shortcut through these fields, back to our house—”

“The nearest farm is five miles away. A very long shortcut.” The Apostle gestured with a nod of his head toward the camp. “Come with us. Folimun will want to talk to you.”

Folimun!

So he had survived the night of the eclipse after all. And was in charge of the expedition against Amgando!

Theremon glanced around. No sign of Siferra at all. He hoped she was back on the highway by now, heading for Amgando as fast as she could go. A slim hope, but the only one left.

The Apostles marched him toward the camp. It was a weird sensation to be among so many hooded figures. Scarcely any of them paid attention to him, though, as his captors nudged him along, into the largest of the tents.

Folimun was seated at a bench near the back of the tent, looking through a sheaf of papers. He turned his chilly blue eyes on Theremon and his thin, sharp face softened for an instant as a smile of surprise crossed it.

“Theremon? You here? What are you doing—covering us for the Chronicle? ”

“I’m traveling south, Folimun. Taking a little holiday, since things are a little unsettled back in the city. Would you mind asking these thugs of yours to let go of me?”

“Release him,” Folimun said.—“Where are you heading, exactly, eh?”

“That’s of no importance to you.”

“Let me be the judge of that. Going to Amgando, are you, Theremon?”

Theremon offered the cultist a cold level stare. “I don’t see any reason why I should tell you anything.”

“After all that I told you, when you interviewed me?”

“Very funny.”

“I want to know where you’re heading, Theremon.”

Stall, Theremon thought. Stall him as long as you can.

“I decline to answer that question, or any other you might happen to have for me. I’ll discuss my intentions only with Mondior himself,” he said in a steady, determined tone.

Folimun made no reply for a moment. Then he smiled again, a quick on-off. And then, suddenly, unexpectedly, he broke into actual laughter. Theremon wondered if he had ever seen Folimun laugh before. “Mondior?” Folimun said, his eyes glinting with amusement. “There is no Mondior, my friend. There never was.”

It was hard for Siferra to believe that she had actually managed to escape. But that was indeed what appeared to have happened.

Most of the Apostles who had surprised them in the field had gone after Theremon. Looking back once, she had seen them surrounding him like hunters’ hounds surrounding their prey. They had knocked him down; he would certainly be captured.

Only two of the Apostles had split off to pursue her. Siferra had jabbed one in the face, hard, with the flat of her hand at the end of her stiff outstretched arm, and at the speed she was traveling the impact had sent him reeling to the ground. The remaining one was fat and ungainly and slow; in moments Siferra left him far behind.

She doubled back the way she and Theremon had come, toward the elevated highway. But it seemed unwise to go up onto it. The highway was too easily blocked, and there was no safe way down from it except at the exit ramps. She would only be putting herself at risk of running into a trap if she went up there. And even if no roadblocks lay ahead, it would be a simple thing for the Apostles to come after her in their trucks and pick her up, a mile or two down the way.

No, the thing to do was to run into the woods on the far side of the road. The Apostles’ trucks wouldn’t be able to follow her there. She could lose herself easily enough in those low shrubby trees, and hide there until she had figured out her next move.

And what could that be? she wondered.

She had to admit that Theremon’s idea, wild as it was, still was their only hope: steal a truck somehow, drive down to Amgando and sound the alarm before the Apostles could get their army on the move again.

But Siferra knew there wasn’t the remotest chance that she could simply tiptoe up to an empty truck, jump in, and drive it away. The Apostles weren’t that stupid. She’d have to order one of them at gunpoint to switch the truck on for her and surrender its controls to her. And that involved carrying out the whole bizarre maneuver of trying to overpower a stray Apostle, getting his robe, slipping into the camp, locating someone who could open up one of the trucks for her—

Her heart sank. It was all too implausible. She might just as well consider trying to rescue Theremon while she was at it—go marching in with her needle-gun blazing, take hostages, demand his immediate release—oh, it was absolute foolishness, a silly melodramatic dream, a gaudy maneuver out of some cheap children’s adventure book—

But what will I do? What will I do?

She huddled down in a copse of tightly woven little trees with long feathery leaves and waited for time to pass. The Apostles gave no sign of breaking camp: she could still see the smoke of their bonfire against the twilight sky, and their trucks were still parked where they had been along the road.