Isaac Asimov - Nightfall (novel)

Evening was coming on. Onos was gone from the sky. Dovim hovered on the horizon. The only suns overhead were her two least favorite ones, bleak and cheerless Tano and Sitha, casting their cold light from their distant location at the edge of the universe. Or what people had thought was the edge of the universe, rather, in those far-off innocent days before the Stars appeared and revealed to them just how immense the universe really was.

The hours ticked interminably by. No solution to the situation made sense to her. Amgando seemed lost, unless someone else had managed to get a warning to them—certainly there was no way she was going to get down there ahead of the Apostles. Rescuing Theremon was an absurd idea. Her chances of stealing a truck and getting to Amgando by herself was only slightly less preposterous.

What then? Simply sit back and watch while the Apostles took command of everything?

There seemed to be no alternative.

At one point during the evening she thought that the only path open to her was to walk into the Apostles’ camp, surrender, and ask to be imprisoned with Theremon. At least they would be together then. It astonished her how much she missed him. They had not been out of each other’s company in weeks, she who had never lived with a man in her life. And all during the long journey from Saro City, though they had bickered now and then, even quarreled a little, she had never tired of being with him. Not once. It had seemed the most natural thing in the world for them to be together. And now she was alone again.

Go on, she told herself. Give yourself up. Everything’s lost anyway, isn’t it?

It grew darker. Clouds veiled Sitha and Tano’s frosty light, and the sky turned so dusky that she half expected the Stars to reappear.

Go ahead, she thought bitterly. Come out and shine. Drive everyone crazy all over again. What harm can it do? The world can only be smashed once, and that’s been done already.

But the Stars, of course, did not appear. Veiled as they were, Tano and Sitha nevertheless afforded enough light to mask the glow of those distant points of mysterious brilliance. And as the hours went by, Siferra found herself swinging completely around from her mood of total defeatism to a new sense of almost reckless hope.

When all is lost, she told herself, there’s nothing left to lose. Under cover of this evening gloom she would slip into the Apostles’ camp and—somehow, somehow—take one of their trucks. And rescue Theremon, too, if she could manage it. And then off to Amgando! By the time Onos was in the sky tomorrow morning, she’d be down there, among her university friends, in plenty of time to let them know that they had to scatter before the enemy army arrived.

All right, she thought. Let’s go.

Slowly—slowly—more cautiously than before, just in case they have sentries hidden in the grass—

Out of the woods. A moment of uncertainty, there: she felt tremendously vulnerable, now that she had left the safety of that tangle of shrubbery behind. But the dimness still protected her. Across the cleared place, now, that led from the woods to the elevated highway. Under the great metal legs of the roadbed and into the unkempt field where she and Theremon had been surprised that afternoon.

Get down and wriggle, now, the way they had before. Once again across the field—looking this way and that, scanning for sentries who might be on duty at the perimeter of the Apostles’ camp—

Her needle-gun was in her hand, set for minimum aperture, the sharpest, most highly focused, deadliest beam the gun could produce. If anyone came upon her now, so much the worse for him. There was too much at stake to worry about the niceties of civilized morality. While still half out of her mind she had killed Balik in the Archaeology lab, not meaning to, but he was dead all the same; and, a little to her surprise, she found herself quite ready to kill again, this time intentionally, if circumstances required it of her. The important thing was to get a vehicle and get out of here and carry the news of the Apostles’ army’s approach to Amgando. Everything else, including considerations of morality, was secondary. Everything. This was war.

Onward. Head down, eyes raised, body hunched. She was only a few dozen yards from the camp now.

It was very silent over there. Probably most of them were asleep. In the murky grayness Siferra thought she could see a couple of figures on the far side of the main bonfire, though the smoke rising from the fire made it difficult to be sure. The thing to do, she thought, was to slip into the deep shadows behind one of the trucks and toss a rock against a tree some distance away. The sentries would probably investigate; and if they fanned out separately, she could slip up behind one of them, jab the needler into his back, warn him to keep quiet, make him strip off his robe—

No, she thought. Don’t warn him of anything. Just shoot him, quickly, and take his robe, before he can call out an alarm. These are Apostles, after all Fanatics.

Her own newfound cold-bloodedness amazed her.

Onward. Onward. She was almost at the nearest truck now. Into the darkness on the side opposite the campfire. Where’s a rock? Here. Here, this is a good one. Shift the needler to the left hand for a moment. Now, toss the rock at that big tree over there—

She raised her arm to make the throw. And in that moment she felt a hand seize her left wrist from behind and a powerful arm clamp across her throat.

Caught!

Shock and outrage and a jolt of maddening frustration went coursing through her. Furiously Siferra lashed out with her foot, kicking backward with all her strength, and connecting. She heard a grunt of pain. Not enough to break the man’s strong grip, though. Twisting halfway around, she kicked again, and attempted at the same time to pass the needle-gun from her left hand to her right.

But her assailant pulled her left arm upward in a short, sharp, agonizing gesture that numbed her and sent the needler spilling out of her hand. The other arm, the one that was pressing against her throat, tightened to choking intensity. She coughed and gasped.

Darkness! Of all the stupidity, to let someone sneak up on her while she was sneaking up on them!

Tears of rage burned her cheeks. In fury she kicked backward again, and then again.

“Easy,” a deep voice whispered. “You could hurt me that way, Siferra.”

“Theremon?” she said, astounded.

“Who do you think it is? Mondior?”

The pressure at her throat eased. The hand that clutched her wrist released its grasp. She took a couple of tottering steps forward, fighting for breath. Then, numb with confusion, she swung around to stare at him.

“How did you get free?” she asked.

He grinned. “A holy miracle, it was. An absolute holy miracle.—I watched you the whole time, coming from the woods. You were very good, really. But you were concentrating so hard on getting here unnoticed that you didn’t notice me circling around behind you.”

“Thank all the gods it was you, Theremon. Even if you did give me the shock of my life when you grabbed me.—But why are we standing here? Quick, let’s grab one of those trucks and clear out of here before they see us.”

“No,” he said. “That isn’t the plan any more.”

She gave him a blank look. “I don’t understand.”

“You will.” To her amazement he clapped his hands and called loudly, “Over here, fellows! Here she is!”

“Theremon ! Are you out of your—”

The beam of a flashlight struck her in the face with an impact nearly as devastating as the one the Stars had had. She stood blinded, shaking her head in bewilderment and consternation. There were figures moving all around her, but it was another moment before her eyes adapted sufficiently to the sudden brightness for her to make them out.