Part 3 (1/2)
”Eh?” Theremon licked dry lips and then tried to smile. ”I don't feel very well, and that's a fact.”
The psychologist's eyes hardened. ”You're not losing your nerve?”
”No!” cried Theremon in a flash of indignation. ”Give me a chance, will you? I haven't really believed this rigmarole -- not way down beneath, anyway -- till just this minute. Give me a chance to get used to the idea. You've been preparing yourself for two months or more.”
”You're right, at that,” replied Sheerin thoughtfully. ”Listen! Have you got a family -- parents, wife, children?”
Theremon shook his head. ”You mean the Hideout, I suppose. No, you don't have to worry about that. I have a sister, but she's two thousand miles away. I don't even know her exact address.”
”Well, then, what about yourself? You've got time to get there, and they're one short anyway, since I left. After all, you're not needed here, and you'd make a darned fine addition -- ”
Theremon looked at the other wearily. ”You think I'm scared stiff, don't you? Well, get this, mister. I'm a newspaperman and I've been a.s.signed to cover a story. I intend covering it.”
There was a faint smile on the psychologist's face. ”I see. Professional honor, is that it?”
”You might call it that. But, man. I'd give my right arm for another bottle of that sockeroo juice even half the size of the one you bogged. If ever a fellow needed a drink, I do.”
He broke off. Sheerin was nudging him violently. ”Do you hear that? Listen!”
Theremon followed the motion of the other's chin and stared at the Cultist, who, oblivious to all about him, faced the window, a look of wild elation on his face, droning to himself the while in singsong fas.h.i.+on.
”What's he saying?” whispered the columnist.
”He's quoting Book of Revelations, fifth chapter,” replied Sheerin. Then, urgently, ”Keep quiet and listen, I tell you.”
The Cultist's voice had risen in a sudden increase of fervor: ' ”And it came to pa.s.s that in those days the Sun, Beta, held lone vigil in the sky for ever longer periods asthe revolutions pa.s.sed; until such time as for full half a revolution, it alone, shrunken and cold, shone down upon Lagash.
” 'And men did a.s.semble in the public squares and in the highways, there to debate and to marvel at the sight, for a strange depression had seized them. Their minds were troubled and their speech confused, for the souls of men awaited the coming of the Stars.
” 'And in the city of Trigon, at high noon, Vendret 2 came forth and said unto the men of Trigon, ”Lo, ye sinners! Though ye scorn the ways of righteousness, yet will the time of reckoning come. Even now the Cave approaches to swallow Lagash; yea, and all it contains.”
” 'And even as he spoke the lip of the Cave of Darkness pa.s.sed the edge of Beta so that to all Lagash it was hidden from sight. Loud were the cries of men as it vanished, and great the fear of soul that fell upon them.
” 'It came to pa.s.s that the Darkness of the Cave fell upon Lagash, and there was no light on all the surface of Lagash. Men were even as blinded, nor could one man see his neighbor, though he felt his breath upon his face.
” 'And in this blackness there appeared the Stars, in countless numbers, and to the strains of music of such beauty that the very leaves of the trees cried out in wonder.
” 'And in that moment the souls of men departed from them, and their abandoned bodies became even as beasts; yea, even as brutes of the wild; so that through the blackened streets of the cities of Lagash they prowled with wild cries.
” 'From the Stars there then reached down the Heavenly Flame, and where it touched, the cities of Lagash flamed to utter destruction, so that of man and of the works of man nought remained.
” 'Even then -- ' '
There was a subtle change in Latimer's tone. His eyes had not s.h.i.+fted, but somehow he had become aware of the absorbed attention of the other two. Easily, without pausing for breath, the timbre of his voice s.h.i.+fted and the syllables became more liquid.
Theremon, caught by surprise, stared. The words seemed on the border of familiarity. There was an elusive s.h.i.+ft in the accent, a tiny change in the vowel stress; nothing more -- yet Latimer had become thoroughly unintelligible.
Sheerin smiled slyly. ”He s.h.i.+fted to some old-cycle tongue, probably their traditional second cycle. That was the language in which the Book of Revelations was originally written, you know.”
”It doesn't matter; I've heard enough.” Theremon shoved his chair back and brushed his hair back with hands that no longer shook. ”I feel much better now.”
”You do?” Sheerin seemed mildly surprised.
”I'll say I do. I had a bad case of jitters just a while back. Listening to you and your gravitation and seeing that eclipse start almost finished me. But this” -- he jerked a contemptuous thumb at the yellow-bearded Cultist -- ”this is the sort of thing my nurse used to tell me. I've been laughing at that sort of thing all my life. I'm not going to let it scare me now.”
He drew a deep breath and said with a hectic gaiety, ”But if I expect to keep on the good side of myself. I'm going to turn my chair away from the window.”
Sheerin said, ”Yes, but you'd better talk lower. Aton just lifted his head out of that box he's got it stuck into and gave you a look that should have killed you.”
Theremon made a mouth. ”I forgot about the old fellow.” With elaborate care he turned the chair from the window, cast one distasteful look over his shoulder, and said, ”It has occurred to me that there must be considerable immunity against this Star madness.”
The psychologist did not answer immediately. Beta was past its zenith now, and the square of b.l.o.o.d.y sunlight that outlined the window upon the floor had lifted into Sheerin's lap. He stared at its dusky color thoughtfully and then bent and squinted into the sun itself.
The chip in its side had grown to a black encroachment that covered a third of Beta. He shuddered, and when he straightened once more his florid cheeks did not contain quite as much color as they had had previously.
With a smile that was almost apologetic, he reversed his chair also. ”There are probably two million people in Saro City that are all trying to join the Cult at once in one gigantic revival.” Then, ironically. ”The Cult is in for an hour of unexampled prosperity. I trust they'll make the most of it. Now, what was it you said?”
”Just this. How did the Cultists manage to keep the Book of Revelations going from cycle to cycle, and how on Lagash did it get written in the first place? There must have been some sort of immunity, for if everyone had gone mad, who would be left to write the book?”
Sheerin stared at his questioner ruefully. ”Well, now, young man, there isn't any eyewitness answer to that, but we've got a few d.a.m.ned good notions as to what happened. You see. there are three kinds of people who might remain relatively unaffected. First, the very few who don't see the Stars at all: the seriously r.e.t.a.r.ded or those who drink themselves into a stupor at the beginning of the eclipse and remain so to the end. We leave them out -- because they aren't really witnesses.
”Then there are children below six, to whom the world as a whole is too new and strange for them to be too frightened at Stars and Darkness. They would be just another item in an already surprising world. You see that, don't you?”
The other nodded doubtfully. ”I suppose so.”
”Lastly, there are those whose minds are too coa.r.s.ely grained to be entirely toppled. The very insensitive would be scarcely affected -- oh, such people as some of our older, work-broken peasants. Well, the children would have fugitive memories, and that, combined with the confused, incoherent babblings of the half-mad morons, formed the basis for the Book of Revelations.
”Naturally, the book was based, in the first place, on the testimony of those least qualified to serve as historians; that is, children and morons; and was probably edited and re-edited through the cycles.”
”Do you suppose,” broke in Theremon, ”that they carried the book through the cycles the way we're planning on handing on the secret of gravitation?”
Sheerin shrugged. ”Perhaps, but their exact method is unimportant. They do it, somehow. The point I was getting at was that the book can't help but be a ma.s.s of distortion, even if it is based on fact. For instance, do you remember the experiment with the holes in the roof that Faro and Yimot tried -- the one that didn't work?”
”Yes.”
”You know why it didn't w -- ” He stopped and rose in alarm, for Aton was approaching, his face a twisted mask of consternation. ”What's happened?”
Aton drew him aside and Sheerin could feel the fingers on his elbow twitching.
”Not so loud!” Aton's voice was low and tortured. ”I've just gotten word from the Hideout on the private line.”
Sheerin broke in anxiously. ”They are in trouble?”
”Not they.” Aton stressed the p.r.o.noun significantly. ”They sealed themselves off just a while ago, and they're going to stay buried till day after tomorrow. They're safe. But the city. Sheerin -- it's a shambles. You have no idea -- ” He was having difficulty in speaking.
”Well?” snapped Sheerin impatiently. ”What of it? It will get worse. What are you shaking about?” Then, suspiciously, ”How do you feel?”
Aton's eyes sparked angrily at the insinuation, and then faded to anxiety once more. ”You don't understand. The Cultists are active. They're rousing the people to storm the Observatory -- promising them immediate entrance into grace, promising them salvation, promising them anything. What are we to do, Sheerin?”
Sheerin's head bent, and he stared in long abstraction at his toes. He tapped his chin with one knuckle, then looked up and said crisply, ”Do? What is there to do? Nothing at all. Do the men know of this?”