Nightfall

by Isaac Asimov

  “Great gods!” Sheerin cried. “Are they all spaced as evenly as that?”

  “Every one of them. The fires occurred at intervals of a little more than twenty centuries. Allowing for the slight inaccuracies that are inevitable in radiocarbon dating, it’s still altogether permissible to propose that in fact they took place exactly two thousand and forty-nine years apart. Which, as Beenay has demonstrated, is precisely the frequency at which eclipses of Dovim occur. —And also,” Siferra added in a bleak voice, “the length of what the Apostles of Flame call a Year of Godliness, at the end of which the world is supposed to be destroyed by fire.”

  “An effect of the mass insanity, yes,” Sheerin said hollowly. “When the Darkness comes, people will want light—of any sort. Torches. Bonfires. Burn anything! Burn the furniture. Burn houses.”

  “No,” Beenay muttered.

  “Remember,” Sheerin said, “these people won’t be sane. They’ll be like small children—but they’ll have the bodies of adults and the remnants of the minds of adults. They’ll know how to use matches. They just won’t remember the consequences of lighting a lot of fires all over the place.”

  “No,” Beenay said again, hopelessly. “No. No.” It wasn’t a statement of disbelief any longer.

  Siferra said, “It could be argued originally that the fires at Thombo were a purely local event—an odd coincidence, such a rigid pattern of regular occurrence over such an immense span of time, but confined only to that one place, perhaps even a peculiar ritual cleansing practiced there. Since no other ancient sites as old as those of Sagikan have been found anywhere else on Kalgash, we couldn’t say otherwise. But Beenay’s calculations have changed everything. Now we see that every two thousand and forty-nine years the world is—apparently—plunged into Darkness. As Sheerin says, fires would be lit. And would get out of control. Whatever other settlements existed at the time of the Thombo fires, anywhere in the world, would have been destroyed just as the Thombo cities were, and for the same reason. But Thombo is all we have left from the prehistoric era. As the Apostles of Flame say of it, it is a holy place, the place where the gods have made themselves manifest to humanity.”

  “And perhaps are making themselves manifest once more,” said Athor darkly. “By providing us with evidence of the fires of past epochs.”

  Beenay looked at him. “So you have come to believe the Apostles’ teachings, sir?”

  To Athor, Beenay’s statement seemed almost like a blunt accusation of madness. It was a moment before he could reply.

  But then he said, as calmly as he could, “Believe them? No. No, not quite. But they interest me, Beenay. I’m horrified at the need even to pose this question: but what if the Apostles are right? We have clear indications now that Darkness does come at just the two-thousand-and-forty-nine-year interval that they’ve mentioned in their Book of Revelations. Sheerin here says that the world would go mad if that happened, and we have Siferra’s evidence that one small section of the world, at least, did go mad, again and again, its houses swept by fire at that two-thousand-and-forty-nine-year interval that we keep coming upon.”

  “What are you suggesting, then?” Beenay asked. “That we join the Apostles?”

  Again Athor had to fight off anger. “No, Beenay. Simply that we look into their beliefs and see what sort of use we can make of them!”

  “Use?” cried Sheerin and Siferra, almost at the same moment.

  “Yes! Use!” Athor knotted his great gaunt hands together and swung around to face them all. “Don’t you see that the survival of human civilization may depend entirely on the four of us? It comes down to just that, doesn’t it? Melodramatic as it sounds, we four are in possession of what is beginning to look like incontrovertible proof that the end of the world is sweeping down on us. Universal Darkness—bringing universal madness—a worldwide conflagration—our cities in flames, our society shattered. But there is already in existence another group that has been predicting, on the basis of who knows what evidence, the very same calamity—to the year, to the day.”

  “Theptar nineteenth,” Beenay murmured.

  “Theptar nineteenth, yes. The day when only Dovim will shine in the sky—and, if we are right, Kalgash Two will arrive, rising out of its invisibility to fill our sky and blot out all light. That day, the Apostles tell us, fire will engulf our cities. How do they know? A lucky guess? Mere myth-spinning?”

  “Some of what they say makes no sense at all,” Beenay pointed out. “For example, they say Stars will appear in the heavens. What are Stars? Where are they going to come from?”

  Athor shrugged. “I have no idea. That part of the Apostles’ teachings may very well be a fable. But they seem to have some sort of record of past eclipses, out of which they’ve built their current dire predictions. We need to know more about those records.”

  “Why us?” Beenay asked.

  “Because we—as scientists—can serve as leaders, figures of authority, in the struggle to save civilization that lies ahead,” said Athor. “Only if the nature of the danger is made known right here and now does society stand any chance of protecting itself against what’s going to happen. But as it is, only the gullible and ignorant pay any heed to the Apostles. Most intelligent, rational folk look upon them the same way we do—as cranks, as fools, as madmen, perhaps as swindlers. What we need to do is persuade the Apostles to share their astronomical and archaelogical data, if they have any, with us. And then we go public. We reveal our findings, and we back them up with the material we receive, if we do, from the Apostles. In essence we form an alliance with them against the chaos that both we and they think is coming. That way we can gain the attention of all strata of society, from the most credulous to the most critical.”

  “So you want us to stop being scientists and enter the world of politics?” Siferra asked. “I don’t like that. This isn’t our job at all. I vote for turning our material over to the government, and letting them—”

  “The government!” Beenay snorted.

  “Beenay’s right,” said Sheerin. “I know what government people are like. They’ll form a committee, and issue a report—eventually—and file the report away, and then later on they’ll form another committee to dig out whatever it was that the first committee discovered, and then take a vote, and—No, we don’t have the time for all that. It’s our duty to speak out ourselves. I know at first hand what Darkness does to people’s minds. Athor and Beenay, you have mathematical proof that Darkness is coming soon. You, Siferra, you’ve seen what Darkness has done to past civilizations.”

  “But do we dare seek out the Apostles?” Beenay asked. “Won’t we be endangering our own reputations for scientific responsibility if we have anything to do with them?”

  “Good point,” Siferra said. “We have to keep away from them!”

  Athor frowned. “Perhaps you’re right. It may have been naive of me to suggest that we could form any sort of working partnership with those people. I withdraw the suggestion.”

  “Wait,” said Beenay. “I have a friend—you know him, Sheerin, he’s the newspaperman Theremon—who’s already been in touch with some high official of the Apostles. He might be able to arrange a secret meeting between Athor and that High Apostle. You could sound the Apostles out, sir, and see if they know anything worth our having—just by way of obtaining even more confirming evidence for ourselves—and we can always deny the meeting took place, if it turns out they don’t.”

  “That’s a possibility,” Athor said. “Distasteful as it would be, I’d be willing to meet with them. —I assume, then, that none of you has any fundamental dispute now with my basic suggestion? You agree with me that it’s essential that we four take some action in response to what we’ve discovered?”

  “I do now,” Beenay said, glancing at Sheerin. “I still intend to survive the Darkness myself. But everything that’s been said here today leads me to realize that a lot of others won’t. Nor will civilization itself—unless we do something.”
>
  Athor nodded. “Very well. Talk to your friend Theremon. Cautiously, though. You know how I feel about the press. Journalists aren’t much more to my liking than the Apostles are. But very carefully let your Theremon understand that I’d like to meet privately with this Apostle he knows.”

  “I will, sir.”

  “You, Sheerin: get together all the literature you can find concerning the effects of exposure to prolonged Darkness, and let me have it.”

  “No problem there, Doctor.”

  “And you, Siferra—may I have a report, suitable for the understanding of laymen, on your Thombo excavation? With every scrap of evidence you are able to supply concerning this repetitive-conflagration business.”

  “Some of it’s not ready yet, Dr. Athor. Material I didn’t discuss today.”

  Athor’s brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “Inscribed clay tablets,” she said. “Found in the third and fifth levels from the top. Dr. Mudrin is attempting the very difficult task of translating them. His preliminary opinion is that they’re some kind of priestly warning of the coming fire.”

  “The first edition of the Book of Revelations!” Beenay shouted.

  “Well, yes, perhaps that is what they are,” Siferra said, laughing without much sign of amusement. “At any rate, I hope to have the tablet texts soon. And then I’ll get all the material together for you, Dr. Athor.”

  “Good,” Athor said. “We’ll need everything we can get. This is going to be the job of our lives.” He glanced once more at each of the others in turn. “One important thing to remember, though: my willingness to engage in an approach to the Apostles does not mean that I intend in any way to provide a blanket of respectability for them. I merely hope to find out what they have that will help us to convince the world of what’s about to happen, period. Otherwise I’ll do what I can to distance myself from them. I want no mysticism involved here. I don’t believe a shred of their mumbo-jumbo—I simply want to know how they’ve arrived at their conclusions of catastrophe. And I want the rest of you to be similarly on your guard in any dealings with them. Understood?”

  “This is all like a dream,” Beenay said softly.

  “A very bad one,” said Athor. “Every atom in my soul cries out that this isn’t happening, that it’s utter fantasy, that the world will keep right on going past next Theptar nineteenth without any harm coming to it. Unfortunately, the figures tell the story.” He looked out the window. Onos now was gone from the sky, and Dovim was only a dot against the horizon. Twilight had descended, and the only real illumination that was visible was the ghostly, uncomforting light of Patru and Trey. “There’s no longer any way for us to doubt it. Darkness will come. Perhaps the Stars, whatever they may be, really will shine forth. Fires will blaze. The end of the world as we know it is at hand. The end of the world!”

  TWO

  NIGHTFALL

  [18]

  “You’d better be careful,” Beenay said. He was beginning to feel tense. Evening was coming on—the evening of the eclipse, so long awaited by him with fear and trembling. “Athor’s furious with you, Theremon. I can’t believe you came here now. You know you’re not supposed to be anywhere on the premises. Especially not this evening, of all times to show up. You ought to be able to understand that, when you consider the sort of things you’ve been writing about him lately—”

  The journalist chuckled. “I told you. I can calm him down.”

  “Don’t be too sure of that, Theremon. You basically called him a superannuated crackbrain in your column, remember? The old man’s calm and steely most of the time, but when he’s pushed too far he’s got an amazing temper.”

  Theremon said, with a shrug, “Look, Beenay, before I was a big-shot columnist I was a kid reporter who specialized in doing all sorts of impossible interviews, and I mean impossible. I’d come home every evening with bruises, black eyes, sometimes a broken bone or two, but I always got my story. You develop a certain degree of confidence in yourself after you’ve spent a few years routinely driving people out of their minds for the sake of getting a story. I’ll be able to take care of Athor.”

  “Driving people out of their minds?” Beenay said. He glanced meaningfully toward the calendar-plate high in the wall of the corridor. In gleaming green letters it announced the date: 19 THEPTAR. The day of days, the one that had been blazing in everyone’s mind, here at the Observatory, month after month. The last day of sanity that many, perhaps most, of the people of Kalgash would ever know. “Not the best choice of words this evening, wouldn’t you say?”

  Theremon smiled. “Maybe you’re right. We’ll see.” He pointed toward the closed door of Athor’s office. “Who’s in there right now?”

  “Athor, of course. And Thilanda—she’s one of the astronomers. Davnit, Simbron, Hikkinan, all Observatory staffers. That’s about it.”

  “What about Siferra? She said she’d be here.”

  “Well, she isn’t, not yet.”

  A look of surprise appeared on Theremon’s face. “Really? When I asked her the other day if she would opt for the Sanctuary she practically laughed in my face. She was dead set on watching the eclipse from here. I can’t believe she’s changed her mind. That woman isn’t afraid of anything, Beenay. Well, maybe she’s tidying up a few last-minute things over at her office.”

  “Very likely.”

  “And our chubby friend Sheerin? He’s not here either?”

  “No, not Sheerin. He’s in the Sanctuary.”

  “Not the bravest of men, is he, our Sheerin?”

  “At least he’s got the good sense to admit it. Raissta’s at the Sanctuary too, and Athor’s wife Nyilda, and just about everybody else I know, except us few Observatory people. If you were smart you’d be there yourself, Theremon. When the Darkness gets here this evening you’ll wish that you were.”

  “The Apostle Folimun 66 said more or less the same thing to me over a year ago, only it was his Sanctuary he was inviting me into, not yours. But I’m fully prepared to face the worst terrors the gods can throw at me, my friend. There’s a story to cover this evening, and I won’t be able to cover it if I’m holed up in some snug little underground hideout, will I?”

  “There won’t be any newspaper tomorrow for you to write that story for, Theremon.”

  “You think so?” Theremon caught Beenay by the arm and drew close to him, almost nose to nose. In a low, intense tone he said, “Tell me this, Beenay. Just between friends. Do you actually and truly think that any such incredible thing as Nightfall is going to happen this evening?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  “Gods! Are you serious, man?”

  “As serious as I’ve ever been in my life, Theremon.”

  “I can’t believe it. You seem so steady, Beenay. So solid, so responsible. And yet you’ve taken a bunch of admittedly speculative astronomical calculations, and some bits of charcoal dug up in a desert thousands of miles from here, and some wild frothings out of the mouths of a crew of wild-eyed cultists, and rolled them up together into the craziest damned mess of apocalyptic nonsense I ever—”

  “It isn’t crazy,” Beenay insisted quietly. “It isn’t nonsense.”

  “So the world is really coming to an end this evening.”

  “The world we know and love, yes.”

  Theremon released his grip on Beenay’s arm and threw his hands up in exasperation. “Gods! Even you! By Darkness, Beenay, I’ve been trying for better than a year to put some faith in all this stuff, and I can’t, I absolutely can’t. No matter what you say, or Athor, or Siferra, or Folimun 66, or Mondior, or—”

  “Just wait,” Beenay said. “Only another few hours.”

  “You really are sincere!” Theremon said wonderingly. “By all the gods, you’re as big a crackpot as Mondior himself. Bah! That’s what I say, Beenay. Bab! —Take me in to see Athor, will you?”

  “I warn you, he doesn’t want to see you.”

  “You said that already. Take me in there
anyway.”

  [19]

  Theremon had never really expected to find himself taking a stance hostile to the Observatory scientists. Things had simply worked out that way, very gradually, in the months leading up to the nineteenth of Theptar.

  It was basically a matter of journalistic integrity, he told himself. Beenay was his longtime friend, yes; Dr. Athor was unquestionably a great astronomer, Sheerin was genial and straightforward and likable; and Siferra was—well, an attractive and interesting woman and an important archaeologist. He had no desire at all to position himself as an enemy of such people.

  But he had to write what he believed. And what he believed, to the depths of his soul, was that the Observatory group was every bit as loopy as the Apostles of Flame, and just as dangerous to the stability of society.

  There was no way he could make himself take what they said seriously. The more time he spent around the Observatory, the nuttier it all seemed to him.

  An invisible and apparently undetectable planet soaring through the sky on an orbit that brought it close to Kalgash every few decades? A combination of solar positions that would leave only Dovim overhead when the invisible planet arrived this time? Dovim’s light thereby blotted out, throwing the world into Darkness? And everyone going insane as a result? No, no, he couldn’t buy it.

  To Theremon, all of it seemed just as wild as the stuff the Apostles of Flame had been peddling for so many years. The only extra thing that the Apostles threw in was the mysterious advent of the phenomenon known as Stars. Even the Observatory people had the good grace to admit that they couldn’t imagine what Stars were. Some other sort of invisible heavenly bodies, apparently, which suddenly came into view when the Year of Godliness ended and the wrath of the gods descended on Kalgash—so the Apostles indicated.

  “It can’t be,” Beenay had told him, one evening at the Six Suns Club. It was still six months before the date of the eclipse. “The eclipse and the Darkness, yes. The Stars, no. There’s nothing in the universe except our world and the six suns and some insignificant asteroids—and Kalgash Two. If there are Stars also, why can’t we measure their presence? Why can’t we detect them by orbital perturbations, the way we’ve detected Kalgash Two? No, Theremon, if there are Stars out there, then something’s got to be wrong with the Theory of Universal Gravitation. And we know the theory’s all right.”