by Isaac Asimov
Beenay said, “Then you know what’s happened. Fragmentation of the old system—a million petty governmental units springing up like mushrooms everywhere. What you’re in now is Restoration Province. It runs from here down the highway about seven miles. When you get to the next Search station, you’re in Six Suns Province. Beyond that is Godland, and then Daylight, and after that—well, I forget. They change every few days, anyway, as people wander on to other places.”
“And Search?” Theremon prompted.
“The new paranoia. Everyone’s afraid of fire-starters. You know what they are? Crazies who thought that what happened at Nightfall was a load of fun. They go around burning things down. I understand that a third of Saro City burned down the night of the eclipse, just from people’s panicky wild attempts to drive away the Stars, but that another third of it has been destroyed since then, even though the Stars are long gone again. A sick business, that is. So the people who are more or less intact of mind—you’re among some now, in case you were wondering—are searching everyone for fire-lighting equipment. It’s forbidden to possess matches, or mechanical lighters, or needle-guns, or anything else capable of—”
“The same thing’s going on on the outskirts of the city,” Siferra said. “That’s what the Fire Patrol is all about. Altinol and his people have set themselves up as the only people in Saro who are allowed to use fire.”
“And I was attacked in the forest while I was trying to cook a meal for myself,” said Theremon. “I suppose they were Searchers too. I’d have been beaten to death if Siferra and her Patrol hadn’t come along to rescue me in the nick of time, pretty much the same way you did just now.”
“Well,” Beenay said, “I don’t know who you ran into in the forest. But Search is the formal ritual down here to deal with the same problem. It goes on everywhere, everybody searching everybody else, never any let-up. Suspicion is universal: nobody’s exempt. It’s like a fever—a fever of fear. Only little elites, like Altinol’s Fire Patrol, can carry combustibles. At every border you have to surrender your fire-making apparatus to the authorities, such as they may happen to be at the moment. You might as well leave those needle-guns here with me, Theremon. You’ll never get to Amgando with them.”
“We’ll never get there without them,” Theremon said.
Beenay shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. But you won’t be able to avoid surrendering them as you continue south. The next time you hit Search, you know, I won’t be there to call off the Search force.”
Theremon considered that.
“How is it that you were able to make them listen to you, anyway?” he asked. “Or are you the head Searcher here?”
With a laugh Beenay said, “The head Searcher? Hardly. But they respect me. I’m their official professor, you see. There are places where university people are loathed, do you know that? Killed on sight by mobs of crazies, because the crazies think we caused the eclipse and are getting ready to cause another one. But not here. Here I’m considered useful for my intelligence—I can compose diplomatic messages to adjoining provinces, I’ve got ideas about how to take broken things and make them work again, I can even explain why the Darkness isn’t going to come back and why nobody will have to look at the Stars again for two thousand years. They find that very comforting to hear. So I’ve settled in among them. They feed us and take care of Raissta, and I think for them. It’s a nice symbiotic relationship.”
“Sheerin told me you were going to Amgando,” said Theremon.
“I was,” Beenay said. “Amgando’s the place where people like you and me ought to be. But Raissta and I ran into some trouble on the way down. Did you hear me tell you that crazies are hunting down university people and trying to kill them? We nearly got caught by a bunch of them ourselves, as we were heading south through the suburbs toward the highway. All those neighborhoods on the south side of the forest are occupied by wild squatters now.”
“We ran into some,” Theremon said.
“Then you know. We were surrounded by a bunch of them. They could tell just by the way we talked that we had to be educated people, and then someone recognized me—recognized me, Theremon, from a picture in the newspaper, from one of your columns, one of the times when you were interviewing me about the eclipse! And he said I was from the Observatory, I was the man who had made the Stars appear.” Beenay stared off into nowhere for a moment. “We were about two minutes away from being strung up from a lamppost, is my guess. But then came a providential distraction. Another gang showed up—territorial rivals, I suppose—throwing bottles, yelling, waving kitchen knives around. Raissta and I were able to get away. They’re like children, the crazies—they can’t keep their minds on any one thing very long. But as we were crawling through a narrow path between two burned-out buildings Raissta cut her leg on some broken glass. And by the time we got this far south on the highway it was so badly infected that she couldn’t walk.”
“I see.” No wonder she looks so terrible, Theremon thought.
“Luckily for us, Restoration Province’s border guards were in need of a professor. They took us in. We’ve been here a week, or maybe ten days, now. I figure Raissta may be able to travel again in another week if all goes well, or more likely two. And then I’ll have the boss of this province write out a passport for us that might get us safely through the next few provinces down the road, at least, and we’ll set out on our way for Amgando. You’re welcome to stay here with us until then, and then we can all go south together, if you like. Certainly it’ll be safer that way. —You want me, Butella?”
The tall man who had tried to search Theremon in the clearing had poked his head over the curtains of Beenay’s little den. “Messenger just came in, Professor. Brought some news from the city, by way of Imperial Province. We can’t make much sense out of it.”
“Let me see,” Beenay said, reaching up and taking a folded slip of paper from the man. To Theremon he said, “Messengers go back and forth between the various new provinces all the time. Imperial’s north and east of the highway, stretching up toward the city itself. —Most of these Searchers here aren’t too good at reading. Their exposure to the Stars seems to have damaged their verbal centers, or something.”
Beenay fell silent as he began to scan the message. He scowled, frowned, pursed his lips, muttered something about post-Nightfall handwriting and spelling. Then after a moment his expression grew dark.
“Good God!” he cried. “Of all the rotten, miserable, terrible—”
His hand was shaking. He looked up at Theremon, wild-eyed.
“Beenay! What is it?”
Somberly Beenay said, “The Apostles of Flame are coming this way. They’ve assembled an army, and they’re going to march down to Amgando, clearing away all the new little provincial governments that have sprung up along the highway. And when they get to Amgando they’re going to smash whatever reconstituted governing body it is that has taken form down there and proclaim themselves the only legally empowered ruling force in all of the Republic.”
Theremon felt Siferra’s fingers digging into his arm. He turned to look at her and saw the horror on her face. He himself must not look very different, he knew.
“Coming—this—way—” he said slowly. “An army of Apostles.”
“Theremon, Siferra—you’ve got to get out of here,” said Beenay. “Immediately. If you’re still here when the Apostles arrive, everything’s lost.”
“Go to Amgando, you mean?” Theremon asked.
“Absolutely. Without wasting another minute. The whole university community that was in the Sanctuary is down there, and people from other universities, educated people from all over the Republic. You and Siferra have to warn them to scatter, fast. If they’re still in Amgando when the Apostles get there, Mondior will be able to gobble up the whole nucleus of any future legitimate government this country’s likely to have, all in one swoop. He might even order mass executions of university people. —Look, I’ll write out passports for you that�
��ll get you through the next few Search stations down the line, anyway. But when you’ve gotten beyond our authority, you’ll simply have to submit to Search and let them take whatever they want from you, and then keep on heading south. You can’t afford to let yourself be distracted by secondary issues like resisting Search. The Amgando group has to be warned, Theremon!”
“And what about you? Are you just going to stay here?”
Beenay looked puzzled. “What else can I do?”
“But—when the Apostles come—”
“When the Apostles come, they’ll do what they want with me. Are you suggesting that I leave Raissta behind and run off to Amgando with you?”
“Well—no—”
“Then I have no choice. Right? Right? Here I stay, with Raissta.”
Theremon’s head began to ache. He pressed his hands against his eyes.
Siferra said, “There’s no other way, Theremon.”
“I know. I know. But all the same, to think of Mondior and his crew taking a man as valuable as Beenay prisoner—executing him, even—”
Beenay smiled and rested his hand for a moment on Theremon’s forearm. “Who knows? Maybe Mondior would like to keep a couple of professors around as pets. Anyway, what happens to me is unimportant now. My place is with Raissta. Your place is on the road—scampering down to Amgando as fast as you know how. Come on: I’ll get you a meal, and I’ll give you some official-looking documents. And then on your way with you.” He paused. “Here. You’ll need this, too.” He poured the rest of the brandy, no more than an ounce or so, into Theremon’s empty glass. —“Down the hatch,” he said.
[41]
At the boundary between Restoration Province and Six Suns they had no trouble at all getting through Search. A border official who looked as though he might have been an accountant or a lawyer in the world that no longer existed simply glanced at the passport Beenay had written out, nodded when he saw the florid “Beenay 25” inscription at the bottom, and waved them on through.
Two days later, when they were crossing from Six Suns Province into Godland, it wasn’t that simple. Here the border patrol looked like a gang of cutthroats, who would just as soon toss Theremon and Siferra over the side of the elevated highway as look at their papers at all. There was a long uneasy moment as Theremon stood there, dangling the passport like some sort of magic wand. Then the magic worked, more or less.
“This thing a safe-through?” the head cutthroat asked.
“A passport, yes. Exemption from Search.”
“Who from?”
“Beenay 25, Chief Search Administrator, Restoration Province. That’s two provinces up the road.”
“I know where Restoration Province is. Read it to me.”
“ ‘To Whom It May Concern: This is to attest that the bearers of this document, Theremon 762 and Siferra 89, are properly accredited emissaries of the Fire Patrol of Saro City, and that they are entitled to—’ ”
“The Fire Patrol? What’s that?”
“Altinol’s bunch,” one of the other cutthroats murmured.
“Ah.” The head man nodded toward the needle-guns that Theremon and Siferra wore in full view at their hips. “So Altinol wants you to go marching off through other people’s countries carrying weapons that could set a whole district on fire?”
Siferra said, “We’re on an urgent mission to the people at Amgando National Park. It’s vital that we get there safely.” She touched her green neckerchief. “You know what this means? What we do is to keep fires from starting, not to start them. And if we don’t get to Amgando on time, the Apostles of Flame will come marching down this highway and destroy everything you people are trying to create.”
It didn’t make a lot of sense, Theremon thought. Their getting to Amgando, far to the south, wasn’t going to save the little republics at the northern end of the highway from the Apostles. But Siferra had put just the right note of conviction and passion into her speech to make it all sound very significant, in a jumbled sort of way.
The response was silence, for a moment, while the border patrolman tried to figure out what she was talking about. Then an irritated frown and a perplexed glare. And then, suddenly, almost impetuously: “All right. Go on through. Get the hell out of here, and don’t let me see you anywhere inside Six Suns Province again, or we’ll make you regret it. —Apostles! Amgando!”
“Thank you very much,” said Theremon, with a graciousness bordering so closely on sarcasm that Siferra took him by the arm and steered him quickly through the checkpoint before he could get them into real trouble.
They were able to move quickly in this stretch of the highway, covering a dozen or more miles a day, sometimes even more. The citizens of the provinces that called themselves Six Suns and Godland and Daylight were hard at work, clearing the debris that had littered the Great Southern Highway since Nightfall. Barricades of rubble were set up at regular intervals—nobody was going to be driving the Great Southern Highway again for a long, long time, Theremon thought—but between checkpoints it was possible now to walk at a steady clip, without having to crawl and creep around mounds of hideous wreckage.
And the dead were being taken from the highway and buried, too. Bit by bit, things were beginning to seem almost civilized again. But not normal. Not even remotely normal.
There were few fires now to be seen still burning in the hinterlands flanking the highway, but burned-out towns were visible all along the route. Refugee camps had been set up every mile or two, and as they walked briskly along the elevated road Theremon and Siferra could look down and see the sad, bewildered people of the camps moving slowly and purposelessly about in them as if they had all aged fifty years in that one single terrible night.
The new provinces, Theremon realized, were simply strings of such camps linked together by the straight line of the Great Southern Highway. In each district local strongmen had emerged who had been able to put together a little realm, a petty kingdom that covered six or eight or ten miles of the highway and spread out for perhaps a mile on either side of the roadbed. What lay beyond the eastern and western borders of the new provinces was anybody’s guess. No radio or television communications seemed to be in existence.
“Wasn’t there any kind of emergency planning at all?” Theremon asked, speaking more to the air than to Siferra.
But it was Siferra who answered him. “What Athor was predicting was altogether too fantastic for the government to take seriously. And it would have been playing into Mondior’s hands to admit that anything like the collapse of civilization could happen in just one short period of Darkness, especially a period of Darkness that could be predicted so specifically.”
“But the eclipse—”
“Yes, maybe some people in high office were capable of looking at the diagrams and really did believe that there was going to be an eclipse. And a period of Darkness as a result. But how could they anticipate the Stars? The Stars were simply the fantasy of the Apostles of Flame, remember? Even if the government knew that something like the Stars was going to happen, no one could predict the impact the Stars would have.”
“Sheerin could,” Theremon said.
“Not even Sheerin. He didn’t have an inkling. It was Darkness that was Sheerin’s specialty—not sudden unthinkable light filling the whole sky.”
“Still,” Theremon said. “To look around at all this devastation, all this chaos—you want to think that it was unnecessary, that it could have been avoided, somehow.”
“It wasn’t avoided, though.”
“It better be, the next time.”
Siferra laughed. “Next time is two thousand and forty-nine years away. Let’s hope we can leave our descendants some kind of warning that seems more plausible to them than the Book of Revelations seemed to most of us.”
Turning, she stared back over her shoulder, peering apprehensively at the long span of highway they had covered in the past few days of hard marching.
Theremon said, “Afraid you’ll
see the Apostles thundering down the road behind us?”
“Aren’t you? We’re still hundreds of miles from Amgando, even at the pace we’ve been going lately. What if they catch up with us, Theremon?”
“They won’t. A whole army can’t possibly move as quickly as two healthy and determined people. Their transport isn’t any better than ours—one pair of feet per soldier, period. And there are all sorts of logistic considerations that are bound to slow them down.”
“I suppose.”
“Besides, that message said that the Apostles are planning to stop at each new province along the way to establish their authority. It’s going to take them plenty of time to obliterate all those stubborn little petty kingdoms. If we don’t run into any unexpected complications ourselves, we’ll be at Amgando weeks ahead of them.”
“What do you think will happen to Beenay and Raissta?” Siferra asked, after a time.
“Beenay’s a pretty clever boy. I suspect he’ll work out some way of making himself useful to Mondior.”
“And if he can’t?”
“Siferra, do we really need to burn up our energies worrying ourselves over horrible possibilities that we can’t do a damned thing about?”
“Sorry,” she said sharply. “I didn’t realize you’d be so touchy.”
“Siferra—”
“Forget it,” she said. “Maybe I’m the touchy one.”
“It’ll all work out,” said Theremon. “Beenay and Raissta aren’t going to be harmed. We’ll get down to Amgando in plenty of time to give the warning. The Apostles of Flame won’t conquer the world.”
“And all the dead people will rise up and walk again, too. Oh, Theremon, Theremon—” Her voice broke.
“I know.”
“What will we do?”
“We’ll walk fast, is what we’ll do. And we won’t look back. Looking back doesn’t do any good at all.”
“No. None at all,” said Siferra. And smiled, and took his hand. And they walked quickly onward in silence.
