No! No!
“Beenay?” Siferra said. “Are you all right?”
“Just thinking,” he told her. “By Darkness, it’s true! You’d give the Apostles complete confirmation!”
“Not necessarily. It would still be possible for people who are capable of thinking clearly to reject Mondior’s ideas. The destruction of Thombo by fire—even the repeated destruction of Thombo at apparently regular intervals of approximately two thousand years—doesn’t in any way prove that the whole world was destroyed by fire. Or that some such great fire must inevitably come again. Why should the past necessarily be recapitulated in the future? But people who are capable of thinking clearly are in a minority, of course. The rest of them will be swayed by Mondior’s use of my findings and go into an immediate panic. You know, don’t you, that the Apostles claim the next great world-destroying fire is due to strike us next year?”
“Yes,” Beenay said hoarsely. “Theremon tells me that they’ve pinpointed the exact day. It’s a two-thousand-and-forty-nine-year cycle, actually, and this is the two-thousand-and-forty-eighth year, and in something like eleven or twelve more months, if you believe Mondior, the sky will turn black and fire will descend on us. I think the nineteenth of Theptar is when it’s supposed to happen.”
“Theremon? The newspaperman?”
“Yes. He’s a friend of mine, actually. He’s interested in the whole Apostles thing and he’s been interviewing one of their high priests, or whatever. Theremon told me—”
Siferra’s hand shot out and caught Beenay’s arm, her fingers digging in with astonishing force.
“You’ve got to promise me you won’t say a word about any of this to him, Beenay!”
“To Theremon? No, of course not! You haven’t published your findings yet. It wouldn’t be proper for me to say anything to anybody!—But of course he’s a very honorable man.”
Her iron grip relaxed, but only a little.
“Sometimes things get said between friends, off the record—but you know, Beenay, there’s no such thing as ‘off the record’ when you’re talking to someone like Theremon. If he sees a reason to use it, he’ll use it, no matter what he may have promised you. Or however ‘honorable’ you like to think he is.”
“Well—perhaps—”
“Trust me. And if Theremon were to find out what I’ve come up with here, you can bet your ears it’ll be all over the Chronicle half a day later. That would ruin me professionally, Beenay. It would be all I need, to become known as the scientist who provided the Apostles with proof of their absurd claims. The Apostles are totally repugnant to me, Beenay. I don’t want to offer them any sort of aid and comfort, and I certainly don’t want to seem to be publicly espousing their crackpot ideas.”
“Don’t worry,” Beenay said. “I won’t breathe a word.”
“You mustn’t. As I say, it would wreck me. I’ve come back to the university to have my research grant renewed. My Thombo findings are already stirring up controversy in the department, because they challenge the established view of Beklimot as the oldest urban center. But if Theremon somehow manages to wrap the Apostles of Flame around my neck on top of everything else—”
But Beenay was barely listening. He was sympathetic to Siferra’s problem, and certainly he would do nothing to cause difficulties for her. Theremon would hear not one word about her research from him.
His mind had moved on, though, to other things, vastly troublesome things. Phrases out of Theremon’s account of the teachings of the Apostles continued to churn in his memory.
“—In something like fourteen months the suns will all disappear—”
“—the Stars will shoot flame down out of a black sky—”
“—the exact time of the catastrophe can be calculated scientifically—”
“—a black sky—”
“—the suns will all disappear—”
“Darkness!” Beenay muttered harshly. “Can it be possible?” Siferra had gone on talking. At his outburst she halted in mid-sentence.
“You aren’t paying attention to me, Beenay!”
“I—what? Oh. Oh. Yes, of course I’m paying attention! You were saying that I mustn’t let Theremon know anything about this, because it would harm your reputation, and—and—listen, Siferra, do you think we could continue discussing this some other time? This evening, or tomorrow afternoon, or whenever? I’ve got to get over to the Observatory right away.”
“Don’t let me detain you, then,” she said coldly.
“No. I don’t mean it that way. What you’ve been telling me is of the most colossal interest to me—and importance, tremendous importance, more than I can even say at this point. But I’ve got to check something. Something with a direct bearing on everything we’ve been discussing.”
She gave him a close look. “Your face is flushed. Your eyes are wild, Beenay. You seem so strange, all of a sudden. Your mind’s a million miles away. What’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you later,” he said, halfway out the door. “Later! I promise you!”
16
At this hour the Observatory was practically deserted. No one was there but Faro and Thilanda. To Beenay’s relief, Athor 77 was nowhere to be seen. Good, Beenay thought. The old man was exhausted enough from the effort he had devoted to working out the Kalgash Two concept. He didn’t need more stress loaded upon him this evening.
And it would be just fine, having only Faro and Thilanda here. Faro had exactly the kind of quick, untrammeled mind that Beenay needed right now. And Thilanda, who had spent so many years scanning the empty spaces of the heavens with her telescope and camera, might be able to fill in some of the conceptual material Beenay would require.
Thilanda said at once, “I’ve been developing plates all day, Beenay. But it’s no go. I’d stake my life on it: there’s nothing up there in the sky except the six suns. You don’t think the great man’s finally gone around the bend, do you?”
“I think his mind is as sharp as ever.”
“But these photos—” Thilanda said. “I’ve been running a random scan of every quadrant of the universe for days now. The program’s all-inclusive. Snap, move down a couple of degrees, snap, move, snap. Methodically sweeping the entire sky. And look at what I’m getting, Beenay. A bunch of pictures of nothing at all!”
“If the unknown satellite is invisible, Thilanda, then it can’t be seen. It’s as simple as that.”
“Invisible to the naked eye, maybe. But the camera ought to be able to—”
“Listen, never mind that now. I need some help from you two, purely theoretical stuff. Related to Athor’s new theory.”
“But if the unknown satellite’s nothing but pie in the sky—” Thilanda protested.
“Invisible pie might still be real pie,” Beenay snapped. “And we won’t like it when it comes hurtling out of nowhere and hits us in the face. Will you help me or won’t you?”
“Well—”
“Good. What I want you to do is prepare computer projections of the movements of all six suns covering a period of forty-two hundred years.”
Thilanda gaped incredulously. “Four thousand two hundred, is that what you said, Beenay?”
“I know that you don’t remotely have records of stellar movements over any such span. But I said computer projections, Thilanda. You’ve got at least a hundred years of reliable records, right?”