“Well, I am. Seeing just Dovim up there like that. That weird red color spreading over everything. You know, I’d give ten credits for a decent dose of white light right now. A good stiff Tano Special. For that matter, I’d like to see Tano and Sitha in the sky too. Or, even better, Onos.”
“Onos will be there in the morning,” put in Beenay, who had just entered the room.
“Yes, but will we?” asked Sheerin. And grinned immediately to take the sting from his words. To Beenay he said, “Our journalistic friend is eager for a little nip of alcohol.”
“Athor will have a fit. He’s given orders for everybody to be sober here this evening.”
Sheerin said, “So there’s nothing but water to be had?”
“Well—”
“Come on, Beenay. Athor won’t come in here.”
“I suppose.”
Tiptoeing to the nearest window, Beenay squatted, and from the low window box beneath it withdrew a bottle of red liquid that gurgled suggestively when he shook it.
“I thought Athor didn’t know about this,” he remarked, as he trotted back to the table. “Here! We’ve only got one glass, so as the guest you can have it, Theremon. Sheerin and I can drink from the bottle.” And he filled the tiny cup with judicious care.
Laughing, Theremon said, “You never touched alcohol at all when we first met, Beenay.”
“That was then. This is now. Tense times, Theremon. I’m learning. A good drink can be very relaxing at times like these.”
“So I’ve heard,” Theremon said lightly. He took a sip. It was some sort of red wine, rough and raw, probably cheap jug wine from one of the southern provinces. Just the sort of thing that a lifelong abstainer like Beenay would tend to buy, not knowing any better. But it was better than nothing.
Beenay helped himself to a hearty gulp and passed the bottle to Sheerin. The psychologist up-ended it and held it to his lips for a long slow drink. Then, putting it down with a satisfied grunt and a smack of his lips, he said to Beenay, “Athor seems strange this evening. I mean, even allowing for the special circumstances. What’s wrong?”
“Worrying about Faro and Yimot, I suppose.”
“Who?”
“A couple of young graduate students. They were due several hours ago and haven’t shown up yet. Athor’s terrifically shorthanded, of course, because all but the really essential people have gone to the Sanctuary.”
Theremon said, “You don’t think they deserted, do you?”
“Who? Faro and Yimot? Of course not. They’re not the type. They’d give everything to be here this evening taking measurements when the eclipse happens. But what if there’s some kind of riot going on in Saro City and they’ve been caught in it?” Beenay shrugged. “Well, they’ll show up sooner or later, I imagine. But if they’re not here as we approach the critical phase, things could get a little sticky when the work piles up. That must be what Athor’s worrying about.”
Sheerin said, “I’m not so sure. Two missing men would be on his mind, yes. But there’s something else. He looks so old, suddenly. Weary. Defeated, even. The last time I saw him he was full of fight, full of talk about the reconstruction of society after the eclipse—the real Athor, the iron man. Now all I see is a sad, tired, pathetic old wreck who’s simply waiting for the end to come. The fact that he didn’t even bother to throw Theremon out—”
“He tried,” Theremon said. “Beenay talked him out of it. And Siferra.”
“There you are. Beenay, did you ever know anyone who was able to talk Athor out of anything?—Here, pass me the wine.”
“It may be my fault,” Theremon said. “Everything that I wrote, attacking his plan to set up Sanctuary-type shelters all across the country. If he genuinely believes that there’s going to be a worldwide Darkness in a few hours and that all mankind will go violently insane—”
“Which he does,” said Beenay. “As do all of us.”
“Then the failure of the government to take Athor’s predictions seriously must be an overwhelming, crushing defeat for him. And I’m responsible as much as anyone. If it turns out that you people were right, I’ll never forgive myself.”
Sheerin said, “Don’t flatter yourself, Theremon. Even if you had written five columns a day calling for a colossal preparedness movement, the government still wouldn’t have done anything. It might have taken Athor’s warnings even less seriously than it did if that’s possible, with a popular crusading journalist like you on Athor’s side.”
“Thanks,” Theremon said. “I really appreciate that.—Is there any wine left?” He looked toward Beenay. “And of course I’m in trouble with Siferra too. She thinks I’m too contemptible for words.”
“There was a time when she seemed really interested in you,” Beenay said. “I was wondering about it for a while, as a matter of fact. Whether you and she were—ah—”
“No,” Theremon said, grinning. “Not quite. And we never will, now. But we were very good friends for a while. A fascinating, fascinating woman.—What about this cyclic theory of prehistory of hers? Is there anything to it?”
“Not if you listen to some of the other people in her department,” Sheerin said. “They’re really scornful of it. Of course, they’ve all got a vested interest in the established archaeological framework, which says that Beklimot was the first urban center and that if you go back more than a couple of thousand years you can’t find any civilization at all, just primitive shaggy jungle-dwelling folk.”
“But how can they argue away these recurrent catastrophes at the Hill of Thombo?” Theremon asked.
“Scientists who think they know the real story can argue away anything that threatens their beliefs,” Sheerin said. “You scratch an entrenched academic and you’ll find he’s pretty similar in some ways to an Apostle of Flame, underneath. It’s just a different kind of robe they wear.” He took the bottle, which Theremon had been idly holding, and helped himself again. “The deuce with them. Even a layman like me can see that Siferra’s discoveries at Thombo turn our picture of prehistory inside out. The question isn’t whether there were recurrent fires over a period of all those thousands of years. It’s why.”
Theremon said, “I’ve seen plenty of explanations lately, all of them more or less fantastic. Someone from Kitro University was arguing that there are periodic rains of fire every few thousand years. And we got a letter at the newspaper from someone who claims to be a free-lance astronomer and says he’s ‘proved’ that Kalgash passes through one of the suns every so often. I think there were even wilder things proposed.”
“There’s only one idea that makes any sense,” Beenay said quietly. “Remember the concept of the Sword of Thargola. You have to dispense with the hypotheses that require extra bells and whistles in order to make sense. There’s no reason why a rain of fire should fall on us every now and then, and it’s obvious nonsense to talk about passing through suns. But the eclipse theory is accounted for perfectly by mathematical consideration of the orbit of Kalgash as it’s affected by Universal Gravitation.”
“The eclipse theory may stand up, yes. No doubt it does. We’ll find out pretty soon, eh?” Theremon said. “But apply Thargola’s Sword yourself to what you’ve just said. There’s nothing in the eclipse theory that tells us that there’ll necessarily be tremendous fires immediately afterward.”
“No,” Sheerin said. “There’s nothing about that in the theory. But common sense indicates it. The eclipse will bring Darkness. Darkness will bring madness. And madness will bring the Flames. Which wrecks another couple of millenniums of painful struggle. It all comes to nothing tomorrow. Tomorrow there won’t be a city standing unharmed in all Kalgash.”