Through Theremon’s mind ran phrases of description, bits and pieces of the article he had planned to write for tomorrow’s Saro City Chronicle. Several times earlier in the evening the writing machine in his brain had clicked on the same way—a perfectly methodical, perfectly conscientious, and, as he was only too well aware, perfectly meaningless procedure. It was wholly preposterous to imagine that there was going to be an issue of the Chronicle tomorrow.
He exchanged glances with Siferra.
“The sky,” she murmured.
“I see it, yes.”
It had changed tone again. Now it was darker still, a horrible deep purple-red, a monstrous color, as though some enormous wound in the fabric of the heavens were gushing fountains of blood.
The air had grown, somehow, denser. Dusk, like a palpable entity, entered the room, and the dancing circle of yellow light about the torches etched itself into ever sharper distinction against the gathering grayness beyond. The odor of smoke here was just as cloying as it had been upstairs. Theremon found himself bothered even by the little chuckling sounds that the torches made as they burned, and by the soft pad of Sheerin’s footsteps as the heavyset psychologist circled round and round the table in the middle of the room.
It was getting harder to see, torches or no.
So now it begins, Theremon thought. The time of total Darkness—and the coming of the Stars.
For an instant he thought it might be wisest to look for some cozy closet to lock himself into until it was all over. Stay out of the way, avoid the sight of the Stars, hunker down and wait for things to become normal again. But a moment’s contemplation told him what a bad idea that was. A closet—any sort of enclosed place—would be dark too. Instead of being a safe snug harbor, it might become a chamber of terrors far more frightening than the rooms of the Observatory.
And then too, if something big was going to happen, something that would reshape the history of the world, Theremon didn’t want to be tucked away with his head under his arm while it was going on. That would be cowardly and foolish; and it might be something he would regret all the rest of his life. He had never been the sort of man to hide from danger, if he thought there might be a story in it. Besides, he was just selfconfident enough to believe that he would be able to withstand whatever was about to occur—and there was just enough skepticism left in him so that at least part of him wondered whether anything significant was going to happen at all.
He stood still, listening to Siferra’s occasional indrawn breaths, the quick little respirations of someone trying to retain composure in a world that was all too swiftly retreating into the shadow.
Then came another sound, a new one, a vague, unorganized impression of sound that might well have gone unnoticed but for the dead silence that prevailed in the room and for Theremon’s unnatural focus of attention as the moment of totality grew near.
The newspaperman stood tensely listening, holding his breath. After a moment he carefully moved toward the window and peered out.
The silence ripped to fragments at his startled shout:
“Sheerin!”
There was an uproar in the room. They were all looking at him, pointing, questioning. The psychologist was at his side in a moment. Siferra followed. Even Beenay, crouched in front of his computers, swung around to look.
Outside, Dovim was a mere smoldering splinter, taking one last desperate look at Kalgash. The eastern horizon, in the direction of the city, was lost in Darkness, and the road from Saro City to the Observatory was a dull red line. The trees of the wooded tracts that bordered the highway on both sides had lost all individuality and merged into a continuous shadowy mass.
But it was the highway itself that held attention, for along it there surged another, and infinitely menacing, shadowy mass, surging like a strange shambling beast up the slopes of Observatory Mount.
“Look,” Theremon cried hoarsely. “Someone tell Athor! The madmen from the city! Folimun’s people! They’re coming!”
“How long to totality?” Sheerin asked.
“Fifteen minutes,” Beenay rasped. “But they’ll be here in five.”
“Never mind, keep everyone working,” Sheerin said. His voice was steady, controlled, unexpectedly commanding, as though he had managed to tap into some deep reservoir of inner strength in this climactic moment. “We’ll hold them off. This place is built like a fortress. You, Siferra, go upstairs and let Athor know what’s happening. You, Beenay, keep an eye on Folimun. Knock him down and sit on him if you have to, but don’t let him out of your sight. Theremon, come with me.”
Sheerin was out the door, and Theremon followed at his heels. The stairs stretched below them in tight, circular sweeps around the central shaft, fading into a dank and dreary grayness.
The first momentum of their rush had carried them fifty feet down, so that the dim, flickering yellow from the open door of the room behind them had disappeared, and both up above and down the same dusky shadow crushed in upon them.
Sheerin paused, and his pudgy hand clutched at his chest. His eyes bulged and his voice was a dry cough. His whole body was quivering in fear. Whatever the final source of resolve he had found a moment ago now seemed exhausted.
“I can’t … breathe … go down … yourself. Make sure all doors are closed—”
Theremon took a few downward steps. Then he turned. “Wait! Can you hold out a minute?” He was panting himself. The air passed in and out of his lungs like so much molasses, and there was a little germ of screeching panic in his mind at the thought of making his way farther below by himself.
What if the guards had left the main door open, somehow?
It wasn’t the mob he was afraid of. It was—
Darkness.
Theremon realized that he was, after all, afraid of the Dark!
“Stay here,” he said unnecessarily to Sheerin, who was huddled dismally on the staircase where Theremon had left him. “I’ll be back in a second.”
He dashed upward two steps at a time, heart pounding—not altogether from the exertion—tumbled into the main room, and snatched a torch from its holder. Siferra stared at him, eyes wide with bewilderment.
“Shall I come with you?” she asked.
“Yes. No. No!”
He ran out again. The torch was foul-smelling, and the smoke smarted his eyes almost blind, but he clutched that torch as if he wanted to kiss it for joy. Its flame streamed backward as he hurtled down the stairs again.
Sheerin hadn’t budged. He opened his eyes and moaned as Theremon bent over him. The newspaperman shook him roughly. “All right, get hold of yourself. We’ve got light.”
He held the torch at tiptoe height, and, propping the tottering psychologist by an elbow, made his way downward again, protected now by the sputtering circle of illumination.
On the ground floor everything was black. Theremon felt the horror rising within him again. But the torch sliced a way through the Darkness for him.
“The Security men—” Sheerin said.
Where were they? Had they fled? It looked that way. No, there were a couple of the guards Athor had posted, jammed up against the corner of the hallway, trembling like jelly. Their eyes were blank, their tongues were lolling. Of the others there was no sign.