“Here,” Theremon said brusquely, and passed the torch to Sheerin. “You can hear them outside.”
And they could. Little scraps of hoarse, wordless shouts.
But Sheerin had been right: the Observatory was built like a fortress. Erected in the last century, when the neo-Gavottian style of architecture was at its ugly height, it had been designed for stability and durability, rather than for beauty.
The windows were protected by the grillwork of inch-thick iron bars sunk deep into the concrete sills. The walls were solid masonry that an earthquake couldn’t have touched, and the main door was a huge oaken slab reinforced with iron at the strategic points. Theremon checked the bolts. They were still in place.
“At least they can’t just walk right in the way Folimun did,” he said, panting. “But listen to them! They’re right outside!”
“We have to do something.”
“Damned right,” Theremon said. “Don’t just stand there! Help me drag these display cases up against the doors—and keep that torch out of my eyes. The smoke’s killing me.”
The cases were full of books, scientific instruments, all sorts of things, a whole museum of astronomy. The gods only knew what the display cases weighed, but some supernal force had taken possession of Theremon in this moment of crisis, and he heaved and pulled them into place—aided, more or less, by Sheerin—as though they were pillows. The little telescopes and other gadgets within them went tumbling over as he jockeyed the heavy cases into position. There was the sound of breaking glass.
Beenay will kill me, Theremon thought. He worships all that stuff.
But this was no moment for being delicate. He slammed one case after another up against the door, and in a few minutes had built a barricade that might, he hoped, serve to hold back the mob if it succeeded in breaking through the gate.
Somewhere, dimly, far off, he could hear the battering of bare fists against the door. Screams—yells—
It was all like a ghastly dream.
The mob had set out from Saro City driven by the hunger for salvation, the salvation held forth by the Apostles of Flame, which could be attained now, they had been told, only by the destruction of the Observatory. But as the moment of Darkness drew near a maddening fear had all but stripped their minds of the ability to function. There was no time to think of ground cars, or of weapons, or of leadership, or even of organization. They had rushed to the Observatory on foot, and they were assaulting it with bare hands.
And now that they were there, the last flash of Dovim, the last ruby-red drop of sunlight, flickered feebly over a humanity that had nothing left but stark, universal fear.
Theremon groaned. “Let’s get back upstairs!”
There was no sign of anyone now in the room where they had been gathered. They had all gone to the topmost floor, into the Observatory dome itself. As he came rushing in, Theremon was struck by an eerie calmness that seemed to prevail in there. It was like a tableau. Yimot was seated in the little lean-back seat at the control panel of the gigantic solarscope as if this were just an ordinary evening of astronomical research. The rest were clustered about the smaller telescopes, and Beenay was giving instructions in a strained, ragged voice.
“Get it straight, all of you. It’s vital to snap Dovim just before totality and change the plate. Here, you—you—one of you to each camera. We need all the redundancy we can get. You all know about—about times of exposure—”
There was a breathless murmur of agreement.
Beenay passed a hand over his eyes. “Are the torches still burning? Never mind, I see them!” He was leaning hard against the back of a chair. “Now remember, don’t—don’t try to look for fancy shots. When the Stars appear, don’t waste time trying to get t-two of them in the scope field at a time. One is enough. And … and if you feel yourself going, get away from the camera.”
At the door, Sheerin whispered to Theremon, “Take me to Athor. I don’t see him.”
The newspaperman did not answer immediately. The vague forms of the astronomers wavered and blurred, and the torches overhead had become only yellow splotches. The room was cold as death. Theremon felt Siferra’s hand graze his for a moment—only a moment—and then he was unable to see her.
“It’s dark,” he whimpered.
Sheerin held out his hands. “Athor.” He stumbled forward. “Athor!”
Theremon stepped after him and seized his arm. “Wait. I’ll take you.” Somehow he made his way across the room. He closed his eyes against the Darkness and his mind against the pounding chaos that was rising within it.
No one heard them or paid attention to them. Sheerin stumbled against the wall.
“Athor!”
“Is that you, Sheerin?”
“Yes. Yes. Athor?”
“What is it, Sheerin?” Athor’s voice, unmistakably.
“I just wanted to tell you—don’t worry about the mob—the doors are strong enough to hold them out—”
“Yes. Of course,” Athor muttered. He sounded, Theremon thought, as if he were many miles away.
Light-years away.
Suddenly another figure was among them, moving swiftly, a whirling flail of arms. Theremon thought it might be Yimot or even Beenay, but then he felt the rough fabric of a cultist’s robe and knew that it must be Folimun.
“The Stars!” Folimun cried. “Here come the Stars! Get out of my way!”
He’s trying to get to Beenay, Theremon realized. To destroy the blasphemous cameras.
“Watch—out—” Theremon called. But Beenay still sat huddled in front of the computers that activated the cameras, snapping away as the full Darkness swept down.
Theremon reached out. He caught hold of Folimun’s robe, yanked, twisted. Suddenly there were clutching fingers at his throat. He staggered crazily. There was nothing before him but shadows; the very floor beneath his feet lacked substance. A knee drove hard into his gut, and he grunted in a blinding haze of pain and nearly fell.
But after the first gasping moment of agony his strength returned. He seized Folimun by the shoulders, somehow swung him around, hooked his arm around the Apostle’s throat. At the same moment he heard Beenay croak, “I’ve got it! At your cameras, everyone!”
Theremon seemed conscious of everything at once. The entire world was streaming through his pounding mind—and everything was in chaos, everything was screaming with terror.
There came the strange awareness that the last thread of sunlight had thinned out and snapped.
Simultaneously he heard one last choking gasp from Folimun, and a heavy bellow of amazement from Beenay, and a queer little cry from Sheerin, a hysterical giggle that cut off in a rasp—
And a sudden silence, a strange, deadly silence, from outside.
Folimun had gone limp in his loosening grasp. Theremon peered into the Apostle’s eyes and saw the blankness of them, staring upward, mirroring the feeble yellow of the torches. He saw the bubble of froth upon Folimun’s lips and heard the low animal whimper in Folimun’s throat.
With the slow fascination of fear, he lifted himself on one arm and turned his eyes toward the bloodcurdling blackness of the sky.
Through it shone the Stars!
Not the one or two dozen of Beenay’s pitiful theory. There were thousands of them, blazing with incredible power, one next to another next to another next to another, an endless wall of them, forming a dazzling shield of terrifying light that filled the entire heavens. Thousands of mighty suns shone down in a soul-searing splendor that was more frighteningly cold in its awful indifference than the bitter wind that shivered across the cold, horribly bleak world.