Dayworld

Jeff Caird, whispering, "The light! The light!" walked across the bridge over the canal. By the time that he was a block away from Washington Square, he felt steady and strong.

("He's gone?" Tingle said.)

("Like the Indian that folded his tepee and stole away into the night," Wyatt Repp said.)

("He almost took me with him," Charlie Ohm said. "God! The light!")

("It was sword-shaped," Jim Dunski said. "It came down and lifted him on its blade and tossed him up into blazing sky.")

Their voices were faint. They became a little louder when they discovered that Caird was now in control of the body.

("Oh, my God," Ohm said, "we're sunk!")

("Look at it this way," Repp said. "Zurvan's bit the dust.

Now ... it's Caird's last stand. We'll have his scalp before this is over.")

Zurvan had not been sure that he had not been making up the voices of the others. Caird was equally unsure. It did not matter that they might be imaginary. Nor did it matter that the voices might be those of personae as real as his. What mattered was that he was master. And he knew what he was going todo.

He walked against the increasing wind toward the tall yellow vertical tube on the northwest corner of the park. This was one of the entrances to the underground system of transportation belts and power and water lines. A strip by its side warned that only SCC workers could use it. There were no workers or uniformed organics in sight, and the few people who had lingered in the park were leaving it.

He stopped. Under the branches of an oak tree in the distance sat a lone figure. The man who had been playing chess with Gril was walking away, shaking his head. Apparently, Gril had asked his partner to finish the game. The man, however, would rather forfeit.

Caird stopped by the entrance to the tube.

("What now?" Ohm said faintly.)

A few leaves blown from the trees whirled by. The wind, cool with the promise of rain, lifted his hair. A bicycler, bent over, feet pumping, sped by.

Gril stood up. His red beard and long red hair were ruffled by the wind. He gathered up the pieces, put them in a case, folded the chessboard, and slid it into the case. Caird began ru

Gril turned and saw Caird ru

Chapter 30

Caird slowed down and smiled to show Gril that he meant no harm. When he got within speaking distance, he said, "I'm not an organic. Not now, anyway. Ijust wanted to talk to you for a minute, Yankev Gad Gril. No longer than that, I swear it. I have urgent business; I won't detain you long."

Gril was regaining his color. He said in a deep rich voice, "You know my name. I don't know yours."

"No need to know it," Caird said. "Let's sit down for a minute. Too bad you put the board away. We could have finished our game."

Gril frowned and said, "Our game?"

Caird considered saying, "I make the first move: 1 BL-WC-4. Then you make the second, BL-WC SG."

That would be enough to tell Gril that this was his Tuesday's opponent. Last Tuesday's ex-opponent. But Caird wanted him to know as little as possible about his identity.

("You don't know much about it, either," Ohm said.)

Instead, Jeff Caird said, "I know you're a daybreaker. No, don't be alarmed. I'm not going to turn you in ..

He looked around. There were even fewer pedestrians and cyclists. A taxi, two people in the back seat, went by. The rumbling was getting closer. The storm was flashing open its dark overcoat to expose lightning.

Gril's small green eyes became smaller, and his thin lips squeezed even thi

"I want to satisfy my overwhelming curiosity. That's all. I just want an answer to a question."

("Are you nuts?" Charlie Ohm said. "What if the organics come while you're indulging your craziness? For Chrissakes, Caird! ")

"If I can answer it," Gril said.

Perhaps Ohm was right, and he was crazy. Or perhaps he was indulging the Tuesday organic in him. Whatever the reason, he had to know the man's motive.

"From what I know of your case," Caird said, "you had no apparent reason to daybreak. Why did you?"

Gril smiled and said, "If I told you, I don't think you'd understand."

("Any second now," Repp said, "any second now, the organics will be coming around the corner. Maybe they won't wonder why you two are sitting under a tree that might get struck by lightning. Maybe they won't come over and ask you why. And then maybe they won't ask for your ID. Maybe they won't already have your description.")

"Try me," Caird said.

"How much do you know about Orthodox Judaism?"

"Probably enough. I know your name, remember? I know who you are."

Gril looked across the table at Caird. He clutched the case so hard that his knuckles whitened. "Then you know how important keeping the Shabbos, the Sabbath, is to us?"

Caird nodded.

"You know that the government does not forbid us to observe the Sabbath? It won't let us have a synagogue, but it doesn't play favorites. No religion has a church or temple or mosque or synagogue."

"The people need the space those would occupy for housing and factories," Caird said. "Also, religions are a form of malignant superstition, contrary to all ..

Gril held up a big red-haired hand.

"I don't want to get into an argument about the reasons."

"I don't either," Caird said, looking around. "It was just that ..

"Never mind. As I said, we are permitted to do what God enjoined us to do. We observe the Sabbath. That is on the seventh day of the week, begi

"I understand," Caird said.

"Yes, but you don't understand how important it is that we do observe the ancient practice, the ancient law. The law. Not the government's law. Ours. A much more ancient law."

"But you have your Sabbaths."

Gril raised a hand from the case and lifted a finger.

"Yes. But we do not go by the ancient and sacred calendar. Instead of traveling horizontally on the calendar, we travel vertically. Last Monday was the Sabbath, not Saturday. That is, it was if we obey the law of the state."

"I think I know what you're going to say," Caird said. "It's hard-"

"Please. It's going to rain very soon. Since I've been courteous to you, a stranger who came in from nowhere and will probably go nowhere..

("Ain't that the truth!" Charlie Ohm said.)

" ... without telling me who you are and why you're here, I'm not asking too much of you to refrain from interrupting."

"Right," Caird said.

("The organics!" Ohm whispered.)

Caird looked around quickly, but Ohm was just warning him to watch for organics.

"I did not like the idea of observing the Sabbath on the wrong day, on Monday instead of as it should be and has long been decreed ... "

("The man's as windy as you, Caird," Ohm said.)

" ... but I obeyed the state and the rabbis. After all, they reasoned that, regardless of whether it was Saturday or not, the Sabbath still fell on the seventh day. But I was not happy with this reasoning. Then, one day, while reading the book of a very wise man, though he was sometimes mistaken and prejudiced, I came across a passage that affected me deeply."

"Cerinthus?"

Gril's only sign of being startled was a rapid blinking. "How did you know that?"

"Never mind. I'm sorry I interrupted again."

"Actually, the author was Pseudo-Cerinthus. The scholars had established that some books supposedly by Cerinthus were by another man, name unknown, called, for the sake of convenience, Pseudo-Cerinthus. I, however ... "-Gril looked very pleased-" ... I was able to prove that Cerinthus and PseudoCerinthus were actually the same person. His style as PseudoCerinthus was different from Cerinthus' because, when he wrote as Pseudo-Cerinthus, he was possessed by the Shekinah or Doxa ..