Night of Light

A trap!

He tore himself loose and ran a few steps away. When he turned, he saw that the archway, which had seemed to be of stone, like the wall in which it was set, was slowly closing.

So, part of the wall, at least, was composed of pseudosilicon. But the knowledge would do him no good. He did not have whatever key was needed to open a way for him.

Voices rose behind him. Men and women shouted. He whirled to see the door through which he had entered, and which had shut behind him, now gaping wide. A number of Kareenans had already passed through it. Behind them were others. Those in front were pointing with horror at the burning corpse.

John Carmody shouted and dashed toward them through the smoke. Some tried to stop him, but he shot them down. Those in the doorway either jumped through and hurled themselves out of his path or ran back out into the purple haze.

Carmody ran after them. He was coughing, and his eyes were burning and tearful. But he kept on ru

It was the life-sized statue of Ban Dremon, tumbled from its pedestal.

He looked up at the pedestal. Ban Dremon—another one—stood there in what should have been an empty place.

He gripped the edge of the marble base, which was a foot above his head, and with one easy powerful graceful motion pulled himself up and then over. The next moment, gun in hand, he was eye to eye with the statue.

No statue. A man, a native.

He was in the same attitude as the dislodged Ban Dremon, the right arm held out in salute, the left holding a baton, the mouth open as if to give a command.

Carmody touched the skin of the face, so much darker than the normal Kareenan’s, yet not so dark as the bronze of the statue.

It was hard, smooth and cold. If it was not metal, it would pass for it. As near as he could determine in the uncertain light, the eyeballs had lost their light color. He pressed his thumbs in on them and found that they resisted like bronze. But when he stuck his finger from his left hand in the open mouth, he felt the back part of the tongue give a little, as if the flesh beneath the metallic covering were still soft. The mouth, however, was dry as any statue’s.

Now how, he thought, could a man turn his protoplasm, which had only a very minute trace of copper and, as far as he remembered, no tin, into a solid alloy? Even if those elements were present in large enough quantities to form bronze, what of the heat needed?

The only explanation he could think of was that the sun was furnishing the energy and the human body was furnishing the blueprints and, somehow, the machinery necessary. The psyche had free scope during the seven nights of the Chance; it utilized, however unconsciously, forces that must exist at all times around it but of which it had no knowledge.

If that were so, he thought, then man must be, potentially, a god. Or if god was a term too strong, then he must be a titan. A rather stupid titan, however, blind, a Cyclops with a cataract.

Why couldn’t a man have this power at other times than the Night? This vast power to bend the universe to his will? Nothing would be impossible, nothing. A man could move from one planet to the next without a spaceship, could step from the Avenue of the Temple of Boonta on Dante’s Joy some 1,500,000 light-years to Broadway in Manhattan on Earth. Could become anything, do anything, perhaps hurl suns through space as easily as a boy hurled a baseball. Space and time and matter would no longer be walls, would be doorways to step through.

A man could become anything. He could become a tree, like Mrs. Kri’s husband. Or, like this man, a statue of bronze, somehow digging with invisible hands into the deep earth, abstracting minerals, fusing them without the aid of furnace walls and heat, with no knowledge of chemical composition, and depositing them directly in his cells without immediately killing himself.

There was one drawback. Eventually, having gotten what he wanted, he would die. Though able to bring about the miracle of metamorphosis, he could not bring about the miracle of living on.

This half-statue would die, just as Skelder would die when his insane lust swelled that monstrous member which he had grown to complete his lust, swelled it until it became larger than he and he, now its appendage, would find himself immobile, unable to do anything but feed himself and it and wear his heart out trying to pump enough blood to keep himself, and it, the parasite grown larger than the host, alive. He would die, just as Ralloux would die in the heat of an imagined flame of hell. They would all die unless they reversed the leap of mind and flow of flesh that hurtled them into such rich sea- changes.

And what, he thought, what about you, John Carmody? Is Mary what you want? Why should you? And what harm can her resurrection do to you? The others are obviously suffering, doomed, but you can see no doom to you in yourself giving birth to Mary again, no suffering. Why are you an exception?

I am John Carmody, he whispered. Always have been, am, will be an exception.

From behind and below him came a loud roar like a lion’s. Men shouted. Another roar. A snarling. A man screamed as if in a death agony. Another roar. Then a strange sound as if a great bag had burst. Vaguely, Carmody felt that his ankles were wet.

He looked around in surprise and saw that the moon had gone down and the sun had risen. What had he been doing all night? Standing here on this pedestal dreaming away the purple hours?

He blinked and shook his head. He had allowed himself to be caught up in the bronze thoughts of this statue, had felt as it did, had slowed time and let it lap around him gently and dreamily, just as he had experienced the hard scarlet lust of Skelder, Mary’s meltingness and liquid movements toward the satyr-priest, the impact of bullets tearing into her, her terror of death, of dissolvingness, and Ralloux’s agony of flesh in his sheet of flame and agony of soul over man’s damnation—just as he had felt all these, so now he had fallen prey to this creature’s mineral philosophy; and might perhaps have ended as it had, if something had not jarred him out of the fatal contemplation. Even now, coming out of his—coma? -- he felt the temptation of the silent peace, of letting time and space flow by, sweetly and softly.

But in the next second he came fully awake. He had tried to move away and found that he was anchored more than mentally. The finger he’d put into the statue’s mouth was clamped tight between its teeth. No matter how violently he pulled away, he could not get it loose. There was no pain at all, only a numbness. This, he supposed, was because the circulation was cut off. Still, there should be some pain. If this sharing of thoughts had gone so far that his own flesh had changed...

The man-statue must not have been completely transformed; there must have been feeling left in the soft back part of the tongue. Reacting automatically—or maybe maliciously—it had slowly closed its jaws during the night, and when the sun saw the process of casting flesh into bronze complete, its jaws were almost shut. Now they would never open, for the soul within it was gone. Or, at least, Carmody could detect no thoughts or feeling emanating from it.

He looked around him, anxious not only because he did not know yet how to get free of this trap but because of his exposed position. What made things worse was that he’d dropped the gun. It lay at his feet, but, though he bent his knees and reached down for it with his left hand, his fingertips were several inches away.