Night of Light

Carmody said, “Thank you, sergeant, I’ll be right down.” He walked away from the phone and into the living room. The cardinal, seeing his pale face and sagging posture, jumped up from his seat, knocking his glass off the table with a crash.

Dully, Carmody told Faskins what had happened.

The cardinal wept then. Later, when Carmody came out of his shock, he knew that he had seen into the depths of Faskins’ love for him, for it was said by all that Faskins had no more juice in him than an old bone. Carmody himself was dry-eyed; nothing seemed to be functioning except his arms and legs and, now and then, his mouth.

“I’ll go with you,” the cardinal said. “Only first I will call the port and cancel your passage.”

“Don’t do that,” Carmody said. He returned to the bedroom, picked up his suitcase, and, glancing at the other suitcases, one closed and one open, walked out of the bedroom. The cardinal was staring at him.

Carmody said, “I must go.”

“You’re not in shape to do so.”

“I know. But I will be.”

The doorbell rang. Doctor Apollonios entered, bag in hand. He said, “I’m sorry, Father. Here, this will help you.” He reached into his blouse pocket and brought out a pill.

Carmody shook his head. “I can make it all right. Who called you?”

“I did,” Faskins said. “I think you ought to take it.”

“Your authority doesn’t extend to medical matters,” Carmody answered. A soft tocsin note pealed through the room. He put down his suitcase and went to the wall. Opening a small cover, he removed a small, thin cylinder.

“The mail,” he said to no one in particular. He looked into the cubicle to see if any other mail was being recorded. The little red light was out. He closed the door and returned to his suitcase, tucking the letter into his beltbag.

On the way to the police morgue, the cardinal said, “I didn’t have the heart to ask you to go to Kareen, John. But since you yourself volunteered, I won’t object. A

“...Is only one human being, and the destiny of billions of others depends upon me,” Carmody finished for him. “Yes, I know.”

The cardinal said he would not leave this afternoon as he had pla

“The police,” Carmody said listlessly. “I wonder who could have hated me enough to kill A

“Leave that to me,” Faskins said.

Afterward, Carmody was unclear about much that happened. He lifted the sheet without any apprehension or agony and gazed for a moment at the blackened, open- mouthed face. He repeated to the police captain what he had told the cardinal. No, he had no idea who could have planted the bomb. Somebody had returned from a past Carmody had hoped would be forever obliterated and had killed A

The two priests started toward the port in a taxi. They passed the headquarters of the Order of St. Jairus on Wildenwooly. Twenty-three years ago, the building had been on the outer edge of a small town. Now it was in the heart of the large capital city of the planet. Where there had been no buildings more than two stories high, dozens now reached above twenty stories. Where a man once could have walked from the center of town to its borders in twenty minutes, he would now have to walk from dawn to dusk. All the streets were paved, and most of the highways out into the farmlands were covered with griegite. When John Carmody had first come here as a lay brother of the order, he had muddied his sandals the moment he had stepped from the exit of the spaceport. And the buildings of the town had been logs and mortar...

A

A

There had been a furious quarrel, after which they had fallen into each other’s arms. The next day, he had taken ship to Earth to make his a

The rest of Rome was a two-mile high quadrangle around the Vatican. The Eternal Seven Hills had long ago been leveled; the Tiber ran through a plastic tube in the lower levels of Rome.

Change was the only constant in human affairs and, indeed, in the universe. Men and women were born and died... A

He cried and sobbed as if great hands within him were squeezing the breath and the tears out of him. The cardinal was rigid with embarrassment, but he pulled Carmody’s head down against his chest and patted the priest’s hair while he muttered jerky and awkward consolation. Presently, his body relaxed, and his own tears fell upon Carmody.

By the time they had reached the port, Carmody was sitting up and drying his eyes on a handkerchief. “I’ll be all right now. For a while, anyway. I’m glad I have an excuse to get away. If I’d stayed, I might have fallen apart. What kind of an example would I be to those I’ve tried to support in their grief? Or to those who’ve listened to me preach that death is more an occasion for joy than sorrow, since glory awaits the dead and they’re beyond the temptations and evils of this world? I knew damn well while I was saying all those words that they meant little. It’s not until the shock and pain wear away that they’re any comfort.”

The cardinal did not reply. A moment later, they reached the port. This was a five- story building, covering thirty acres, and built largely of white marble quarried in the Whizaroo mountains some ninety kilometers from the capital city. Its huge main room was filled with human beings from every planet in the Federation and a number of other sentients. Most of them were here on government or other business; the minority were those who had enough money to afford first-class fares. The immigration section was in another part of the building, and there the people were not so expensively dressed nor so carefree.

The two priests walked slowly through the crowd, many of whom wore the “medusa” or “living wig,” which coiled itself at regulated times to form different coiffures and also every hour passed through the entire spectrum of 100,000 colors. Many wore the half- cloaks with flaring “bartizan” shoulders and material which gave forth tinkles, the notes of which varied according to minute changes in temperature and air pressure. A few of the older people had painted legs, but the rest wore boswells—tights on the surface of which appeared moving pictures of the wearer at various stages of his life, and personal statistics or capsule biographies. One expensively dressed woman had boswells which portrayed in cartoons the highlights of her life.