Night of Light

All seemed interested in what had brought Carmody back to their planet. Abog, the secretary of Rilg, the state head, was a young man, very personable, but he had something in his bearing—or was it his voice? -- that Carmody mistrusted.

Abog said, “We were hoping that you had come to a

“I have come to talk to Yess,” Carmody said.

Tand took charge. “Would you like to go now to your hotel room? Inasmuch as you are one of the Seven, the government has reserved one of the best suites. At state expense, of course.”

Tand suggested to the others that they must be very busy. They took the hint and said good-bye. But Abog, before leaving, insisted that Carmody give him an appointment, that very evening, if possible. The priest replied that he would be happy to talk to him.

After the officials had left, Tand conducted Carmody to his car. The vehicle was a low-graviton unit, as were most of those on the street.

“Change,” Tand said. “It’s everywhere in the universe, even on our off-the-beaten- path planet. Population has quadrupled. New industries, founded on Federation technology and sometimes on Federation loans, have sprung up by the thousands.”

Tand drove; Carmody looked out the window. The massive stone structures with the carved gri

There were more people in the streets, and they wore clothes of a style definitely influenced by Federation garments.

“The city you know,” Tand said, “is about the same. But around it, covering what used to be farmlands or woods, is a great new city. It’s not made of stone, not made to last. Too many people too soon. We can no longer afford to take our time in building.”

“It’s like that everywhere,” Carmody replied. “Tell me, are you still co

“No more. But I have influence. Any Father has. Why?”

“A man named Al Lieftin came in on the White Mule with me. Years ago, he was a hired killer. He’s traveling under his own name now, so I presume he was mogrified at Hopkins or a similar institution. He claims now to be a diaconus of the Rockbottom Church of God. His story may be true. If we had time, we could check on him. But we don’t. And there’s a possibility he may be the assassin sent by Earth fanatics to kill Yess. You know of that, don’t you?”

“I’ve heard. I’ll put the police on Lieftin’s trail. But they’ll have a hard time keeping an eye on him, unless they place him under house arrest. Once he’s out in the pre-Night festival crowds, he can easily give them the slip. Or disappear without trying.”

“What’re the chances of house arrest?”

“None at all. He could kick up too much of a fuss. The authorities don’t want to offend a Federation citizen unless they have a very good reason.”

Carmody was silent for a while. Then he said, “There is another man whom I would like watched. But I hesitate to say anything about him. This is such a personal thing, big for me but little in comparison with the plot against Yess.”

He told his friend about the threats from the man who called himself Fratt. Tand was thoughtful. Finally, he said, “You think the Earthman Abdu could be Fratt?”

“Possibly but not very probably. The time element is against it. How would he have learned of my sudden decision to come here?”

“The explanation might be very easy if you knew what he did. I’ll have someone shadow him. The police will be too busy with the crowds to spare anybody. But I’ll get a private operative.”

Tand stopped the car in front of their destination. The Kareenan equivalent of a bellhop loaded Carmody’s baggage on a graviton sled, and the two proceeded straight to Carmody’s suite. Since Tand had made arrangements, there was no registration to go through. But a group of reporters tried to interview Carmody. Tand waved them away. Even though they were as aggressive as their Terrestrial counterparts, they obeyed Tand, a Father of Yess.

Where once the two would have had to walk up great curving flights of stairs, they now shot up in a graviton cage. So wide were the stairwells, it had not been necessary to cut into the stairs to make space for elevator shafts.

“This building has always been a hotel,” Tand said.”It may be the oldest hotel in the universe. It was built more than five thousand years ago.”

He spoke with pride. “It has been occupied so long that it is said a man with a keen nose may detect the odor of flesh, absorbed by the stones during the ages of habitation.”

The cage stopped at the seventh floor, a lucky number and also chosen to honor Carmody as one of the Seven Fathers. His room was nearly two hectometers down the broad stone-walled corridor. The doors to the rooms were of iron, almost bank vault thick. Like many Kareenan doors, they were not hinged on one side but pivoted on pins in the middle. So secure were the rooms behind the doors, the occupants stayed inside during their Sleep instead of going into the mass vaults provided by the government.

Carmody investigated his three-room suite. The beds were carved out from the wall blocks, and the tables were fashioned from granite projections of the floor blocks.

“They don’t build like this any more,” Tand said with a shade of sadness. He poured out some thick dark-red wine into two multi-faceted cups of white-and-red veined wood. The wine descended slowly as if it were molten granite itself. “To your health, John.”

“To yours. And to good men and women everywhere, whatever their form, and to the redemption of the lost, and God bless the children.”

He drank and found the liquor was not sweet, as he had expected. It was very close to being bitter. Somehow, it did not become so. Instead, the tang became very pleasurable, and a glow spread through him and then, seemingly, out from him. The duskiness of the room became golden.

Tand offered him another cup. Carmody refused with thanks. “I want to see Yess. How soon before I can?”

Tand smiled. “You haven’t changed your impetuousness. Yess is just as eager to see you as you are to see him. But he has many duties; being a god doesn’t exempt him from the labors of a mortal. I’ll go see him—his secretary, rather—and make an appointment.”

“Whenever he wants,” Carmody said. He chuckled. “Although it doesn’t show much filial piety for a son to keep his long-absent Father waiting.”

“You are thrice welcome, John. However, your presence is a little embarrassing—or could be. You see the populace knows of you but not much about you. Very few have heard about your not being a worshiper of Boonta. When this becomes general knowledge, it could create much doubt and confusion in the simple-minded. Even in the more sophisticated. How could a Father not be one of Boonta’s faithful?”

“My own Church has asked me that. And I do not know. I’ve seen dozens of so-called miracles here, enough to stagger sextillions of infidels. Surely enough to convince the hardest-headed materialist. But I had no desire to convert.

“As a matter of fact, though I was not an atheist when I left Kareen for Earth, I had no inclination for any particular religion. While I was in Hopkins, I had a very strange—and essentially inexplicable—experience. It was this that led me into the Church. But I forgot. I wrote you about that.”

Tand rose from his chair and said, “I’m off to see Yess. I’ll phone you later.”

He kissed the priest and left.

Carmody unpacked and then bathed in a tub the interior of which had been worn deep by friction from five millenia of ru