Night of Light

A pang welled up in Carmody, drove up through his chest, forced a sob from him, and sprang out as tears. He began weeping violently, and he stumbled to Yess and embraced him. Yess was also weeping.

Yess released himself and sat Carmody down in a chair. He slid open a drawer of the table and took out a handkerchief to wipe his eyes.

“I’ve looked forward for a long time to this,” he said. “Yet I know that it is going to be difficult. We are strangers, and no matter how much we come to know each other, I’m afraid that there will always be a certain barrier between us.”

For the first time in his life, Carmody found it difficult to talk. What could he say?

“As you can see, Father,” Yess went on, “I am half-Terrestrial, truly your son. And that, by the way, is one of our arguments about the universality of Boontism. Once restricted to this planet, Boontism is destined to spread throughout the universe. Its destiny became manifest the moment I was conceived by an extra-Kareenan mother and Father. Boonta accomplished this for a very specific purpose.”

Carmody, feeling better, smiled. “You certainly have one of my characteristics: directness. And I am certain also that you have another: aggressiveness. I can’t say I’m altogether happy about the last, though.”

Yess smiled, and he sat down in the chair on the other side of the table.

“I’ll come to the point then. A question. Why did you, who went through the mystical mating with Boonta, become a convert to another religion? I would have thought that you would be so overwhelmed with a sense of the truth of Boonta and with the experiences of the Night, that you could not have done otherwise than worship Boonta.”

“Others, notably my superiors of the Church, have asked me that same question,” Carmody replied. “Perhaps; if I’d stayed on Kareen, I might have become a Boontist. But I sincerely believe that a Something—Destiny, Fate, or God—a term I prefer—directed me otherwise. While under observation at Hopkins, I went through an experience, fully as mystical and convincing as anything that happened here. I became convinced, and nothing has happened since then to unconvince me, that the faith I chose was the one for me.”

Yess’ voice was pleasant, but he was watching Carmody’s face very intently.

“You think, then, that Boonta is a false deity?”

“Not at all. Rather, I should say that She is the manifestation the Creator takes on Kareen. She is another aspect. At least, I like to think that. But I really do not know, nor do I think I shall ever be certain. My own Church has made no official declaration, and it may be a long time before it does.”

“I am not the least uncertain,” Yess said. He reached into the drawer and took out a small bottle and a package.

“The wine is Kareenan; the cigarettes, Terrestrial. I enjoy both. And when I do, I think of my origin. I am no longer Yess, god of Kareen only. I am Yess, the god of all planets.”

He spoke matter-of-factly.

“You really believe that?”

“I know.”

“Then there’s no use arguing,” Carmody said. “Not that I intended to do so, anyway. But I’ll be frank. I did come here to try to dissuade you from taking a particular step. I—“

“I know why you’re here. Your Church has sent you to give me the same arguments that Rilg presented. Rilg, by the way, although he may not know it, is an Algulist. I’ve been aware of it for a long time, but I’ve done nothing about it because I never, or rarely, interfere in governmental affairs. Besides, almost all politicians on this planet—and probably on others—are Algulists. Consciously or unconsciously.”

“Then you’ve made up your mind?”

“Last year. I don’t intend to make the a

“Of course, I can’t blame them too much. Too many of them know, deep inside them, that they won’t make it through the Night. But the time is past for coddling the self- deceivers. If they are truly Algulists behind their facade of Yess worship, they must find out.”

“But what about the children?” Carmody said. He knew his face was getting red and that Yess was aware of his anger.

“Life is a spendthrift. Life is a struggle. Some make it; some don’t. Boonta gives, but she doesn’t take back. She allows things to happen as they happen.”

Carmody sat silent, overwhelmed with the knowledge that nothing he could say would turn Yess aside.

“After the Night is over and we have reorganized,” Yess was saying, “we shall go into an intensive campaign of extra-Kareenan proselytizing. I intend to visit other planets myself.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Carmody said. “If you’re assassinated by some religious fanatic on another planet, you’ll be discredited.”

“Not so. Another Yess will appear. That a Yess can be killed will no more invalidate his divinity than the killing of Christ did His.”

“Next you’ll be telling me that planets do have their own local saviors, good enough in their own way but only temporary substitutes until the oversavior comes along—you.”

“Exactly,” Yess replied. “It’s the evolution of the divine. Just as the New Testament was added to the Old Testament to make a new book, and as the Book of Mormon and the Koran and the Keys to Science and Health were sequels to the Bible, so another Book will come into being and supersede all of them.

“I am dictating the Book of Light. It will be finished presently. In it is a compressed history of Boonta and her peoples. It also presents in organized and authentic form the tenets of our religion. And it does what no other scriptures have ever dared. It makes a detailed prophecy of things to come. This is not given in vague symbolic form, so that a thousand different interpretations are possible. It is clear and specific.

“When this Book is translated into the many tongues of the galaxies and made available everywhere, it will be our greatest missionary.”

Yess looked across the table into Carmody’s eyes, and Carmody felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. It was the aura, though much attenuated, that he had felt when he went into the Temple with the other Fathers for the birth of Yess—when Boonta had made Her presence known.

Abruptly, the feeling stopped. Yess rose and said, “I will see you, Father.”

Carmody stood up also. “Am I free to make your decision known?”

“No. You will say nothing of it.”

Yess strode around the table, embraced Carmody and kissed him. “Do not grieve, Father. There are things beyond your understanding. You must accept them, just as you accepted the things of the Night and my conception by a creature of your mind.”

“I would like to do so,” Carmody replied. “But I ca

“They are not needless. Boonta be with you.”

“And God with you—son.”

Tand greeted the priest as he entered the waiting room on the ground floor. “How did it go, John? How do you feel?”

“Downcast. And troubled. I feel somewhat like an actor who has walked onto the stage only to find himself in the wrong theater and the wrong play.”

“You’ve completed your mission. Why don’t you go home?”

“I don’t know why, but I can’t. Something tells me I have unfinished business here. Perhaps it’s to find out the truth, if that’s possible. I’ll tell you one thing. Yess’ theory of one universal savior disturbs me very much. Are divine truths revealed little by little as sentients become ready for them? And is Yess about to reveal one, a valid one?”

Carmody went home and to bed. He slept until late in the morning, an event rare for him. When he went down to the hotel dining room for breakfast, he found it empty of all non-Kareenans except for a number of Terrestrial converts to Boontism. He ate a sad breakfast alone. Just before he finished, he was interrupted by a priest of Boonta.