Night of Light

“Symbolism or not, universal or not,” said Mrs. Kri, “the fact remains that seven men did create their god Yess. I know because I have seen him walking the streets of Kareen, have touched him, have seen him perform his miracles, though he does not like to do them. And I know that during the Sleep there are evil men who gather to create Algul. For they know that if he comes to life, then they, according to ancient promise, will rule this world and have all they desire.”

“Oh, come now, Mrs. Kri. I do not want to decry your religion, but how do you know this man who claims to be Yess is he?” said Skelder. “And how could mere men fashion a god out of thin air?”

“I know because I know,” she said, giving the age-old and unarguable answer of the believer. She touched her huge bosom. “Something in here tells me it is so.”

Carmody gave his long, high-pitched irritating laughter.

“She’s got you there, Skelder. Hoist by your own petard. Isn’t that the ultimate defense of your own Church when every other has crumbled?”

“No,” replied Skelder coldly, “it is not. For one thing, not one of our so-called defenses crumbles. All remain rockfast, impervious to the jeerings of petty atheists or the hammerblows of organized governments. The Church is imperishable, and so are its teachings; its logic is irrefutable; the Truth is its possession.”

Carmody smirked but refused to talk any more about it. After all, what difference did it make what Skelder or anybody else thought? The thing he wanted now was action; he was tired of fruitless words.

Mrs. Kri had risen from the table and was clearing up the dishes. Carmody, wishing to get more information out of her, and also wanting the others unable to hear him, said that he would help her clean up. Mrs. Kri was charmed; she liked Carmody very much because he was always doing little things for her and giving her little compliments now and then. Astute enough to see that he had a purpose behind this, she still liked what he did.

In the kitchen, he said. “Come on, Mother Kri, tell me the truth. Have you actually seen Yess? Just as you’ve seen me?”

She handed him a wet dish to dry.

“I’ve seen him more times than I have you. I had him in for di

Carmody had difficulty swallowing this prosaic contact with divinity. “Oh, really?”

“Really.”

“And did he go to the bathroom afterwards?” he asked, thinking that this was the ultimate test, the basic distinction between man and god. You could think of a deity eating, perhaps to render his presence easier to his worshippers, perhaps also to enjoy the good things of life, but excretion seemed so u

“Of course,” said Mrs. Kri. “Does Yess not have blood and bowels as you and I?”

Skelder walked in at that moment, ostensibly for a drink of water but actually, thought Carmody, to overhear them.

“Of course he does,” the monk said. “Do not all men? Tell me, Mrs. Kri, how long have you known Yess?”

“Since I was a child. I am fifty now.”

“And he has not aged a bit, has always remained youthful, untouched by time?” said Skelder, his voice tinged with sarcasm.

“Oh, no. He is an old man now. He may die at any time.”

The Earthmen raised their eyebrows.

“Perhaps there is some misunderstanding here,” said Skelder, speaking so swiftly as to give the impression of swooping down vulturelike upon Mrs. Kri. “Some difference in definition, or in language, perhaps. A god, as we understand the term, does not die.”

Tand, who had come into the kitchen in time to catch the last few words, said, “Was not your god slain upon a cross?”

Skelder bit his lip, then smiled, and said, “I must ask you to forgive me. And I must confess that I have been guilty of a lapse of memory, guilty because I allowed a second of anger to cloud my thinking. I forgot for the moment the distinction between the Human and the Divine Nature of Christ. I was thinking in purely pagan terms, and even there I was wrong because the pagans’ gods died. Perhaps you Kareenans made the same distinction between the human and the divine nature of your god Yess. I do not know. I have not been on this planet long enough to determine that; there was so much else to assimilate before I could study the finer points of your theology.”

He stopped, sucked in a deep breath, then, as if he were getting ready to dive into the sea, he thrust his head forward, hunched his bony shoulders, and said, “I still think that there is a vast difference between your conception of Yess and ours of Christ. Christ was resurrected and then went to Heaven to rejoin His Father. Moreover, His death was necessary if He was to take on the sins of the world and save mankind.”

“If Yess dies, he will someday be born again.”

“You do not understand. There is the very important difference that—“

“That your story is true and ours false, a pagan myth?” replied Tand, smiling. “Who may say what is fact, what is myth, or whether or not a myth is not as much fact as, say, this table here? Whatever operates to bring about action in this world is fact, and if a myth engenders action, then is it not a fact? The words spoken here and now will die out in ever-weakening vibrations, but who knows what undying effect they may cause?”

Suddenly the room darkened, and everybody in it clutched for some hold, the top of a chair, the edge of a table, anything to keep oneself steady. Carmody felt that wave of heat sweep through him and saw the air before him harden, seeming to become glass.

Blood burst out of the mirror, shot as if from a hose nozzle into his face, blinded him, drenched him, filled his open mouth, drove its salty taste down his throat.

There was a scream, not from him but someone beside him. He jumped back, pulled his handkerchief out, wiped away the blood from his eyes, saw that the glassiness was gone and with it the spurt of blood, but that the table and the floor beside it were filmed in crimson. There must have been at least ten quarts of it, he thought, just what you would expect from a woman weighing one hundred pounds.

There was no chance to follow that up for he had to skip to one side to avoid Skelder and Mrs. Kri, who were wrestling across the kitchen, Mrs. Kri doing the pushing because she was heavier and, perhaps, stronger. Certainly, she was the more aggressive, for she was doing her best to strangle the monk. He was clutching at the hands around his neck and screaming, “Take your filthy hands off me, you... you female!”

Carmody roared with laughter, and the sound seemed to break the maniacal spell possessing Mrs. Kri. As if she were waking from a sleep, she stopped, blinked her eyes, dropped her hands, and said, “What was I doing?”

“You were choking the life out of me!” shouted Skelder. “What is the matter with you?”

“Oh, my,” she said to no one in particular. “It’s getting later than I thought. I’d better get to sleep at once. All at once it seemed to me that you were the most hateful man in the world, because of what you said about Yess, and I wanted to kill you. Really, I do get a little irked at what you say but not that much.”

Tand said, “Apparently, your anger is much deeper than you thought, Mrs. Kri. You’d driven it into your unconscious, wouldn’t admit it to yourself, and so—“

He didn’t get to finish. She had turned to look at Carmody and had seen for the first time that blood covered him and was everywhere in the kitchen. She screamed.

“Shut your damn mouth!” said Carmody, quite passionlessly, and he struck her across the lips. She stopped screaming, blinked again, and said, in a quivering voice, “Well, I’d better clean up this mess. I’d hate to wake up and try to scrub off this stuff after it’s dried. You’re sure you’re not hurt?”

He didn’t answer her but instead walked out of the kitchen and upstairs to his room, where he began to take off the wet clothing. Ralloux, who had followed him, said, “I am begi