He was appalled at what he saw on the streets. Corpses lay in all directions as far as he could see. There were men, women, and children among them, torn by bullets and knives, some cut in half by kaser beams. A truck lay on its side with its kaser tube blown apart by a bomb, probably dropped from a window above. The soldiers who had manned the kaser were dead.
Blood ran in a shallow stream down the gutters. Carmody picked up a gun, checked its clip, and hurriedly set off down the street. Before he had gone far, he grew dizzy and hot; his sight blurred. Then the flicker of the sun, effective even around the curve of the planet, had passed.
Several blocks down the street, he found the Kareenan drive-stick equivalent of a motorcycle on its side. It was still operable, even though part of the seat had been blown off, along with its rider. It was a twisting, weaving course he had to take to avoid running over the many corpses, but he managed it. Then, going around a corner, the motorcycle skidded on something slippery, hit the curb, and threw him across the sidewalk. He struck the side of the building hard, but he was not hurt so badly that he could not get up. The cycle’s front wheel was too bent for him to continue on it, so he limped away.
As he neared the Temple of Boonta, he heard the sound of firing and saw men running. He ducked into an office, crouched down behind the broken window and watched. Ahead of the mob came one man, a thin fellow in the rags of a robe. He was running as fast as his long legs could pump, but he was winded and sobbing for breath.
Carmody stood up and called to the man. Gunshots drowned out his voice. Lifted and hurled forward by the bullets, the man fell on his face.
By the still-operating streetlights, Carmody saw that the man was Skelder.
So, this was for Skelder the end of the Night that had begun so many years ago.
A bullet crashed through the broken window. Carmody turned and ran through the shadowy interior into the alley.
Footsteps pounded close behind him. Carmody dropped on all fours. The pursuer fell over him, and Carmody raised his gun to fire.
“Don’t shoot! It’s me, Tand!”
Carmody lowered the gun again, shaking with relief. Tand arose, lobbed something over Carmody toward the rear exit of the office. He pushed Carmody down, and both cowered flat on the pavement of the alley. There was a deafening roar and a blast of air that tore at their clothes.
Both jumped up and ran on down the alley to the next open door. There, between gasps for breath, they talked.
“I was hiding in the office when you entered,” Tand said. “I didn’t know who you were, you were just a silhouette. But when you turned, I saw enough of your profile to recognize you. I ran after you...”
“Strange that the three of us should converge at the same spot,” Carmody said. “That was Skelder who died outside the shop.”
Tand made the circular sign. “Well, his last years were happy ones. I was looking for you when the riots broke out, and I had to take refuge. The Temple is surrounded by
Algulists, but they’re a somewhat disorganized bunch. Every time there’s a flicker, fight- ing breaks out among them.”
“How can we get in?” Carmody said.
“I know a way. But we have to be very careful not to reveal it. If the Enemy also found it, they could surprise those within the Temple.”
They left the shop, and, hugging the wall, walked only another block. Tand led the priest into a market that had been looted. There were four dead in the aisles or behind counters, one of them a child. Tand grimaced and went into the back offices, where a headless corpse sprawled across a desk. He went through a doorway behind the desk into a large closet. This had been a stockroom, but the papers and pens had been strewn about, typewriters and office equipment smashed.
Carmody followed the Kareenan behind a pile of large wooden boxes, some of which had been ripped open. Tand stopped, felt over the naked stone blocks of the wall, and pressed. A large block at the bottom of the wall slid inward. He got down on his hands and kiiees and crawled through the opening with the Earthman behind him. The interior was dark except for the light coming in through the opening. Tand stood up and did something; the block moved back to its former position.
Light flooded the place. Tand removed his hand from a plate set in the wall. They were in a small room at the end of which was a narrow archway.
“The tunnel is narrow and low,” Tand said, “and it dips sharply downward. There are enough eternalights for us to see our way. Follow me, but not too closely. I may stop suddenly, and I don’t want you bumping into me and knocking me forward. It could be fatal for both of us.”
As Carmody followed Tand, he looked beyond and ahead of him and saw that there were only very dim footprints in the thick dust. He asked Tand about it.
“I’ve never been here myself, but I’ve studied maps of this tunnel and of others. Only Yess, the Fathers, and the highest priests and priestesses know of it, only those who’ve passed the Night. Even so...”
Tand stopped and held up his hand. Carmody examined the wall and floor ahead of them but could see nothing unusual.
“What is it?”
Tand indicated one of the bulbs on the ceiling. “See that? It has a small black spot on it that looks like dirt. It’s a sign. Now, watch me, then do as I do.”
Tand drew a line in the dust before him, then backed up ten steps, crouched and began to run. Just before he came to the line in the dust, he veered and ran on the curving side of the tunnel, his momentum allowing him to do so for several meters. When he had come down off the wall and back onto the floor, he slowed and stopped.
He turned to Carmody. “All right, come on. Don’t slip.”
Carmody sprinted after him. After joining Tand, he said, “What would have happened if we had just walked across the floor at that spot?”
“Nothing necessarily fatal,” Tand replied. “The ceiling above that point, which looks like solid stone, is a trap door. It would open, and a great quantity of sticky jelly would drop and imprison you. At the same time, an alarm would go off in the Temple and a light on a control board, indicating the alarm location, would be illuminated. You’d be held fast until the Temple guards came to dissolve the jelly. You might not be alive; it would depend on whether the jelly happened to cover your nostrils and mouth.”
They continued for fifty meters. After that the tunnel began to slant sharply upward. At its top, they came to an iron door. Tand pulled a key from his beltbag and inserted it, not in the keyhole in the door but in a hole to one side in the wall. The door swung open.
They stepped into a small room, bare of furniture and with thick dust on the floor. Another door, opened with the same wall key, permitted access to yet another small room. A third door, swinging on pivots as the hotel doors did, gave them entrance to a hall the floor of which was dusty. Again, the key unlocked another door, and they were in the anteroom in which Carmody had been before. It was the one with the elevator cage that had taken him up to meet Yess.
The door swung shut behind them and seemed to be one piece with the wall.
“Get in,” Tand said. The cage rose. At the top of the shaft, they left the cage and walked down a broad corridor for at least half a kilometer. There were many doors on both sides, all shut. At the end of the passageway, they came to another elevator. It took them back down to the ground floor. Two more rooms had to be crossed, and then they were in the great room where, so many years ago, Carmody had murdered the old Yess.
The new Yess was there. He stopped talking to the Fathers and priests and priestesses gathered around him to greet the two newcomers. “I had not yet given up hope that you were alive and could get here. But I was beginning to have doubts.”