Farmer, Philip Jose - Father Carmody 00.3 Read online

  The Night of Light, Part One

  by PHILIP JOSE FARMER

  This happened on Dante’s Joy, a planet bewildering to metaphysicians and physicists alike. It took place six years before John Carmody put on the maroon robes of a priest of the Order of St. Jairus. Those who knew John Carmody before he became ordained may now see how it was possible for even such a seemingly hopeless creature, fit only to be kept behind bars until he died, to become a man. First, it was necessary that the creature die, and . . .

  ON EARTH IT would be a fearful thing to see a man chasing down the street after the skin from a human face, a thin layer of tissue blown about like a piece of paper by the wind.

  On the planet of Dante's Joy the sight aroused only a mild wonder in the few passersby. And they were interested because the chaser was an Earthman and, therefore, a curiosity in himself.

  John Carmody ran down the long straight street, past the clifflike fronts of towers built of huge blocks of quartz-shot granite, with gargoyles and nightmare shapes grinning from the darkened interiors of many niches and with benedictions of god and goddess leaning from the many balconies.

  A little man, dwarfed even more by the soaring walls and flying buttresses, he ran down the street in frantic pursuit of the fluttering transparent skin that turned over and over as it sailed upon the strong wind, over and over, showing the eye holes, the earholes, the sagging empty gaping mouthhole, and trailing a few long and blond hairs from the line of the forehead, the scalp itself being absent.

  The wind howled behind him, seeming to add its fury to his. Suddenly the skin, which had fluttered just within his reach, shot upwards on a strong draft coming around a building.

  Carmody cursed and leaped, and his fingers touched the thing. But it flew up and landed on a balcony at least ten feet above him, lodged against the feet of the diorite image of the god Yess.

  Panting, holding his aching sides, John Carmody leaned against the base of a buttress. Though he had once been in superb condition, as befitted the ex-welterweight amateur boxing champion of the Federation, his belly was swelling to make room for his increasing appetite, and fat was building up beneath his chin, like a noose.

  It made little difference to him or to anybody else. He was not much to look at, anyway. He had a shock of blue-black hair, stiff and straight, irresistibly reminding one of a porcupine's quills. His head was melon-shaped, his forehead too high, his left eyelid drooped just enough to give his face a lopsided look, his nose was too long and sharp, his mouth too thin, his teeth too widely spaced.

  He looked up at the balcony, cocking his head to one side like a bird, and saw he couldn't climb up the rough but slick wall. The windows were closed with heavy iron shutters, and the massive iron door was locked. A sign hung from its handle. On it was a single word in the alphabet of the people of the northern continent of Kareen. SLEEPING.

  Carmody shrugged, smiled indifferently, in contrast to his former wildness to get at the skin, and walked away. Abruptly the wind, which had died down, sprang into life again and struck him like a blow from a huge fist.

  He rolled with it as he would have rolled with a punch in the ring, kept his footing, and leaned into it, head down but bright blue eyes looking upwards. Nobody ever caught him with his eyes shut.

  There was a phone booth on the corner, a massive marble box that could hold twenty people easily. Carmody hesitated outside it but, impelled by the screaming fury of the wind, he entered. He went to one of the six phones and lifted its receiver. But he did not sit down on the broad stone bench, preferring to dance around, to shift nervously from side to side and to keep his head cocked as one eye looked for intruders.

  He dialed his number, Mrs. Kri's boarding house. When she answered the phone, he said, "Beautiful, this is John Carmody. I want to speak to Father Skelder or Father Ralloux."

  Mrs. Kri giggled, as he knew she would, and said, "Father Skelder is right here. Just a second."

  There was a pause, then a man's deep voice. "Carmody? What is it?"

  "Nothing to get alarmed about," said Carmody. "I think. . ." He waited for a comment from the other end of the line. He smiled, thinking of Skelder standing there, wondering what was going on, unable to say too much because of Mrs. Kri's presence. He could see the monk's long face with its many wrinkles and high cheekbones and hollow cheeks and shiny bald pate, the lips like a crab's pincers tightening until they squeezed themselves out of sight.

  "Listen, Skelder, I've something to tell you. It may or may not be important, but it is rather strange." He stopped again and waited, knowing that the monk was foaming underneath that seemingly impassive exterior, that he would not care to display it at all and would hate himself for breaking down and asking Carmody what he had to tell. But he would break; he would ask. There was too much at stake.

  "Well, well, what is it?" he finally snapped. "Can't you say over the phone?"

  "Sure, but I wasn't going to bother if you weren't interested. Listen, about five minutes ago did anything strange happen to you or to anybody around you?"

  There was another long pause, then Skelder said in a strained voice, "Yes. The sun seemed to flicker, to change color. I became dizzy and feverish. So did Mrs. Kri, and Father Ralloux."

  Carmody waited until he was sure that the monk was not going to comment any further. "Was that all? Did nothing else happen to you or the others?"

  "No. Why?"

  Carmody told him about the skin of the unfinished face that had seemed to appear from the empty air before him. "I thought perhaps you might have had a similar experience."

  "No; aside from the sick feeling, nothing happened."

  Carmody thought he detected a huskiness in Skelder's voice. Well, he would find out later if the monk were concealing something. Meanwhile. . .

  Suddenly, Skelder said, "Mrs. Kri has left the room. What is it you really wanted, Carmody?"

  "I really wanted to compare notes about that flickering of the sun," he replied, crisply. "But I thought I'd tell you something of what I found out in the temple of Boonta."

  "You ought to have found out just about everything," interrupted Skelder. "You were gone long enough. When you didn't show up last night, I thought that perhaps something had happened to you."

  "You didn't call the police?"

  "No, of course not," the monk's voice crackled. "Do you think that because I'm a priest I'm stupid? Besides, I hardly think you're worth worrying about."

  Carmody chuckled. "Love they fellowman as a brother. Well, I never cared much for my brother -- or anybody else. Anyway, the reason I'm late, though only twenty hours or so behind time, is that I decided to take part in the big parade and the ceremonies that followed." He laughed again. "These Kareenans really enjoy their religion."

  Skelder's voice was cold. "You took part in a temple orgy?"

  Carmody haw-hawed. "Sure. When in Rome, you know. However, it wasn't pure sensuality. Part of it was a very boring ritual, like all ritual; it wasn't until nightfall that the high priestess gave the signal for the melee."

  "You took part?"

  "Sure. With the high priestess herself. It's all right; these people don't have your attitude towards sex, Skelder; they don't think it's dirty or a sin; they regard it as a sacrament, a great gift from the goddess; what would seem to you infinitely disgusting, wallowing in a mire of screaming sex-fiends, is to them pure and chaste and goddess-blessed worship. Of course, I think your attitude and theirs are both wrong: sex is just a force that one ought to take advantage of in other people; but I will admit that the Kareenans' ideas are more fun than yours."

  Skelder's voice was that of a
slightly impatient and bored teacher lecturing a not-too-bright pupil. If he was angry, he managed to conceal it.

  "You don't understand our doctrine. Sex is not in itself a dirty or sinful force. After all, it is the medium designated by God whereby the higher forms of life may be perpetuated. Sex in animals is as innocent as the drinking of water. And in the holy circle of matrimony a man and a woman may use this God-given force, may, through its sacred and tender rapture, become one, may approach that ecstasy, or be given an intimation of that ecstasy, which is the understanding and perhaps even glimpse of --"

  "Jesus Christ!" said Carmody. "Spare me, spare me! What must your parishioners mutter under their breaths, what groans, every time you climb into the pulpit? God, or What-ever-it-is, help them!

  "Anyway, I don't give a damn what the doctrine of the Church is. It's very evident that you yourself think that sex is dirty, even if it takes place within the permissible bonds of matrimony. It's disgusting, and the sooner the necessary evil is over and done with and one can take a shower, the better.

  "However, I've gotten way off the track, which is that to the Kareenans these outbreaks of religio-sexual frenzy are manifestations of their gratitude to the Creator -- I mean Creatrix -- for being given life and the joys of life. Normally, they behave quite stuffily --"

  "Look, Carmody, I don't need a lecture from you; after all, I am an anthropologist, I know perfectly well what the perverted outlook of these natives is, and --"

  "Then why weren't you down here studying them?" said Carmody, still chuckling. "It's your anthropological duty. Why send me down? Were you afraid you'd get contaminated just watching? Or were you scared to death that you might get religion, too?"

  "Let's drop the subject," said Skelder, emotionlessly. "I don't care to hear the depraved details; I just want to know if you found out anything pertinent to our mission."

  Carmody had to smile at that word mission.

  "Sure thing, Dad. The priestess said that the Goddess herself never appears except as a force in the bodies of her worshipers. But she maintains, as did a lot of the laymen I talked to, that the goddess's son, Yess, exists in the flesh, that they have seen and even talked to him. He will be in this city during the Sleep. The story is that he comes here because it was here that he was born and died and raised again."

  "I know that," said the monk, exasperatedly. "Well, we shall see when we confront this imposter what he has to say. Ralloux is working on our recording equipment now so it'll be ready."

  "OK," replied Carmody indifferently. "I'll be home within half an hour, provided I don't run across any interesting females. I doubt it; this city is dead -- almost literally so."

  He hung up the phone, smiling again at the look of intense disgust he could imagine on Skelder's face. The monk would be standing there for perhaps a minute in his black robes, his eyes closed, his lips working in silent prayer for the lost soul of John Carmody, then he would whirl and stalk upstairs to find Ralloux and tell him what had happened. Ralloux, clad in the maroon robe of the Order of St Jairus, puffing on his pipe as he worked upon the recorders, would listen without much comment, would express neither disgust nor amusement over Carmody's behavior, would then say that it was too bad that they had to work with Carmody but that perhaps something good for Carmody, and for them, too, might come out of it. In the meantime, as there was nothing they could do to alter conditions on Dante's Joy or change Carmody's character, they might as well work with what they had.

  As a matter of fact, thought Carmody, Skelder detested his fellow-scientist and co-religionist almost as much as he did Carmody. Ralloux belonged to an order that was very much suspect in the eyes of Skelder's older and far more conservative organization. Moreover, Ralloux had declared himself to be in favor of the adoption of the Statement of Historical Flexibility, or Evolution of Doctrine, the theory then being offered by certain parties within the Church, and advocated by them as worthy of being made dogma. So strong had the controversy become that the Church was held to be in danger of another Great Schism, and some authorities held that the next twenty-five years would see profound changes and perhaps a crucial break-up in the Church itself.

  Though both monks made an effort to keep their intercourse on a polite level, Skelder had lost his temper once, when they were discussing the possibility of allowing priests to marry -- a mere evolution of discipline, rather than doctrine. Thinking of Skelder's red face and roaring jeremiads, Carmody had to laugh. He himself had contributed to the monk's wrath by pointed comments now and then, hugely enjoying himself, contemptuous at the same time of a man who could get so concerned over such a thing. Couldn't the stupid ass see that life was just a big joke and that the only way to get through it was to share it with the Joker?

  It was funny that the two monks, who hated each other's guts, and he, who was disliked by both of them and who was contemptuous of them, should be together in this project. "Crime makes strange bedfellows," he had once said to Skelder in an effort to touch off the rage that always smoldered in the man's bony breast. His comment had failed of its purpose, for Skelder had icily replied that in this world the Church had to work with the tools at hand and Carmody, however foul, was the only one available. Nor did he think it a crime to expose the fraudulency of a false religion.

  "Look, Skelder," Carmody had said, "you know that you and Ralloux were jointly commissioned by the Federation's Anthropological Society and by your Church to make a study of the so-called Night of Light on Dante's Joy and also, if possible, to interview Yess -- providing he exists. But you've taken it on yourself to go further than that. You want to capture a god, inject him with chalarocheil and make him confess the whole hoax. Do you think that you won't get into trouble when you return to Earth?"

  To which Skelder had replied that he was prepared to face any amount of trouble for this chance to kill the religion at its roots. The cult of Yess had spread from Dante's Joy to many a planet; its parody on the Church's ritual and Sacraments, plus the orgies to which it gave religious sanction had caused many defections from the Church's fold; there was the fantastic but true story of the diocese of the planet of Comeonin. The bishop and every member of his flock, forty thousand, had become apostates and. . .

  Remembering this, Carmody smiled again. He wondered what Skelder would say if he knew how literal his words were about "killing the religion at its roots." John Carmody had his own interpretation of that. In his coat pocket he carried a True Blue Needlenose diminutive assassin, .03 caliber, capable of firing one hundred explosive bullets one after the other before needing a new clip. If Yess was flesh and blood and bone, then flesh could flower, blood could geyser, bone could splinter, and Yess would have another chance to rise again from the dead.

  He'd like to see that. If he saw that, then he could believe anything.

  Or could he? What if he did believe it? Then what? What difference would it make? So miracles were wrought? So what? What did that have to do with John Carmody, who existed outside miracles, who would never rise again from the dead, who was determined, therefore, to make the most of what little this universe had to offer?

  A little of good food, steaks and onions, a little of good Scotch, a little drunkenness so you could get a little closer but never close enough to the truth that you knew existed just on the other side of the walls of this hard universe, a little pleasure out of watching the pains and anxieties of other people and the stupid concerns they had over them when they could so easily be avoided, a little mockery, your greatest joy, actually, because it was only by laughing that you could tell the universe that you didn't care -- not a false mockery, because he did not care, cared nothing for what others seemed to value so desperately -- a little laughter, and then the big sleep. The last laugh would be had by the universe, but John Carmody wouldn't hear it, and so, you might say that he in reality had the last laugh, and. . .

  At that moment he heard his name called by someone passing along the street. "Come on in, Tand!" Carmody shouted back
in Kareenan. "I thought you'd gone to Sleep. You're not going to take the Chance, are you?"

  Tand offered him a native-made cigarette, lit one of his own, blew smoke through narrow nostrils, and replied, "I've a very important deal to finish. It may take some time to complete it. So -- I'll have to put off Sleeping as long as possible."

  "That's strange," said Carmody, mentally noting that Tand had answered him in terms as vague as possible. "I've heard that you Kareenans think only about ethics and the nature of the universe and improving your shining souls, not at all about dirty old money."

  Tand smiled. "We are no different than most peoples. We have our saints, our sinners, and our in-betweens. But we do seem to have a Galaxy-wide reputation, though quite a contradictory one. One depicts us as a race of ascetic and holy men; the other, as the most sensual and vile of so-called civilized people. And, of course, strange stories are told about us, largely because of the Night of Light. Whenever we travel to another planet, we find ourselves treated as something quite unique. Which I suppose we are, just as all peoples are."

  Carmody did not ask the nature of the important deal that was keeping Tand from going to Sleep at once. It would have been bad Kareenan form to do so. Over the glowing tip of his cigarette he studied him. The fellow was about six feet tall, handsome according to his own race's standards. Like most intelligent beings of the Galaxy, he could pass for a member of Homo sapiens at a distance, his ancestors having evolved along lines parallel to those of Terrestrials. Only when he got closer could you see that his face, though manlike, was not quite human. And the feathery-looking hair and blue-tinged nails and teeth gave you a start when you first met a native of Dante's Joy.

  Tand wore a gray, brimless, conical headpiece like a fool's cap, stuck jauntily onto one side; his hair was clipped quite close except just above the wolflike ears, where it fell straight down to cover them; his neck was encircled in a high lacy collar but his thigh-length, bright violet shirt was severe enough. A broad gray velvet belt gathered it in at the waist. His legs were bare, and his four-toed feet wore sandals.