Night of Light by Charles Morgan

Author:Charles Morgan [Morgan, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2011-07-23T00:06:32+00:00

Carmody nodded.

“They say you’re going on a mission to Kareen!” O’Grady burst out. “They say you’re going to denounce Yess and expose Boontism as false!”

“Who’s they?” Carmody said softly. “And keep your voice down.”

“Oh, everybody knows,” O’Grady said, waving his hand to indicate, apparently, the entire universe.

“The Vatican will be pleased to know how well their deepest secrets are kept,”

Carmody said.”Well, for your information, I am not going to Kareen to denounce Yess.”

O’Grady seized Carmody’s arm and said, “You’re not going to renounce our faith for Boontism?”

Carmody pulled his arm away. “Is that another rumor?” he said coldly. “No. I’ll admit there are some unsettling aspects about Boontism. But my faith is unshaken. Confused, perhaps, and questioning, but unshaken. And you may tell everybody that, also.”

“We’re having much trouble on Springboard,” O’Grady said. “The number of our flock lost to Boontism is alarming. I’m not at liberty to tell even you how high the figure is, but I can say that it’s alarming.”

“You said it twice,” Carmody replied.

“Father, perhaps you could stay long enough on Springboard to preach a while. We need a man such as you, a man who’s been to Kareen and who can expose their so-called miracles and their so-called god as lies.”

“I haven’t time to stay,” Carmody replied. “Moreover, I’d be a big disappointment to you. The so-called miracles are real, and whether or not Yess is a true savior of his planet is a question even the Holy Father himself does not care to answer. Not yet.”

Carmody hitched himself forward, stared at the screen without seeing the figures upon it, and said, “I warn you that you had best keep quiet about meeting or about our conversation. This mission is supposed to be secret. Only myself and certain powers of the Church presumably know about it, although I can see that the grapevine has been busy again. It’s the only thing in the universe faster than the speed of light. But if you breathe one word about this, you’ll get an exceedingly severe reprimand and a check in your career that’ll set you back twenty years. So keep your mouth shut!”

O’Grady blinked, and his face became both red and hurt. To Carmody’s relief, the takoff warning buzzed, and the captain began his pitch. The rest of the way to Springboard, O’Grady was too concerned with controlling his fear to talk.

When the White Mule had landed, Carmody decided to leave it for a while. He needed to stretch his legs, to look again at a place with which he had once more been familiar. It would also be the last “normal” planet he would see for some time.

The port had changed much in ten years, as had the city beyond it. The white Brobdingnagian cones fashioned by the almost extinct beavites—warm-blooded animals which emulated the termites of Earth in eating wood and constructing buildings of cementoid excrement—were still numerous. The first colonists had killed the beavites and moved into the ready-made skyscrapers. Then houses made of logs or artificial foamstone had filled in the places between the cones.

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