Nightfall by Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg Read Free Book Online Page A

booth high up to the right, signaling that everything was ready.
    “If you’ll board the car, Doctor—” Kelaritan said.
    “Of course. Of course.”
    Fewer than one out of ten experienced harmful effects. Very likely they were unusually vulnerable to Darkness disorders to begin with. I am not. I am a very stable individual.
    He entered the car. There was a safety belt; he strapped it around his waist, adjusting it with some difficulty to his girth. The car began to roll forward, slowly, very slowly.
    Darkness was waiting for him.
    Fewer than one out of ten. Fewer than one out of ten.
    He understood the Darkness syndrome. That would protect him, he was sure: his understanding. Even though all of mankind had an instinctive fear of the absence of light, that did not mean that the absence of light was of itself harmful.
    What was harmful, Sheerin knew, was one’s
reaction
to the absence of light. The thing to do is to stay calm. Darkness is nothing but darkness, a change of external circumstances. We are conditioned to abhor it because we live in a world where darkness is unnatural, where there is always light, the light of the many suns. At any time there might be as many as four suns shining at once; usually there were three in the sky, and at no time were there ever less than two—and the light of any of them was sufficient all by itself to hold back the Darkness.
    The Darkness—
    The Darkness—
    The Darkness!
    Sheerin was in the Tunnel now. Behind him the last vestige of light disappeared, and he peered into an utter void. There was nothing ahead of him: nothing. A pit. An abyss. A zone of total lightlessness. And he was tumbling headlong into it.
    He felt sweat breaking out all over him.
    His knees began to shake. His forehead throbbed. He held up his hand and was unable to see it in front of his face.
    Abort abort abort abort
    No. Absolutely not.
    He sat upright, back rigid, eyes wide open, gazing stolidly into the nothingness through which he plunged. On and on, ever deeper. Primordial fears bubbled and hissed in the depths of his soul, and he forced them back down and away.
    The suns are still shining outside the Tunnel, he told himself.
    This is only temporary. In fourteen minutes and thirty seconds I’ll be back out there.
    Fourteen minutes and twenty seconds.
    Fourteen minutes and ten seconds.
    Fourteen minutes—
    Was he moving at all, though? He couldn’t tell. Maybe he wasn’t. The car’s mechanism was silent; and he had no reference points. What if I’m stuck? he wondered. Just sitting here in the dark, no way to tell where I am, what’s happening, howmuch time is passing? Fifteen minutes, twenty, half an hour? Until I’ve passed whatever limit my sanity can stand, and then—
    There’s always the abort switch, though.
    But suppose it doesn’t work? What if I press it and the lights don’t come on?
    I could test it, I suppose. Just to see—
    Fatty is a coward! Fatty is a coward!
    No. No. Don’t touch it. Once you turn the lights on you won’t be able to turn them off again. You mustn’t use the abort switch, or they’ll know—they’ll all know—
    Fatty is a coward, Fatty is a coward
—
    Suddenly, astonishingly, he hurled the abort switch into the darkness. There was a tiny sound as it fell—
somewhere.
Then silence again. His hand felt terribly empty.
    The Darkness—
    The Darkness—
    There was no end to it. He was tumbling through an infinite abyss. Falling and falling and falling into the night, the endless night, the all-devouring black—
    Breathe deeply. Stay calm.
    What if there’s permanent mental damage?
    Stay calm, he told himself. You’ll be all right. You’ve got maybe eleven minutes more of this at the worst, maybe only six or seven. The suns are shining out there. Six or seven minutes and you’ll never be in Darkness again, not if you live to be a thousand.
    The Darkness—
    Oh, God, the Darkness—
    Calm. Calm. You’re a very stable man, Sheerin. You’re extremely