Nightfall - By Isaac Asimov Robert Silverberg Page 0,2
But the only emotion she felt was horror.
She was Siferra 89, of the Department of Archaeology, who had been conducting excavations for the past year and a half at the ancient site of Beklimot on the remote Sagikan Peninsula. Now she stood rigid with apprehension, watching a catastrophe come rushing toward her. -
The sky offered no comfort. In this part of the world the only real light visible just then was that of Tano and Sitha, and their cold, harsh gleam had always seemed joyless, even depressing, to her. Against the deep somber blue of the two-sunday sky it was a baleful, oppressive illumination, casting jagged, ominous shadows. Dovim was in view also-barely, just rising now-right on the horizon, a short distance above the tips of the distant Horkkan Mountains. The dim glow of the little red sun, though, was hardly any more cheering.
But Siferra knew that the warm yellow light of Onos would come drifting up out of the east before long to cheer things up. What was troubling her was something far more serious than the temporary absence of the main sun.
A killer sandstorm was heading straight toward Beklimot. In another few minutes it would sweep over the site, and then anything might happen. Anything. The tents could be destroyed; the carefully sorted trays of artifacts might be overturned and their contents scattered; their cameras, their drafting equipment, their laboriously compiled stratigraphic drawings-everything that they had worked on for so long might be lost in a moment.
Worse. They could all be killed.
Worse yet. The ancient ruins of Beklimot itself-the cradle of civilization, the oldest known city on Kalgash-were in jeopardy.
The trial trenches that Siferra had sliced in the surrounding alluvial plain stood wide open. The onrushing wind, if it was strong enough, would lift even more sand than it was already carrying, and hurl it with terrible force against the fragile remains of Beklimot-scouring, eroding, reburying, perhaps even ripping whole foundations loose and hurling them across the parched plain. Beklimot was a historical treasure that belonged to the entire world. That Siferra had exposed it to possible harm by excavating in it had been a calculated risk. You could never do any sort of archaeological work without destroying something: it was the nature of the job. But to have laid the whole heart of the plain bare like this, and then to have the lousy luck of being hit by the worst sandstorm in a century- No. No, it was too much. Her name would be blackened for aeons to come if the Beklimot site was shattered by this storm as a result of what she had done here.
Maybe there was a curse on this place, as certain superstitious people were known to say. Siferra 89 had never had much tolerance for crackpots of any sort. But this dig, which she had hoped would be the crowning achievement of her career, had been nothing but headaches ever since she started. And now it threatened to finish her professionally for the rest of her life- if it didn't kill her altogether.
Eilis 18, one of her assistants, came running up. He was a slight, wiry man who looked insignificant beside the tall, athletic figure of Siferra.
"We've got everything nailed down that we were able to!" he called to her, half breathless. "It's all up to the gods now!"
She replied, scowling, "Gods? What gods? Do you see any gods around here, Eilis?"
"I simply meant-"
"I know what you meant. Forget it."
From the other side came Thuvvik 443, the foreman of the workers. He was wild-eyed with fear. "Lady," he said. "Lady, where can we hide? There is no place to hide!"
"I told you, Thuvvik. Down below the cliff."
"We will be buried! We will be smothered!"
"The cliff will shelter you, don't worry," Siferra told him, with a conviction she was far from feeling. "Get over there! And make sure everybody else stays there!"
"And you, lady? Why are you not there?"
She gave him a sudden startled glance. Did he think she had some private hiding place where she'd be safer than the rest?
"I'll be there, Thuvvik. Go on! Stop bothering me!"
Across the way, near the six-sided brick building that the early explorers had called the Temple of the Suns, Siferra caught sight of the stocky figure of Balik 338. Squinting, shading his eyes against the chilly light of Tano and Sitha, he stood looking toward the north, the direction from which the sandstorm was coming. The expression on his face was one of anguish.