Nightfall Read Online Free PDF Page A

Patru, crossing the eastern sky on a sharp diagonal, etched shining trails of brightness along the dome’s immense face.
    Beenay 25, a slender, agile young man with a quick, alert way of carrying himself, darted briskly about the small apartment below the Observatory in Saro City that he shared with his contract-mate, Raissta 717, gathering his books and papers together.
    Raissta, sprawled comfortably on the worn green upholstery of their little couch, looked up and frowned.
    “Going somewhere, Beenay?”
    “To the Observatory.”
    “It’s so
early
, though. You usually don’t go there until after Onos sets. And that won’t be for hours yet.”
    “I’ve got an appointment today, Raissta.”
    She gave him a warm, seductive look. They were both graduate students in their late twenties, each an assistant professor, he in astronomy, she in biology, and they had been contractmatesonly seven months. Their relationship was still in its first bloom of excitement. But problems had already arisen. He did his work in the late hours, when usually only a few of the lesser suns were in the sky. She was at her freshest and best in the period of high daylight, under the golden glow of bright Onos.
    Lately he had spent more and more time at the Observatory, and it was getting so that they were almost never awake at the same time. Beenay knew how trying that was for her. It was trying for
him.
All the same, the work he was doing on Kalgash’s orbit was demanding stuff, and it was leading him into ever more difficult regions that he found both challenging and frightening. If only Raissta would be patient just another few weeks—a month or two, maybe—
    “Can’t you stay here a little while longer this evening?” she asked.
    His heart sank. Raissta was giving him her come-here-and-let’s-play look. Not easy to resist, nor did he really want to. But Yimot and Faro would be waiting.
    “I told you. I have an—”
    “—appointment, yes. Well, so do I. With you.”
    “Me?”
    “You said yesterday you might have some free time this afternoon. I was counting on that, you know. I cleared a whole swatch of free time of my own—did my lab work in the morning, as a matter of fact, just so—”
    Worse and worse, Beenay thought. He did remember saying something about this afternoon, completely overlooking the fact that he had arranged to meet the two younger students.
    She was pouting now, and somehow smiling at the same time, a trick that she managed to perfection. Beenay wanted to forget all about Faro and Yimot and go to her right away. But if he did that, he might be an hour late for his appointment with them, which wasn’t fair.
Two
hours, maybe.
    And he had to admit to himself that he was desperately eager to know whether their calculations had confirmed his own.
    It was practically an even struggle: the powerful appeal of Raissta on the one hand, and the desire to put his mind at rest concerning a major scientific issue on the other. And though he had an obligation to be on time for his appointment, Beenay realized in some confusion that he had made an appointment ofsorts with Raissta too—and that was a matter not only of obligation but of delight.
    “Look,” he said, going to the couch and taking her hand in his. “I can’t be in two places at once, okay? And when I told you what I did yesterday, it had slipped my mind that Faro and Yimot would be coming to the Observatory to see me. But I’ll make a deal with you. Let me get up there and take care of the thing with them, and then I’ll skip out and be back here a couple of hours from now. How does that sound?”
    “You’re supposed to be photographing those asteroids this evening,” she said, pouting again, and not smiling at all this time.
    “Damn! Well, I’ll ask Thilanda to do the camera work for me, or Hikkinan. Or somebody. I’ll be back by Onos-set, that’s a promise.”
    “A promise?”
    He squeezed her hand and gave her a quick sly grin. “One that