A month later, the noonday sun above Dafess City began dimming. In less
than five minutes it became a completely black ball, and remained that
somber, and terrifying unnatural hue until it sank below the horizon.
In due course the stars rose in their appointed courses. Then suddenly,
without warning, many fell, hurtling across the sky, and disappearing
into the bottomless throat of space.
The full moon bounded up. Just as it cleared the horizon, it was struck
by a large red star. Wounded, the moon dripped blood.
All these signs were accompanied, outwardly, at least, by great
rejoicing in Dafess. The Celestial Blueprint was fulfilling itself. The
Time had come. The Truncated were about to get their just reward.
They took purification baths for the first time in their lives. They
put on immaculate white robes. Then, en masse, they marched to the
great open square in the center of the city, and waited.
Meanwhile, all the Untruncated dwelling in Dafess had been cast out,
and all intercourse with the outside had been cut off. Inasmuch as they
used no radios, they had only to close the gates of their high-walled
city to become incommunicado.
As soon as that was done, and the citizens were collected together to
receive their long prophesied payment for holiness, they turned their
short snouts upward to await further developments. Nor were they at
all disappointed.
As predicted, the sky rolled up like a scroll. It did so with enough
thunder to shake the bones and rattle the teeth of even the most
hardened, and secretly sceptical.
With the thunder came a blaze of light which revealed a Titanic forge,
a cosmic smithy where brawny angels with soot blackening their robes,
and smudging their halos stood beating plowshares into swords and
spears.
Flame leaped. Bellows pumped by a cherubic host wheezed like asthmatic
Prometheuses. Hammers as large as hills clanged on white-hot
weaponheads the size of skyscrapers held on anvils large as mountains.
Fire and smoke puffed out in a great cloud that threatened to envelop
the city, and a clamor beat upon their ears, and bounced from the
heavens to the ground and back again.
Then, the sky snapped shut. It clicked like a camera-eye, and the
tremendous vision was gone.
But the assembled Truncated were transported with joy. Had they not
seen the swords prepared for the smiting of the heathen? All as
foretold by the Celestial Blueprint?
An exultant buzz rose from the crowd. It was, however, stilled at once,
for, across the blackened sky, lightning flashed, and twisted itself
into words that seared the eyes of the multitude. Everyone, watched
spellbound above them.