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Three monks stood lounging in the shadows behind the new machine. They kept their hands tucked in their sleeves and watched a fourth monk who stood at the foot of the stairs. The fourth monk gazed patiently up toward a fifth monk who stood on the landing and watched the entrance to the stairway.

Brother Kornhoer had brooded over his apparatus like an anxious parent, but when he could no longer find wires to wiggle and adjustments to make and remake, he retired to the Natural Theology alcove to read and wait. To speak a summary of last-minute instructions to his crew would be permissible, but he chose to maintain the hush, and if any thought of the coming moment as a personal climax crossed his mind as he waited, the monastic inventor’s expression gave no hint of it. Since the abbot himself had not bothered to watch a demonstration of the machine, Brother Kornhoer betrayed no symptoms of expecting applause from any quarter, and he had even overcome his tendency to glance reproachfully at Dom Paulo.

A low hiss from the stairway alerted the basement again, although there had been several earlier false alarms. Clearly no one had informed the illustrious thon that a marvelous invention awaited his inspection in the basement. Clearly, if it had been mentioned to him at all, its importance had been minimized. Obviously, Father Abbot was seeing to it that they all cooled their heels. These were the wordless significances exchanged by glances among them as they waited.

This time the warning hiss had not been in vain. The monk who watched from the head of the stairs turned solemnly and bowed toward the fifth monk on the landing below.

“In principio Deus,” he said softly.

The fifth monk turned and bowed toward the fourth monk at the foot of the stairs. “Caelum et terram creavit,” he murmured in turn.

The fourth monk turned toward the three who lounged behind the machine. “Vacuus autem erat mundus,” he announced.

“Cure tenebris in superficie profundorum,” chorused the group.

“Ortus est Dei Spiritus supra aquas,” called Brother Forbore, returning his book to its shelf with a rattling of chains.

“Gratias Creatori Spiritui,” responded his entire team.

“Dixitque Deus: ‘FIAT LUX,’ “ said the inventor in a tone of command.

The vigil on the stairs descended to take their posts. Four monks manned the treadmill. The fifth monk hovered over the dynamo. The sixth monk climbed the shelf-ladder and took his seat on the top rung, his head bumping the top of the archway. He pulled a mask of smoke-blackened oily parchment over his face to protect his eyes, then felt for the lamp fixture and its thumbscrew, while Brother Kornhoer watched him nervously from below.

“Et lux ergo facta est,” he said when he had found the screw.

“Lucem esse bonam Deus vidit,” the inventor called to the fifth monk.

The fifth monk bent over the dynamo with a candle for one last look at the brush contacts. “Et secrevit lucem a tenebris,” he said at last, continuing the lesson.

“Lucem appellavit ‘diem,’ “ chorused the treadmill team, “et tenebras ‘noctes,’ “ Whereupon they set their shoulders to the turnstile beams.

Axles creaked and groaned. The wagon-wheel dynamo began to spin, its low whir becoming a moan and then a whine as the monks strained and grunted at the drive-mill. The guardian of the dynamo watched anxiously as the spokes blurred with speed and became a film. “Vespere occaso,” he began, then paused to lick two fingers and touch them to the contacts. A spark snapped.

“Lucifer!” he yelped, leaping back, then finished lamely: “ortus est et primo die.”

“CONTACT!” said Brother Kornhoer, as Dom Paulo, Thon Taddeo and his clerk descended the stairs.

The monk on the ladder struck the arc. A sharp spffft!-and blinding light flooded the vaults with a brilliance that had not been seen in twelve centuries.

The group stopped on the stairs. Thon Taddeo gasped an oath in his native tongue. He retreated a step. The abbot, who had neither witnessed the testing of the device nor credited extravagant claims, blanched and stopped speech in mid-sentence.