“Then it’s over?” she said, filled with joy.
“All over,” he said. He filled the two glasses with bourbon and water, brought her hers, seated himself in a straightbacked chair facing her. He was smiling.
11
Glen Belsnor, searching futilely for Roberta Rockingham, saw a small number of people trudging toward the settlement. Those who had gone off: Frazer and Thugg, Maggie Walsh, the new man Russell, Mary and Seth Morley. . . they were all there. Or were they?
His heart laboring, Beisnor said. “I don’t see Betty Jo Berm. Is she injured? You left her, you bastards?” He stared at them, feeling his jaw tremble with impotent anger. “Is that correct?”
“She’s dead,” Seth Morley said.
“How?” he said. Dr. Babble came up beside him; the two of them waited together as the four men and two women approached.
Seth Morley said, “She drowned herself.” He looked around. “Where’s that kid, that Dunkeiwold?”
“Dead,” Dr. Babble said.
Maggie Walsh said, “And Bert Kosler?”
Neither Babble nor Belsnor answered.
“Then he’s dead, too,” Russell said.
“That’s right.” Belsnor nodded. “There’re eight of us left. Roberta Rockingham–she’s gone. So possibly she’s dead, too. I think we’ll have to assume she is.”
“Didn’t you stay together?” Russell said.
“Did you?” Glen Belsnor answered.
Again there was silence. Somewhere, far off, a warm wind blew dust and infirm lichens about; a swirl lifted above the main buildings of the settlement and then writhed off and gone. The air, as Glen Belsnor sucked it in noisily, smelled bad. As if, he thought, the skins of dead dogs are drying somewhere on a line.
Death, he thought. That’s all I can think of now. And it’s easy to see why. Death for us has blotted everything else out; it has become, in less than twenty-four hours, the mainstay of our life.
“You couldn’t bring her body back?” he said to them.
“It drifted downstream,” Seth Morley said. “And it was on fire.” He came up beside Beisnor and said. “How did Bert Kosler die?”
“Tony stabbed him.”
“What about Tony?”
Glen Belsnor said, “I shot him. Before he could kill me.”
“What about Roberta Rockingham? Did you shoot her, too?”
“No,” Belsnor said shortly.
“I think,” Frazer said, “we’re going to have to pick a new leader.”
Beisnor said woodenly. “I had to shoot him. He would have killed all the rest of us. Ask Babble, he’ll back me up.”
“I can’t back you up,” Babble said. “I have nothing more to go on than they do. I have only your oral statement.”
Seth Morley said. “What was Tony using as a weapon?”
“A sword,” Belsnor said. “You can see that; it’s still there with him in his room.”
“Where did you get the gun you shot him with?” Russell said.
“I had it,” Belsnor said. He felt sick and weak. “I did what I could,” he said. “I did what I had to.”
“So ‘they’ aren’t responsible for all the deaths,” Seth Morley said. “You are responsible for Tony Dunkelwold’s death and he’s responsible for Bert’s.”
“Dunkelwelt,” Belsnor corrected, aimlessly.
“And we don’t know if Mrs. Rockingham is dead; she may just have roamed off. Possibly out of fear.”
“She couldn’t,” Belsnor said. “She was too ill.”
“I think,” Seth Morley said, “that Frazer is right. We need a-different leader.” To Babble he said, “Where’s his gun?”
“He left it in Tony’s room,” Babble said.
Belsnor slid away from them, in the direction of Tony Dunkelwelt’s living quarters.
“Stop him,” Babble said.
Ignatz Thugg, Wade Frazer, Seth Morley and Babble hurried past Belsnor; in a group they trotted up the steps and onto the porch and then into Tony’s quarters. Russell stood aloof; he remained with Belsnor and Maggie Walsh.
Coming out of Tony’s doorway, Seth Morley held the gun in his hand and said, “Russell, don’t you think we’re doing the right thing?”
“Give him back his gun,” Russell said.
Surprised, Seth Morley halted. But he did not bring the gun over to Belsnor. “Thanks,” Beisnor said to Russell. “I can use the support.” To Morley and the others he said, “Give me the gun, as Russell says. It isn’t loaded anyhow; I took the shells out.” He held out his hand and waited.
Coming back down the steps from the porch, and still carrying the gun, Seth Morley said with grave reservations, “You killed someone.”
“He had to,” Russell said.
“I’m keeping the gun,” Seth Morley said.
“My husband is going to be your leader,” Mary Morley said. “I think it’s a very good idea; I think you’ll find him excellent. At Tekel Upharsin he held a position of large authority.”
“Why don’t you join them?” Belsnor said to Russell.
“Because I know what happened. I know what you had to do. If I can manage to talk to them maybe I can–” He broke off. Belsnor turned toward the group of men to see what was happening.
Ignatz Thugg held the gun. He had grabbed it away from Morley; now he held it pointed at Belsnor, a seedy, twisted grin on his face.
“Give it back,” Seth Morley said to him; all of them were shouting at Thugg, but he stood unmoved, still pointing the gun at Belsnor.
“I’m your leader, now,” Thugg said. “With or without a vote. You can vote me in if you want, but it doesn’t matter.” To the three men around him he said, “You go over there where they are. Don’t get too close to me. You understand?”
“It’s not loaded,” Belsnor repeated.
Seth Morley looked crushed, his face had a pale, dry cast to it, as if he knew–obviously he knew–that he had been responsible for Thugg getting possession of the gun.
Maggie Walsh said, “I know what to do.” She reached into her pocket and brought out a copy of Specktowsky’s Book.
In her mind she knew that she had found the way to get the gun away from Ignatz Thugg. Opening The Book at random she walked toward him, and as she walked she read aloud from The Book. ” ‘Hence it can be said,'” she intoned, ” ‘that God-in-history shows several phases: (one) The period of purity before the Form Destroyer was awakened into activity. (two) The period of the Curse, when the power of the Deity was weakest, the power of the Form Destroyer the greatest–this because God had not perceived the Form Destroyer and so was taken by surprise. (three) The birth of God-on-Earth, sign that the period of Absolute Curse and Estrangement from God had ended. (four) The period now–‘ “She had come almost up to him; he stood unmoving, still holding the gun. She continued to read the sacred text aloud. ” ‘The period now, in which God walks the world, redeeming the suffering now, redeeming all life later through the figure of himself as the Intercessor who–‘
“Go back with them,” Thugg told her. “Or I’ll kill you.”
“‘Who, it is sure, is still alive, but not in this circle. (five) The next and last period–‘”
A terrific _bang_ boomed at her eardrums; deafened, she moved a step back and then she felt great pain in her chest; she felt her lungs die from the great, painful shock of it. The scene around her became dull, the light faded and she saw only darkness. Seth Morley, she tried to say, but no sound came out. And yet she heard noise; she heard something huge and far off, chugging violently into the darkness.
She was alone.
Thud, thud, came the noise. Now she saw iridescent color, mixed into a light which traveled like a liquid; it formed buzzsaws and pinwheels and crept upward on each side of her. Directly before her the huge Thing throbbed menacingly; she heard its imperative, angry voice summoning her upward. The urgency of its activity frightened her; it demanded, rather than asked. It was telling her something; she knew what it meant by its enormous pounding. Wham, wham, wham, it went and, terrified, filled with physical pain, she called to it. “Libera me, Domine,” she said. “De morte aeterna, in die illa tremenda.”
It throbbed on and on. And she glided helplessly toward it. Now, on the periphery of her vision, she saw a fantastic spectacle; she saw a great crossbow and on it the Intercessor. The string was pulled back; the Intercessor was placed on it like an arrow; and then, soundlessly, the Intercessor was shot upward, into the smallest of the concentric rings.
“Agnus Dei,” she said, “qui tollis peccata mundi.” She had to look away from the throbbing vortex; she looked down and back . . . and saw, far below her, a vast frozen landscape of snow and boulders. A furious wind blew across it; as she watched, more snow piled up around the rocks. A new period of glaciation, she thought, and found that she had trouble thinking–let alone talking–in English “Lacrymosa dies illa,” she said, gasping with pain; her entire chest seemed to have become a block of suffering. “Qua resurget ex favilla, judicandus homo reus.” It seemed to make the pain less, this need to express herself in Latin–a language which she had never studied and knew nothing about. “Huic ergo parce, Deus!” she said. “Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem.” The throbbing continued on.