‘That’s far enough. To answer your question, I’m about to kill a million people, which scarcely suggests excessive squeamishness in the taking of life. But that’s in the nature of a sacrifice, rather than a murder — fundamentally, a religious observance. Individual deaths, on the other hand … here in this place, at this time, they smack of impiety. But I’ll do it, unless you stand where you are and disarm. I’m happy for you all to wait with me, for the moment to come — but I know what’s in your hearts and I won’t allow it.’
‘There’s still time to stop this,’ Kennedy said. She knew that Diema would be able to aim and fire far more quickly and accurately than she could, so she reasoned that it was up to her to be the diversion. ‘Too many people have died already.’
Ber Lusim’s gaze flicked to her, but went back to Diema. He seemed to have made an accurate assessment of the relative dangers.
‘Everybody who ever lived has died,’ Ber Lusim said. ‘Apart from the few who are still living now. But today, everything changes.’
‘Because of a few lines in a three-hundred-year-old book?’ Kennedy asked. ‘I don’t see that.’
‘You’re not required to. And this absurd dance must stop, now. Stand where you are. Drop your weapons or place them at your feet. I don’t want to spill your blood here. I don’t see the need. But I won’t let that stop me, if you’re determined to force my hand.’
Kennedy slowed and stopped.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘You win.’
She turned her gun in her hand to point it at the ceiling and bent, very slowly, from the knees, to lay it on the ground.
Diema picked her moment and fired.
68
Once again, just like during the fight beside the grease pit, the action accelerated to the point where Rush had real trouble with crucial things like cause and effect.
He saw Diema’s arm move and he heard gunshots — three of them, back to back, so loud that the sound felt more like a physical pressure, pushing against his skin.
Then something flew whirling from Diema’s hand and Diema herself was punched backwards so that she hit the wall.
The sound had seemed to come from all directions at once in the confined space, so it was only from this collateral evidence that Rush was able to figure out that Diema hadn’t fired at all. All three shots had come from Ber Lusim.
By the time he came to that realisation, the whole thing was over. Diema had slid down the wall to the floor and Ber Lusim had his gun pointed at Kennedy — who was frozen to the spot in a tight crouch, her hand still on her gun which was still on the ground.
‘Don’t,’ Ber Lusim advised her.
Diema breathed out, a long, shuddering gasp. She was lying full length on the cement floor, clutching her side. Blood oozed thickly from between her fingers, and as Rush watched a red stain spread across the leg of her jeans. At least two of Ber Lusim’s three bullets had hit their target.
No, all three, he realised. Diema’s gun lay on the floor ten feet away from her, the barrel bent into an L-shape.
‘I wish that had not been necessary,’ Ber Lusim said. ‘But you’re still alive, at least. Sadly, that’s the last courtesy I can do you.’
Rush’s heart was hammering in his chest and he felt like he was about to throw up. He saw Kennedy’s shoulders tense, which surely meant that Ber Lusim had seen it, too. She was about to make her move, and her move was going to get her killed. There was nothing else she could do.
But there was — there might be — something he could do.
If only there was time left to do it in. And if only he could find the words.
‘Wait!’ he said. Actually, he didn’t say it at all; he yelled it, way too loud and way too high. And he raised the book — Toller’s book — in his hand as though he were about to preach.
Ber Lusim turned to stare at him and he waved the book in the Messenger’s face.
‘I’m in here, right?’ he babbled. ‘You said that. I’m part of the big picture. God sent me, to bring you a message. That’s what you said.’
‘Yes,’ Ber Lusim said in a voice whose calm and quiet made Rush’s panicky yelping seem even more absurd than it was. ‘I did say that.’
‘Okay,’ Rush said, fighting down the trembling in his legs, his arms, his voice. ‘Then right here, right now, for however long the world’s got left, I’m what you are. I’m one of God’s messengers. I’m not just some Adamite idiot swimming out of his depth.’
Ber Lusim frowned. ‘So?’ he said. ‘Where is this going?’
‘I’ll tell you where it’s going. If I’m a messenger, Ber Lusim, my message is for you. Are you willing to listen to it?’
Ber Lusim made a gesture, turning both hands palm-up. Go ahead.
‘Okay.’ Rush swallowed. So far so good. He risked a look over his shoulder. Diema hadn’t moved at all, except to prop herself up on her left elbow. She was still pressing her hand against her wound, trying without much success to stanch the flow of blood. She was watching Ber Lusim with dulled eyes, or at least she was trying to, but her head kept drooping. Kennedy still looked like she was looking for an opening. Rush met her gaze and moved his head through the tiniest arc. Not yet.
He turned back to Ber Lusim.
‘Everything you’re doing,’ he said, ‘you’re doing because of Toller. Isn’t that right? Because of the predictions in this book. It’s like he wrote the book for you. Like he saw you coming, three hundred years back, and he spoke to you across that gap.’
‘He saw the end of the world coming,’ Ber Lusim corrected him. ‘But yes, he spoke to us. He told us what we needed to do to bring history to an end and initiate the reign of Messiah.’
‘Okay. But I wonder if you know who was talking to you? I mean, if you ever found out anything about Johann Toller’s life.’
‘More than you can imagine.’
‘You think you know him.’ Rush felt like he was picking his way through a minefield. But more than that, he felt like he was in a courtroom and he was cross-examining a witness. Trying to make a case, out of nothing except the barest hunch.
‘Yes,’ Ber Lusim agreed. ‘I believe I know him.’
‘I’m going to have to disagree,’ Rush said. And in the silence that followed, he plunged on. ‘I think you’re right that God sent me here, Ber Lusim. I think he wanted you to listen to what I’ve got to say. Because you’ve made a big mistake. You’ve killed a lot of people and you’re about to kill a whole lot more, and it’s all on the basis of a … a stupid … you messed up. You messed up so badly.’
Ber Lusim stared at him in complete silence. Rush saw his own death weighed and measured in that stare. The only thing he had going for him was an accidental letter of introduction from Johann Toller, and he had no idea how long that get-out-of-jail-free card was going to last.
‘There’s something you don’t know,’ he said, his voice wobbling a little on the last word. ‘About Toller. Something you got wrong.’
‘Something I got wrong,’ Ber Lusim repeated, his tone dangerously mild. ‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘And what would that be?’
‘Who he was.’
Ber Lusim pursed his lips. ‘I’ll overlook your irreverence,’ he said to Rush. ‘I still believe there must be some point to your being here. Some reason why you’ve been placed in my path, at this most solemn and auspicious time. But you must be very careful what you say. Johann Toller was divinely inspired. To speak ill of him is to blaspheme against God.’
Rush kept his gaze fixed on the gun in Ber Lusim’s hand — although probably if Ber Lusim decided he needed to be killed, he wouldn’t waste a bullet on someone who was in easy reach of his hands. ‘Is it speaking ill of Toller to say he wasn’t who you think he was?’ he asked. ‘I don’t want to blaspheme. I just think you misread the evidence.’