And—
Eleven-year-old Daneeka Rostov came out of the rolling smoke that now entirely
obscured the lower half of Damli House, pulling two red wagons behind her. Daneeka’s
face was red and swollen; tears were streaming from her eyes; she was bent over almost
double with the effort it was taking her to keep pulling Baj, who sat in one Radio Flyer
wagon, and Sej, who sat in the other. Both had the huge heads and tiny, wise eyes of
hydrocephalic savants, but Sej was equipped with waving stubs of arms while Baj had none.
Both were now foaming at the mouth and making hoarse gagging sounds.
“Help me!” Dani managed, coughing harder than ever. “Help me, someone, before they
choke!”
Dinky saw her and started in that direction. Trampas restrained him, although it was clear
his heart wasn’t in it. “No, Dink,” he said. His tone was apologetic but firm. “Let someone
else do it. Boss wants to talk to—”
Then Brautigan was there again, face pale, mouth a single stitched line in his lower face.
“Let him go, Trampas. I like you, dog, but you don’t want to get in our business today.”
“Ted? What—”
Dink started toward Dani again. Trampas pulled him back again. Beyond them, Baj
fainted and tumbled headfirst from his wagon. Although he landed on the soft grass, his
head made a dreadful rottensplitting sound, and Dani Rostov shrieked.
Dinky lunged for her. Trampas yanked him back once more, and hard. At the same time he pulled the .38 Colt Woodsman he was wearing in his own docker’s clutch.
There was no more time to reason with him. Ted Brautigan hadn’t thrown the mind-spear
since using it against the wallet-thief in Akron, back in 1935; hadn’t even used it when the
low men took him prisoner again in the Bridgeport, Connecticut, of 1960, although he’d
been sorely tempted. He had promised himself he’d never use it again, and he certainly
didn’t want to throw it at
(smilewhen you say that )
Trampas, who had always treated him decently. But he had to get to the south end of the
compound before order was restored, and he meant to have Dinky with him when he
arrived.
Also, he was furious. Poor little Baj, who always had a smile for anyone and everyone!
He concentrated and felt a sick pain rip through his head. The mind-spear flew. Trampas
let go of Dinky and gave Ted a look of unbelieving reproach that Ted would remember to
the end of his life. Then Trampas grabbed the sides of his head like a man with the worst
Excedrin Headache in the universe, and fell dead on the grass with his throat swollen and
his tongue sticking out of his mouth.
“Come on!” Ted cried, and grabbed Dinky’s arm. Prentiss was looking away for the time
being, thank God, distracted by another explosion.
“But Dani…and Sej!”
“She can get Sej!” Sending the rest of it mentally:
(now that she doesn’t have to pull Baj too)
Ted and Dinky fled while behind them Pimli Prentiss turned, looked unbelievingly at
Trampas, and bawled for them to stop—to stop in the name of the Crimson King.
Finli o’ Tego unlimbered his own gun, but before he could fire, Daneeka Rostov was on
him, biting and scratching. She weighed almost nothing, but for a moment he was so
surprised to be attacked from this unexpected quarter that she almost bowled him over. He
curled a strong, furry arm around her neck and threw her aside, but by then Ted and Dinky
were almost out of range, cutting to the left side of Warden’s House and disappearing into
the smoke.
Finli steadied his pistol in both hands, took in a breath, held it, and squeezed off a single shot. Blood flew from the old man’s arm; Finli heard him cry out and saw him swerve.
Then the young pup grabbed the old cur and they cut around the corner of the house.
“I’m coming for you!” Finli bellowed after them. “Yar I am, and when I catch you, I’ll make you wish you were never born!” But the threat felt horribly empty, somehow.
Now the entire population of Algul Siento—Breakers, taheen, hume guards, can-toi with
bloody red spots glaring on their foreheads like third eyes—was in tidal motion, flowing
south. And Finli saw something he really did not like at all: the Breakers andonly the
Breakers were moving that way with their arms raised. If there were more harriers down
there, they’d have no trouble at all telling which ones to shoot, would they?
And—
In his room on the third floor of Corbett Hall, still on his knees at the foot of his
glass-covered bed, coughing on the smoke that was drifting in through his broken window,
Sheemie Ruiz had his revelation…or was spoken to by his imagination, take your pick. In
either case, he leaped to his feet. His eyes, normally friendly but always puzzled by a world he could not quite understand, were clear and full of joy.
“BEAM SAYS THANKYA!”he cried to the empty room.
He looked around, as happy as Ebenezer Scrooge discovering that the spirits have done it
all in one night, and ran for the door with his slippers crunching on the broken glass. One
sharp spear of glass pierced his foot—carrying his death on its tip, had he but known it, say sorry, say Discordia—but in his joy he didn’t even feel it. He dashed into the hall and then
down the stairs.
On the second floor landing, Sheemie came upon an elderly female Breaker named Belle
O’Rourke, grabbed her, shook her.“BEAM SAYS THANKYA! ” he hollered into her
dazed and uncomprehending face.“BEAM SAYS ALL MAY YET BE WELL! NOT TOO
LATE! JUST IN TIME!”
He rushed on to spread the glad news (glad to him, anyway), and—
On Main Street, Roland looked first at Eddie Dean, then at Jake Chambers. “They’re
coming, and this is where we have to take them. Wait for my command, then stand and be
true.”
Eighteen
First to appear were three Breakers, running full out with their arms raised. They crossed
Main Street that way, never seeing Eddie, who was in the box-office of the Gem (he’d
knocked out the glass on all three sides with the sandalwood grip of the gun which had
once been Roland’s), or Jake (sitting inside an engineless Ford sedan parked in front of the
Pleasantville Bake Shoppe), or Roland himself (behind a mannequin in the window of Gay
Paree Fashions).
They reached the other sidewalk and looked around, bewildered.
Go,Roland thought at them.Go on and get out of here, take the alley, get away while you
can.
“Come on!” one of them shouted, and they ran down the alley between the drug store and
the bookshop. Another appeared, then two more, then the first of the guards, a hume with a
pistol raised to the side of his frightened, wide-eyed face. Roland sighted him…and then
held his fire.
More of the Devar personnel began to appear, running into Main Street from between the
buildings. They spread themselves wide apart. As Roland had hoped and expected, they
were trying to flank their charges and channel them. Trying to keep the retreat from turning
into a rout.
“Form two lines!”a taheen with a raven’s head was shouting in a buzzing, out-of-breath
voice.“Form two lines and keep em between, for your fathers’ sakes!”
One of the others, a redheaded taheen with his shirttail out, yelled:“What about the fence,
Jakli? What if they run on the fence?”
“Can’t do nothing about that, Cag, just—”
A shrieking Breaker tried to run past the raven before he could finish, and the
raven—Jakli—gave him such a mighty push that the poor fellow went sprawling in the
middle of the street. “Stay together, you maggots!” he snarled. “Run if’ee will, but keep
some fucking order about it!” As if there could be any order in this, Roland thought (and
not without satisfaction). Then, to the redhead, the one called Jakli shouted: “Let one or
two of em fry—the rest’ll see and stop!”
It would complicate things if either Eddie or Jake started shooting at this point, but neither did. The three gunslingers watched from their places of concealment as a species of order
rose from the chaos. More guards appeared. Jakli and the redhead directed them into the
two lines, which was now a corridor running from one side of the street to the other. A few
Breakers got past them before the corridor was fully formed, but only a few.
A new taheen appeared, this one with the head of a weasel, and took over for the one called
Jakli. He pounded a couple of running Breakers on the back, actually hurrying them up.
From south of Main Street came a bewildered shout: “Fence is cut!” And then another: “I
think the guards are dead!” This latter cry was followed by a howl of horror, and Roland