“And Daddy, he say, Tm goan show you a trick, Odetta. I learned it in college. It he’ped me get through this prime numbah bi’ness, and it’s goan he’p you, too. He’p you find mos’ any
prime numbah you want.’ Oh-detta, dumb as ever, she say, ‘Teacher says ain’t no formula
for prime numbahs, Daddy.’ And Daddy, he say right back, ‘They ain’t. But you can catch
em, Odetta, if you have a net.’ He called it The Net of Eratos- thenes. Take me overto dat
box on the wall, Roland—I’m goan answer dat honkey computer’s riddle. I’m goan th’ow
you a net and catch you a train-ride.”
Roland took her over, closely followed by Eddie, Jake, and Oy.
“Gimme dat piece o cha’coal you keep in yo’ poke.”
He rummaged and brought out a short stub of blackened stick. Detta took it and peered at
the diamond-shaped grid of numbers. “Ain’t zackly de way Daddy showed me, but I reckon
it comes to de same,” she said after a moment. “Prime numbah be like me—ornery and
forspecial. It gotta be a numbah don’t newah divide even ‘ceptin by one and its own-self.
Two is prime, ’cause you can divide it by one an’ two, but it’s the only even numbah that’s
prime. You c’n take out all the res’ dat’s even.”
“I’m lost,” Eddie said.
“That’s ’cause you just a stupid white boy,” Detta said, but not unkindly. She looked
closely at the diamond shape a moment longer, then quickly began to touch the tip of the
charcoal to all the even-numbered pads, leaving small black smudges on them.
“Three’s prime, but no product you git by multiplyin three can be prime,” she said, and now Roland heard an odd but wonderful thing: Detta was fading out of the woman’s voice;
she was being replaced not by Odetta Holmes but by Susannah Dean. He would not have to
bring her out of this trance; she was coming out of it on her own, quite naturally.
Susannah began using her charcoal to touch the multiples of three which were left now
that the even numbers had been eliminated: nine, fifteen, twenty-one, and so on.
“Same with five and seven,” she murmured, and suddenly she was awake and all Susannah
Dean again. “You just have to mark the odd ones like twenty-five that haven•t been crossed
out already.” The diamond shape on the control box now looked like this:
“There,” she said tiredly. “What’s left in the net are all the prime numbers between one and one hundred. I’m pretty sure that’s the combi- nation that opens the gate.”
“YOU HAVE ONE MINUTE, MY FRIENDS. YOU ARE PROV- ING TO BE A GOOD
DEAL THICKER THAN I HAD HOPED YOU WOULD BE.”
Eddie ignored Blame’s voice and threw his arms around Susannah. “Are you back, Suze?
Are you awake?”
“Yes. I woke up in the middle of what she was saying, but I let her talk a little longer,
anyway. It seemed impolite to interrupt.” She looked at Roland. “What do you say? Want to go for it?”
“FIFTY SECONDS.”
“Yes. You try the combination, Susannah. It’s your answer.”
She reached out toward the top of the diamond, but Jake put his hand over hers. “No,” he said. ” ‘This pump primes backward.’ Remember?”
She looked startled, then smiled. “That’s right. Clever Blaine . . . and clever Jake, too.”
They watched in silence as she pushed each number in turn, starting with ninety-seven.
There was a minute click as each pad locked down. There was no tension-filled pause after
she touched the last button; the gate in the center of the barrier immediately began to slide
up on its tracks, rattling harshly and showering down flakes of rust from some- where high
above as it went.
“NOT BAD AT ALL,” Blaine said admiringly. “I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS
VERY MUCH. MAY I SUGGEST YOU CLIMB ON BOARD QUICKLY? IN FACT,
YOU MAY WISH TO RUN. THERE ARE SEVERAL GAS OUTLETS IN THIS AREA.”
4
THREE HUMAN BEINGS (one carrying a fourth on his hip) and one small, furry animal
ran through the opening in the barrier and sprinted toward Blaine the Mono. It stood
humming in its narrow loading bay, half above the platform and half below it, looking like
a giant cartridge—one which had been painted an incongruous shade of pink—lying in the
open breech of a high-powered rifle. In the vastness of the Cradle, Roland and the others
looked like mere moving specks. Above them, flocks of pigeons— now with only forty
seconds to live—swooped and swirled beneath the Cradle’s ancient roof. As the travellers
approached the mono, a curved section of its pink hull slid up, revealing a doorway.
Beyond it was thick, pale blue carpeting.
“Welcome to Blaine,” a soothing voice said as they pelted aboard. They all recognized that voice; it was a slightly louder, slightly more confident version of Little Blaine. “Praise the Imperium! Please make sure your transit-card is available for collection and remember that
false boarding is a serious crime punishable by law. We hope you enjoy your trip.
Welcome to Blaine. Praise the Imperium! Please make sure your transit-card—”
The voice suddenly sped up, first becoming the chatter of a human chipmunk and then a high-pitched, gabbly whine. There was a brief electronic curse—BOOP!—and then it cut
out entirely.
“I THINK WE CAN DISPENSE WITH THAT BORING OLD SHIT, DON’T YOU?”
Blaine asked.
From outside came a tremendous, thudding explosion. Eddie, who was now carrying
Susannah, was thrown forward and would have fallen if Roland hadn’t caught him by the
arm. Until that moment, Eddie had held onto the desperate notion that Blaine’s threat about
the poison gas was no more than a sick joke. You should have known better, he thought.
Anyone who thinks impressions of old movie actors is funny absolutely cannot be trusted.
I think it’s like a law of nature.
Behind them, the curved section of hull slid back into place with a soft thud. Air began to
hiss gently from hidden vents, and Jake felt his ears pop gently. “I think he just pressurized the cabin.”
Eddie nodded, looking around with wide eyes. “I felt it, too. Look at this place! Wow!”
He had once read of an aviation company—Regent Air, it might have been—that had
catered to people who wanted to fly between New York and Los Angeles in a grander style
than airlines such as Delta and United allowed for. They had operated a customized 727
complete with drawing room, bar, video lounge, and sleeper compartments. He imag- ined
the interior of that plane must have looked a little like what he was seeing now.
They were standing in a long, tubular room furnished with plush-upholstered swivel chairs
and modular sofas. At the far end of the com- partment, which had to be at least eighty feet
long, was an area that looked not like a bar but a cosy bistro. An instrument that could have
been a harpsichord stood on a pedestal of polished wood, highlighted by a hidden baby
spotlight. Eddie almost expected Hoagy Carmichael to appear and start tinkling out
“Stardust.”
Indirect lighting glowed from panels placed high along the walls, and dependent from the
ceiling halfway down the compartment was a chandelier. To Jake it looked like a smaller
replica of the one which had lain in ruins on the ballroom floor of The Mansion. Nor did
this surprise him—he had begun to take such connections and doublings as a matter of
course. The only thing about this splendid room which seemed wrong was its lack of even
a single window.
The piece de resistance stood on a pedestal below the chandelier. It was an ice-sculpture of
a gunslinger with a revolver in his left hand. The right hand was holding the bridle of the
ice-horse that walked, head-down and tired, behind him. Eddie could see there were only
three digits on this hand: the last two fingers and the thumb.
Jake, Eddie, and Susannah stared in fascination at the haggard face beneath the frozen hat as the floor began to thrum gently beneath their feet. The resemblance to Roland was
remarkable.
“I HAD TO WORK RATHER FAST, I’M AFRAID,” Blaine said modestly. “DOES IT
DO ANYTHING FOR YOU?”
“It’s absolutely amazing,” Susannah said.
“THANK YOU, SUSANNAH OF NEW YORK.”
Eddie was testing one of the sofas with his hand. It was incredibly soft; touching it made
him want to sleep for at least sixteen hours. “The Great Old Ones really travelled in style, didn’t they?”
Blaine laughed again, and the shrill, not-quite-sane undertone of that laugh made them
look at each other uneasily. “DON’T GET THE WRONG IDEA,” Blaine said. “THIS WAS
THE BARONY CABIN— WHAT I BELIEVE YOU WOULD CALL FIRST CLASS.”
“Where are the other cars?”
Blaine ignored the question. Beneath their feet, the throb of the engines continued to speed
up. Susannah was reminded of how the pilots revved their engines before charging down