chrome louvers.
Oy.
Tick-Tock slapped his face, knocking him back into Gasher, who immediately pushed him
forward again. “It’s school-time, dear heart,” Gasher whispered. “Mind yer lessons, now!
Mind em wery sharp!”
“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” Tick-Tock said. “I’ll have some respect, Jake Chambers, or I’ll have your balls.”
“All right.”
Tick-Tock’s green eyes gleamed dangerously. “All right what?”
Jake groped for the right answer, pushing away the tangle of ques- tions and the sudden
hope which had dawned in his mind. And what came was what would have served at his
own Cradle of the Pubes . . . otherwise known as The Piper School. “All right, sir?”
Tick-Tock smiled. “That’s a start, boy,” he said, and leaned forward, forearms on his
thighs. “Now . . . what’s an American?”
Jake began to talk, trying with all his might not to look toward the ventilator grille as he
did so.
29
ROLAND BOLSTERED HIS GUN, laid both hands on the valve-wheel, and tried to turn
it. It wouldn’t budge. That didn’t much surprise him, but it presented serious problems.
Oy stood by his left boot, looking up anxiously, waiting for Roland to open the door so
they could continue the journey to Jake. The gunslinger only wished it was that easy. It
wouldn’t do to simply stand out here and wait for someone to leave; it might be hours or
even days before one of the Grays decided to use this particular exit again. Gasher and his
friends might take it into their heads to flay Jake alive while the gunslinger was waiting for
it to happen.
He leaned his head against the steel but heard nothing. That didn’t surprise him, either. He
had seen doors like this a long time ago—you couldn’t shoot out the locks, and you
certainly couldn’t hear through them. There might be one; there might be two, facing each
other, with some dead airspace in between. Somewhere, though, there would be a button
which would spin the wheel in the middle of the door and release the locks. If Jake could
reach that button, all might still be well.
Roland understood that he was not a full member of this ka-tet; he guessed that even Oy
was more fully aware than he of the secret life which existed at its heart (he very much
doubted that the bumbler had tracked Jake with his nose alone through those tunnels where
water ran in polluted streamlets). Nevertheless, he had been able to help Jake when die boy
had been trying to cross from his world to this one. He had been able to see . . . and when
Jake had been trying to regain the key he had dropped, he had been able to send a message.
He had to be very careful about sending messages this time. At best, the Grays would
realize something was up. At worst, Jake might misinterpret what Roland tried to tell him
and do something foolish.
But if he could see . . .
Roland closed his eyes and bent all his concentration toward Jake. He thought of the boy’s
eyes and sent his ka out to find them.
At first there was nothing, but at last an image began to form. It was a face framed by long,
gray-blonde hair. Green eyes gleamed in deep sockets like firedims in a cave. Roland
quickly understood that this was the Tick-Tock Man, and that he was a descendent of the
man who had died in the air-carriage—interesting, but of no practical value in this situation.
He tried to look beyond the Tick-Tock Man, to see the rest of the room in which Jake was
being held, and the people in it.
“Ake,” Oy whispered, as if reminding Roland that this was neither the time nor the place to take a nap.
“Shhh,” the gunslinger said, not opening his eyes.
But it was no good. He caught only blurs, probably because Jake’s concentration was
focused so tightly on the Tick-Tock Man; everyone and everything else was little more
than a series of gray-shrouded shapes on the edges of Jake’s perception.
Roland opened his eyes again and pounded his left fist lightly into the open palm of his
right hand. He had an idea that he could push harder and see more . . . but that might make
the boy aware of his presence. That would be dangerous. Casher might smell a rat, and if he
didn’t the Tick-Tock Man would.
He looked up at the narrow ventilator grilles, then down at Oy. He had wondered several
times just how smart he was; now it looked as though he was going to find out.
Roland reached up with his good left hand, slipped his fingers between the horizontal slats
of the ventilator grille closest to the hatchway through which Jake had been taken, and
pulled. The grille popped out in a shower of rust and dried moss. The hole behind it was far
too small for a man . . . but not for a billy-bumbler. He put the grille down, picked Oy up,
and spoke softly into his ear.
“Go . . . see . . . come back. Do you understand? Don’t let them see you. Just go and see and come back.”
Oy gazed up into his face, saying nothing, not even Jake’s name. Roland had no idea if he
had understood or not, but wasting time in ponderation would not help matters. He placed
Oy in the ventilator shaft. The bumbler sniffed at the crumbles of dried moss, sneezed
delicately, then only crouched there with the draft rippling through his long, silky fur,
looking doubtfully at Roland with his strange eyes.
“Go and see and come back,” Roland repeated in a whisper, and Oy disappeared into the
shadows, walking silently, claws retracted, on the pads of his paws.
Roland drew his gun again and did the hardest thing. He waited.
Oy returned less than three minutes later. Roland lifted him out of the shaft and put him on
the floor. Oy looked up at him with his long neck extended. “How many, Oy?” Roland
asked. “How many did you see?”
For a long moment he thought the bumbler wouldn’t do anything except go on staring in
his anxious way. Then he lifted his right paw tentatively in the air, extended the claws, and
looked at it, as if trying to remember something very difficult. At last he began to tap on the
steel floor.
One . . . two . . . three . . . four. A pause. Then two more, quick and delicate, the extended
claws clicking lightly on the steel: five, six. Oy paused a second time, head down, looking
like a child lost in the throes of some titanic mental struggle. Then he tapped his claws one
final time on the steel, looking up at Roland as he did it. “Ake!”
Six. Grays . . . and Jake.
Roland picked Oy up and stroked him. “Good!” he murmured into Oy’s ear. In truth, he
was almost overwhelmed with surprise and grati- tude. He had hoped for something, but
this careful response was amaz- ing. And he had few doubts about the accuracy of the count.
“Good boy!”
“Oy! Ake!”
Yes, Jake. Jake was the problem. Jake, to whom he had made a promise he intended to
keep.
The gunslinger thought deeply in his strange fashion—that combina- tion of dry
pragmatism and wild intuition which had probably come from his strange grandmother,
Deidre the Mad, and had kept him alive all these years after his old companions had passed.
Now he was depending on it to keep Jake alive, too.
He picked Oy up again, knowing Jake might live—might—but the bumbler was almost
certainly going to die. He whispered several simple words into Oy’s cocked ear, repeating
them over and over. At last he ceased speaking and returned him to the ventilator shaft.
“Good boy,” he whispered. “Go on, now. Get it done. My heart goes with you.”
“Oy! Art! Ake!” the bumbler whispered, and then scurried off into the darkness again.
Roland waited for all hell to break loose.
30
ASK ME A QUESTION, Eddie Dean of New York. And it better be a good one . . . if it’s
not, you and your woman are going to die, no matter where you came from.
And, dear God, how did you respond to something like that?
The dark red light had gone out; now the pink one reappeared. “Hurry,” the faint voice of Little Blaine urged them. “He’s worse than ever before . . . hurry or he’ll kill you!”
Eddie was vaguely aware that flocks of disturbed pigeons were still swooping aimlessly
through the Cradle, and that some of them had smashed headfirst into the pillars and
dropped dead on the floor.
“What does it want?” Susannah hissed at the speaker and the voice of Little Blaine
somewhere behind it. “For God’s sake, what does it want?”