by Stephen King
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 gratitude. He had hoped for something, but this careful response was amazing. 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 combination 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?”
No reply. And Eddie could feel any period of grace they might have started with slipping away. He thumbed the TALK/LISTEN and spoke with frantic vivacity as the sweat trickled down his cheeks and neck.
Ask me a question.
“So-Blaine! What have you been up to these last few years? I guess you haven’t been doing the old southeast run, huh? Any reason why not? Haven’t been feeling up to snuff?”
No sound but the rustle and flap of the pigeons. In his mind he saw Ardis trying to scream as his cheeks melted and his tongue caught fire.
He felt the hair on the nape of his neck stirring and clumping together. Fear? Or gathering electricity?
Hurry… he’s worse than ever before.
“Who built you, anyway?” Eddie asked frantically, thinking: If I only knew what the fucking thing wanted! “Want to talk about that? Was it the Grays? Nah… probably the Great Old Ones, right? Or…”
He trailed off. Now he could feel Blaine’s silence as a physical weight on his skin, like fleshy, groping hands.
“What do you want?” he shouted. “Just what in hell do you want to hear?”
No answer-but the buttons on the box were glowing an angry dark red again, and Eddie knew their time was almost up. He could hear a low buzzing sound nearby-a sound like an electrical generator-and he didn’t believe that sound was just his imagination, no matter how much he wanted to think so.
“Blaine!” Susannah shouted suddenly. “Blaine, do you hear me?”
No answer… and Eddie felt the air was filling up with electricity as a bowl under a tap fills up with water. He could feel it crackling bitterly in his nose with every breath he took; could feel his fillings buzzing like angry insects.
“Blaine, I’ve got a question, and it is a pretty good one! Listen!” She closed her eyes for a moment, fingers rubbing frantically at her temples, and then opened her eyes again. “There is a thing that… uh… that nothing is, and yet it has a name; ’tis sometimes tall and… and sometimes short…” She broke off and stared at Eddie with wide, agonized eyes. “Help me! I can’t remember how the rest of it goes!””Eddie only stared at her as if she had gone mad. What in the name of God was she talking about? Then it came to him, and it made a weirdly perfect sense, and the rest of the riddle clicked into his mind as neatly as the last two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. He swung toward the speaker again.
“It joins our talks, it joins our sport, and plays at every game.’ What is it? That’s our question, Blaine-what is it?””The red light illuminating the COMMAND and ENTER buttons below the diamond of numbers blinked out. There was an endless moment of silence before Blaine spoke again… but Eddie was aware that the feeling of electricity crawling all over his skin was diminishing.
“A SHADOW, OF COURSE,” the voice of Blaine responded. “AN EASY ONE… BUT NOT BAD. NOT BAD AT ALL.”
The voice coming out of the speaker was animated by a thoughtful quality… and something else, as well. Pleasure? Longing? Eddie couldn’t quite decide, but he did know there was something in that voice that reminded him of Little Blaine. He knew something else, as well: Susannah had saved their bacon, at least for the time being. He bent down and kissed her cold, sweaty brow.
“DO YOU KNOW ANY MORE RIDDLES?” Blaine asked.
“Yes, lots,” Susannah said at once. “Our companion, Jake, has a whole book of them.”
“FROM THE NEW YORK PLACE OF WHERE?” Blaine asked, and now the tone of his voice was perfectly clear, at least to Eddie. Blaine might be a machine, but Eddie had been a heroin junkie for six years, and he knew stone greed when he heard it.
“From New York, right,” he said. “But Jake has been taken prisoner. A man named Gasher took him.”
No answer… and then the buttons glowed that faint, rosy pink again. “Good so far,” the voice of Little Blaine whispered. “But you must be careful… he’s tricky…”
The red lights reappeared at once.
“DID ONE OF YOU SPEAK?” Blaine’s voice was cold and-Eddie could have sworn it was so-suspicious.
He looked at Susannah. Susannah looked back with the wide, frightened eyes of a little girl who has heard something unnameable moving slyly beneath the bed.
“I cleared my throat, Blaine,” Eddie said. He swallowed and armed sweat from his forehead. “I’m… shit, tell the truth and shame the devil. I’m scared to death.”
“THAT IS VERY WISE OF YOU. THESE RIDDLES OF WHICH YOU SPEAK-ARE THEY STUPID? I WON’T HAVE MY PATIENCE TRIED WITH STUPID RIDDLES.”
“Most are smart,” Susannah said, but she looked anxiously at Eddie as she said it.
“YOU LIE. YOU DON’T KNOW THE QUALITY OF THESE RIDDLES AT ALL.”
“How can you say-”
“VOICE ANALYSIS. FRICTIVE PATTERNS AND DIPHTHONG STRESS-EMPHASIS PROVIDE A RELIABLE QUOTIENT OF TRUTH/UNTRUTH. PREDICTIVE RELIABILITY IS 97 PER CENT, PLUS OR MINUS.5 PER CENT.” The voice fell silent for a moment, and when it spoke again, it did so in a menacing drawl that Eddie found very familiar. It was the voice of Humphrey Bogart. “I SHUGGEST YOU SHTICK TO WHAT YOU KNOW, SHWEET-HEART. THE LAST GUY THAT TRIED SHADING THE TRUTH WITH ME WOUND UP AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEND IN A PAIR OF SHEMENT COWBOY BOOTS.”
“Christ,” Eddie said. “We walked four hundred miles or so to meet the computer version of Rich Little. How can you imitate guys like John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart, Blaine? Guys from our world?”
Nothing.
“Okay, you don’t want to answer that one. How about this one-if a riddle was what you wanted, why didn’t you just say so?”
Again there was no answer, but Eddie discovered that he didn’t really need one. Blaine liked riddles, so he had asked them one. Susannah had solved it.
Eddie guessed that if she had failed to do so, the two of them would now look like a couple of giant-economy-size charcoal briquets lying on the floor of the Cradle of Lud.
“Blaine?” Susannah asked uneasily. There was no answer. “Blaine, are you still there?”
“YES. TELL ME ANOTHER ONE.”
“When is a door not a door?” Eddie asked.
“WHEN IT’S AJAR. YOU’ll HAVE TO DO BETTER THAN THAT IF YOU REALLY EXPECT ME TO TAKE YOU SOMEWHERE. CAN YOU DO BETTER THAN THAT?”
“If Roland gets here, I’m sure we can,” Susannah said. “Regardless of how good the riddles in Jake’s book may be, Roland knows hundreds- he actually studied them as a child.” Having said this, she realized she could not conceive of Roland as a child. “Will you take us, Blaine?”
“I MIGHT,” Blaine said, and Eddie was quite sure he heard a dim thread of cruelty running through that voice. “BUT YOU’ll HAVE TO PRIME THE PUMP TO GET ME GOING, AND MY PUMP PRIMES BACKWARD.”
“Meaning what?” Eddie asked, looking through the bars at the smooth pink line of Blaine’s back. But Blaine did not reply to this or any of the other questions they asked. The bright orange lights stayed on, but both Big Blaine and Little Blaine seemed to have gone into hibernation. Eddie, however, knew better. Blaine was awake. Blaine was watching them. Blaine was listening to their frictive patterns and diphthong stress-emphasis.
He looked at Susannah.
“You’ll have to prime the pump, but my pump primes backward,” he said bleakly. “It’s a riddle, isn’t it?””“Yes, of course.” She looked at the triangular window, so like a half-lidded, mocking eye, and then pulled him close so she could whisper in his ear. “It’s totally insane, Eddie-schizophrenic, paranoid, probably delusional as well.”
“Tell me about it,” he breathed back. “What we’ve got here is a lunatic genius ghost-in-the-computer monorail that likes riddles and goes faster than the speed of sound. Welcome to the fantasy version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
“Do you have any idea what the answer is?”
Eddie shook his head. “You?”
“A little tickle, way back in my mind. False light, probably. I keep thinking about what Roland said: a good riddle is always sensible and always solvable. It’s like a magician’s trick.”
“Misdirection.”
She nodded. “Go fire another shot, Eddie-let em know we’re still here.”
“Yeah. Now if we could only be sure that they’re still there.”
“Do you think they are, Eddie?”
Eddie had started away, and he spoke without stopping or looking back. “I don’t know-that’s a riddle not even Blaine could answer."
31
“COULD I HAVE SOMETHING to drink?” Jake asked. His voice came out sounding furry and nasal. Both his mouth and the tissues in his abused nose were swelling up. He looked like someone who has gotten the worst of it in a nasty street-fight.
“Oh, yes,” Tick-Tock replied judiciously. “You could. I’d say you certainly could. We have lots to drink, don’t we, Copperhead?”
“Ay,” said a tall, bespectacled man in a white silk shirt and a pair of black silk trousers. He looked like a college professor in a turn-of-the-century Punch cartoon. “No shortage of po-ter-bulls here.”
The Tick-Tock Man, once more seated at ease in his throne-like chair, looked humorously at Jake. “We have wine, beer, ale, and, of course, good old water. Sometimes that’s all a body wants, isn’t it? Cool, clear, sparkling water. How does that sound, cully?”
Jake’s throat, which was also swollen and as dry as sandpaper, prickled painfully. “Sounds good,” he whispered.
“It’s woke my thirsty up, I know that,” Tick-Tock said. His lips spread in a smile. His green eyes sparkled. “Bring me a dipper of water, Tilly-I’ll be damned if I know what’s happened to my manners.”
Tilly stepped through the hatchway on the far side of the room-it was opposite the one through which Jake and Gasher had entered. Jake watched her go and licked his swollen lips.
“Now,” Tick-Tock said, returning his gaze to Jake, “you say the American city you came from-this New York-is much like Lud.”
“Well… not exactly…”
“But you do recognize some of the machinery, Tick-Tock pressed. “Valves and pumps and such. Not to mention the firedim tubes.”
“Yes. We call it neon, but it’s the same.”
Tick-Tock reached out toward him. Jake cringed, but Tick-Tock only patted him on the shoulder. “Yes, yes; close enough.” His eyes gleamed. “And you’ve heard of computers?”
“Sure, but-”
Tilly returned with the dipper and timidly approached the Tick-Tock Man’s throne. He took it and held it out to Jake. When Jake reached for it, Tick-Tock pulled it back and drank himself. As Jake watched the water trickle from Tick-Tock’s mouth and roll down his naked chest, he began to shake. He couldn’t help it.
The Tick-Tock Man looked over the dipper at him, as if just remembering that Jake was still there. Behind him, Gasher, Copperhead, Bran-don, and Hoots were grinning like schoolyard kids who have just heard an amusing dirty joke.
“Why, I got thinking about how thirsty I was and forgot all about you!” Tick-Tock cried. “That’s mean as hell, gods damn my eyes! But, of course, it looked so good… and it is good… cold… clear…”
He held the dipper out to Jake. When Jake reached for it, Tick-Tock pulled it back.
“First, cully, tell me what you know about dipolar computers and transitive circuits,” he said coldly.
“What…” Jake looked toward the ventilator grille, but the golden eyes were still gone. He was beginning to think he had imagined them after all. He shifted his gaze back to the Tick-Tock Man, understanding one thing clearly: he wasn’t going to get any water. He had been stupid to even dream he might. “What are dipolar computers?”
The Tick-Tock Man’s face contorted with rage; he threw the remainder of the water into Jake’s bruised, puffy face. “Don’t you play it light with me!” he shrieked. He stripped off the Seiko watch and shook it in front of Jake. “When I asked you if this ran on a dipolar circuit, you said it didn’t! So don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about when you already made it clear that you do!”
“But… but…” Jake couldn’t go on. His head was whirling with fear and confusion. He was aware, in some far-off fashion, that he was licking as much water as he could off his lips.
“There’s a thousand of those ever-fucking dipolar computers right under the ever-fucking city, maybe a HUNDRED thousand, and the only one that still works don’t do a thing except play Watch Me and run those drums! I want those computers! I want them working for ME!”
The Tick-Tock Man bolted forward on his throne, seized Jake, shook him back and forth, and then threw him to the floor. Jake struck one of the lamps, knocking it over, and the bulb blew with a hollow coughing sound. Tilly gave a little shriek and stepped backward, her eyes wide and frightened. Copperhead and Brandon looked at each other uneasily.
Tick-Tock leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, and screamed into Jake’s face: “I want them AND I MEAN TO HAVE THEM!”
Silence fell in the room, broken only by the soft whoosh of warm air pouring from the ventilators. Then the twisted rage on the Tick-Tock Man’s face disappeared so suddenly it might never have existed at all. It was replaced by another charming smile. He leaned further forward and helped Jake to his feet.
“Sorry. I get thinking about the potential of this place and sometimes I get carried away. Please accept my apology, cully.” He picked up the overturned dipper and threw it at Tilly. “Fill this up, you useless bitch! What’s the matter with you?”
He turned his attention back to Jake, still smiling his TV game-show host smile.
“All right; you’ve had your little joke and I’ve had mine. Now tell me everything you know about dipolar computers and transitive circuits. Then you can have a drink.”
Jake opened h
is mouth to say something-he had no idea what- and then, incredibly, Roland’s voice was in his mind, filling it.
Distract them, Jake-and if there’s a button that opens the door, get close to it.
The Tick-Tock Man was watching him closely. “Something just came into your mind, didn’t it, cully? I always know. So don’t keep it a secret; tell your old friend Ticky.”
Jake caught movement in the corner of his eye. Although he did not dare glance up at the ventilator panel-not with all the Tick-Tock Man’s notice bent upon him-he knew that Oy was back, peering down through the louvers.
Distract them… and suddenly Jake knew just how to do that.
“I did think of something,” he said, “but it wasn’t about computers. It was about my old pal Gasher. And his old pal, Hoots.”
“Here! Here!” Gasher cried. “What are you talking about, boy?”
“Why don’t you tell Tick-Tock who really gave you the password, Gasher? Then I can tell Tick-Tock where you keep it.”
The Tick-Tock Man’s puzzled gaze shifted from Jake to Gasher. “What’s he talking about?”
“Nothin!” Gasher said, but he could not forbear a quick glance at Hoots. “He’s just runnin his gob, tryin to get off the hot-seat by puttin me on it, Ticky. I told you he was pert! Didn’t I say-”
Take a look in his scarf, why don’t you?” Jake asked. “He’s got a scrap of paper with the word written on it. I had to read it to him because he couldn’t even do that.”
There was no sudden rage on Tick-Tock’s part this time; his face darkened gradually instead, like a summer sky before a terrible thunderstorm.
“Let me see your scarf, Gasher,” he said in a soft, thick voice. “Let your old pal sneak a peek.”
“He’s lyin, I tell you!” Gasher cried, putting his hands on his scarf and taking two steps backward toward the wall. Directly above him, Oy’s gold-ringed eyes gleamed. “All you got to do is look in his face to see lyin’s what a pert little cull like him does best!”
