The Dark Tower

They said it was going fine and gave himthose dazed, fuck-struck smiles of which only newlyweds are capable. Finli saidnothing to the Rastosoviches, but near the Damli House end of the Mall, hestopped before a young man sitting on a faux marble bench beneath a tree,reading a book.

“Sai Earnshaw?” the taheen asked.

Dinky looked up, eyebrows raised in politeenquiry. His face, studded with a bad case of acne, bore the same politeno-expression.

“I see you’re reading The Magus,”Finli said, almost shyly. “I myself am reading The Collector. Quite acoincidence!”

“If you say so,” Dinky replied. Hisexpression didn’t change.

“I wonder what you think of Fowles? I’mquite busy right now, but perhaps later we could discuss him.”

Still wearing that politely expressionlessexpression, Dinky Earnshaw said, “Perhaps later you could take your copy of TheCollector—hardcover, I hope—and stick it up your furry ass.Sideways.”

Finli’s hopeful smile disappeared. He gavea small but perfectly correct bow. “I’m sorry you feel that way, sai.”

“The fuck outta here,” Dinky said, andopened his book again. He raised it pointedly before his face.

Pimli and Finli o’ Tego walked on. Therewas a period of silence during which the Master of Algul Siento tried outdifferent approaches to Finli, wanting to know how badly he’d been hurt by theyoung man’s comment. The taheen was proud of his ability to read and appreciatehume literature, that much Pimli knew. Then Finli saved him the trouble byputting both of his long-fingered hands—his ass wasn’t actually furry,but his fingers were—between his legs.

“Just checking to make sure my nuts arestill there,” he said, and Pimli thought the good humor he heard in the Chiefof Security’s voice was real, not forced.

“I’m sorry about that,” Pimli said. “Ifthere’s anyone in Blue Heaven who has an authentic case of post-adolescentangst, it’s sai Earnshaw.”

“ ‘You’re tearing me apart!’” Finli moaned,and when the Master gave him a startled look, Finli gri

“An interesting case,” Prentiss said. “Hewas recruited for an assassination program run by a Positronics subsidiary. Hekilled his control and ran. We caught him, of course. He’s never been any realtrouble—not for us—but he’s got that pain-in-the-ass attitude.”

“But you feel he’s not a problem.”

Pimli gave him a sideways glance. “Is theresomething you feel I should know about him?”

“No, no. I’ve never seen you so jumpy asyou’ve been over the last few weeks. Hell, call a spade a spade—so paranoid.”

“My grandfather had a proverb,” Pimli said.“ ‘You don’t worry about dropping the eggs until you’re almost home.’ We’realmost home now.”

And it was true. Seventeen days ago, notlong before the last batch of Wolves had come galloping through the door fromthe Arc 16 Staging Area, their equipment in the basement of Damli House hadpicked up the first appreciable bend in the Bear-Turtle Beam. Since then theBeam of Eagle and Lion had snapped. Soon the Breakers would no longer beneeded; soon the disintegration of the second-to-last Beam would happen with orwithout their help. It was like a precariously balanced object that had nowpicked up a sway. Soon it would go too far beyond its point of perfect balance,and then it would fall. Or, in the case of the Beam, it would break. Wink outof existence. It was the Tower that would fall. The last Beam, that of Wolf andElephant, might hold for another week or another month, but not much longer.

Thinking of that should have pleased Pimli,but it didn’t. Mostly because his thoughts had returned to the Greencloaks.Sixty or so had gone through Calla-bound last time, the usual deployment, andthey should have been back in the usual seventy-two hours with the usual catchof Calla children.

Instead… nothing.

He asked Finli what he thought aboutthat.

Finli stopped. He looked grave. “I think itmay have been a virus,” he said.

“Cry pardon?”

“A computer virus. We’ve seen it happenwith a good deal of our computer equipment in Damli, and you want to rememberthat, no matter how fearsome the Greencloaks may look to a bunch ofrice-farmers, computers on legs is all they really are.” He paused. “Or theCalla-folken may have found a way to kill them. Would it surprise me tofind that they’d gotten up on their hind legs to fight? A little, but not alot. Especially if someone with guts stepped forward to lead them.”

“Someone like a gunslinger, mayhap?”

Finli gave him a look that stopped justshort of patronizing.

Ted Brautigan and Stanley Ruiz rode up thesidewalk on ten-speed bikes, and when the Master and the Security Head raisedhands to them, both raised their hands in return. Brautigan didn’t smile butRuiz did, the loose happy smile of a true mental defective. He was alleye-boogers, stubbly cheeks, and spit-shiny lips, but a powerful bugger justthe same, before God he was, and such a man could do worse than chum aroundwith Brautigan, who had changed completely since being hauled back from hislittle “vacation” in Co

“Quit it,” Pimli said.

“Quit what, sai?” Finli asked.

“Looking at me as if I were a little kidwho just lost the top off his ice cream cone and doesn’t have the wit torealize it.”

But Finli didn’t back down. He rarely did,which was one of the things Pimli liked about him. “If you don’t want folk tolook at you like a child, then you mustn’t act like one. There’ve been rumorsof gunslingers coming out of Mid-World to save the day for a thousand years andmore. And never a single authenticated sighting. Personally, I’d be more apt toexpect a visit from your Man Jesus.”

“The Rods say—”

Finli winced as if this actually hurt hishead. “Don’t start with what the Rods say. Surely you respect myintelligence—and your own—more than that. Their brains have rottedeven faster than their skins. As for the Wolves, let me advance a radicalconcept: it doesn’t matter where they are or what’s happened to them.We’ve got enough booster to finish the job, and that’s all I care about.”

The Security Head stood for a moment at thesteps that led up to the Damli House porch. He was looking after the two men onthe identical bikes and frowning thoughtfully. “Brautigan’s been a lot oftrouble.”

“Hasn’t he just!” Pimli laughed ruefully.“But his troublesome days are over. He’s been told that his special friendsfrom Co

This was news to Finli. “About what?”

“Certain facts of life. Sai Brautigan hascome to understand that his unique powers no longer matter as much as they oncedid. It’s gone too far for that. The remaining two Beams are going to breakwith him or without him. And he knows that at the end there’s apt to be…confusion. Fear and confusion.” Pimli nodded slowly. “Brautigan wants to behere at the end, if only to comfort such as Stanley Ruiz when the sky tearsopen.

“Come, let’s have another look at the tapesand the telemetry. Just to be safe.”

They went up the wide wooden steps of DamliHouse, side by side.

Five

Two of the can-toi were waiting to escortthe Master and his Security Chief downstairs. Pimli reflected on how odd it wasthat everyone—Breakers and Algul Siento staff alike—had come tocall them “the low men.” Because it was Brautigan who coined the phrase. “Speakof angels, hear the flutter of their wings,” Prentiss’s beloved Ma might havesaid, and Pimli supposed that if there were true manimals in these final daysof the true world, then the can-toi would fill the bill much better than thetaheen. If you saw them without their weird living masks, you would havethought they were taheen, with the heads of rats. But unlike the truetaheen, who regarded humes (less a few remarkable exceptions such as Pimlihimself) as an inferior race, the can-toi worshipped the human form as divine.Did they wear the masks in worship? They were closemouthed on the subject, butPimli didn’t think so. He thought they believed they were becominghuman—which was why, when they first put on their masks (these wereliving flesh, grown rather than made), they took a hume name to go with theirhume aspect. Pimli knew they believed they would somehow replace human beingsafter the Fall… although how they could believe such a thing wasentirely beyond him. There would be heaven after the Fall, that was obvious toanyone who’d ever read the Book of Revelation… but Earth?