The Dark Tower

“The approaching end, I suppose.” Finlisighed heavily. “I’m going to double the guard in the watchtowers tonight, anyro’, and humes along the fence, as well.”

“Because it feels hinky-di-di.” Pimli,smiling a little.

“Hinky-di-di, yar.” Finli did not smile;his cu

Pimli clapped him on the shoulder. “Comeon, let’s go up to The Study. Perhaps seeing all those Breakers at work willsoothe you.”

“P’rhaps it will,” Finli said, but he stilldidn’t smile.

Pimli said gently, “It’s all right, Fin.”

“I suppose,” said the taheen, lookingdoubtfully around at the equipment, and then at Beeman and Trelawney, the twolow men, who were respectfully waiting at the door for the two big bugs tofinish their palaver. “I suppose ‘tis.” Only his heart didn’t believe it. Theonly thing he was sure his heart believed was that there were no teleports leftin Algul Siento.

Telemetry didn’t lie.

Seven

Beeman and Trelawney saw them all the waydown the oak-paneled basement corridor to the staff elevator, which was alsooak-paneled. There was a fire-extinguisher on the wall of the car and anothersign reminding Devar-folken that they had to work together to create afire-free environment.

This too had been turned upside down.

Pimli’s eyes met Finli’s. The Masterbelieved he saw amusement in his Security Chief’s look, but of course what hesaw might have been no more than his own sense of humor, reflected back at himlike a face in a mirror. Finli untacked the sign without a word and turned itrightside up. Neither of them commented on the elevator machinery, which wasloud and ill-sounding. Nor on the way the car shuddered in the shaft. If itfroze, escape through the upper hatch would be no problem, not even for aslightly overweight (well… quite overweight) fellow like Prentiss. DamliHouse was hardly a skyscraper, and there was plenty of help near at hand.

They reached the third floor, where thesign on the closed elevator door was rightside up. It said STAFF ONLYand PLEASE USE KEY and GO DOWN IMMEDIATELY IF YOU HAVE REACHED THISLEVEL IN ERROR. YOU WILL NOT BE PENALIZED IF YOU REPORT IMMEDIATELY.

As Finli produced his key-card, he saidwith a casualness that might have been feigned (God damn his unreadableblack eyes): “Have you heard from sai Sayre?”

“No,” Pimli said (rather crossly), “nor doI really expect to. We’re isolated here for a reason, deliberately forgotten inthe desert just like the scientists of the Manhattan Project back in the 1940s.The last time I saw him, he told me it might be… well, the last time I sawhim.”

“Relax,” Finli said. “I was just asking.”He swiped the key-card down its slot and the elevator door slid open with arather hellish screee sound.

Eight

The Study was a long, high room in thecenter of Damli, also oak-paneled and rising three full stories to a glass roofthat allowed the Algul’s hard-won sunlight to pour in. On the balcony oppositethe door through which Prentiss and the Tego entered was an odd trio consistingof a ravenhead taheen named Jakli, a can-toi technician named Conroy, and twohume guards whose names Pimli could not immediately recall. Taheen, can-toi,and humes got on together during work hours by virtue of careful—andsometimes brittle—courtesy, but one did not expect to see themsocializing off-duty. And indeed the balcony was strictly off-limits when itcame to “socializing.” The Breakers below were neither animals in a zoo norexotic fish in an aquarium; Pimli (Finli o’ Tego, as well) had made this pointto the staff over and over. The Master of Algul Siento had only had to lobo onestaff member in all his years here, a perfectly idiotic hume guard named DavidBurke, who had actually been throwing something—had it beenpeanut-shells?—down on the Breakers below. When Burke had realized theMaster was serious about lobotomizing him, he begged for a second chance,promising he’d never do anything so foolish and demeaning again. Pimli hadturned a deaf ear. He’d seen a chance to make an example which would stand foryears, perhaps for decades, and had taken it. You could see the now trulyidiotic Mr. Burke around to this day, walking on the Mall or out by Left’rdsBound’ry, mouth slack and eyes vaguely puzzled—I almost knowwho I am, I almost remember what I did to end up like this, thoseeyes said. He was a living example of what simply wasn’t done when one was inthe presence of working Breakers. But there was no rule expressly prohibitingstaff from coming up here and they all did from time to time.

Because it was refreshing.

For one thing, being near working Breakersmade talk u

The two of them hiled the trio across theway, then approached the wide fumed-oak railing and looked down. The room belowmight have been the capacious library of some richly endowed gentlemen’s clubin London. Softly glowing lamps, many with genuine Tiffany shades, stood onlittle tables or shone on the walls (oak-paneled, of course). The rugs were themost exquisite Turkish. There was a Matisse on one wall, a Rembrandt onanother… and on a third was the Mona Lisa. The real one, as opposed tothe fake hanging in the Louvre on Keystone Earth. A man stood before it withhis arms clasped behind him. From up here he looked as though he were studyingthe painting—trying to decipher the famously enigmatic smile, maybe—butPimli knew better. The men and women holding magazines looked as though theywere reading, too, but if you were right down there you’d see that they weregazing blankly over the tops of their McCall’s and their Harper’sor a little off to one side. An eleven- or twelve-year-old girl in a gorgeousstriped summer dress that might have cost sixteen hundred dollars in a RodeoDrive kiddie boutique was sitting before a dollhouse on the hearth, but Pimliknew she wasn’t paying any attention to the exquisitely made replica of Damliat all.

Thirty-three of them down there.Thirty-three in all. At eight o’clock, an hour after the artificial sun snappedoff, thirty-three fresh Breakers would troop in. And there was onefellow—one and one only—who came and went just as he pleased. Afellow who’d gone under the wire and paid no penalty for it at all… except forbeing brought back, that was, and for this man, that was penalty enough.

As if the thought had summoned him, thedoor at the end of the room opened, and Ted Brautigan slipped quietly in. Hewas still wearing his tweed riding cap. Daneeka Rostov looked up from thedollhouse and gave him a smile. Brautigan dropped her a wink in return. Pimligave Finli a little nudge.