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“Sheemie can make magic doors!” Rolandcried. He had been cleaning his revolver as he listened, but now he put itaside. “That’s what teleporting is! That’s what it means!”
“Hush, Roland,” Susa
Eleven
But none of them hear about Ted’sCo
The fourth tape is now three-quartersdone, and Ted’s voice is little more than a croak. Nevertheless, he gamelypushes on.
“I hadn’t been gone long, but over heretime had taken one of its erratic slips forward. Humma o’ Tego was out,possibly because of me, and Prentiss of New Jersey, the ki’-dam, was in. He andFinli interrogated me in the Master’s suite a good many times. There was nophysical torture—I guess they still reckoned me too important to chancespoiling me—but there was a lot of discomfort and plenty of mind-games.They also made it clear that if I tried to run again, my Co
“Prentiss steepled his fingers in thea
“All their questions came down to twothings they really wanted to know: Why had I run, and who helped me do it. Icould have fallen back on the old name–rank–serial number routine,but decided to chance being a bit more expansive. I’d wanted to run, I said,because I’d gotten a glimmering from some of the can-toi guards about what wewere really doing, and I didn’t like the idea. As for how I’d gotten out, Itold them I didn’t know. I went to sleep one night, I said, and just woke upbeside the Merritt Parkway. They went from scoffing at this story tosemi-believing it, mostly because I never varied it a single jot or tittle, nomatter how many times they asked. And of course they already knew how powerfulI was, and in ways that were different from the others.
“ ‘Do you think you’re a teleport insome subconscious way, sai?’ Finli asked me.
“ ‘How could I say?’ I asked inturn—always answer a question with a question is a good rule to followduring interrogation, I think, as long as it’s a relatively soft interrogation,as this one was. ‘I’ve never sensed any such ability, but of course we don’talways know what’s lurking in our subconscious, do we?’
“ ‘You better hope it wasn’t you,’ Prentisssaid. ‘We can live with almost any wild talent around here except that one.That one, Mr. Brautigan, would spell the end even for such a valued employee asyourself.’ I wasn’t sure I believed that, but later Trampas gave me reason tothink Prentiss might have been telling the truth. Anyway, that was my story andI never went beyond it.
“Prentiss’s houseboy, a fellow namedTassa—a hume, if it matters—would bring in cookies and cans ofNozz-A-La—which I like because it tastes a bit like root beer—and Prentisswould offer me all I wanted… after, that was, I told them where I’d gotten myinformation and how I’d escaped Algul Siento. Then the whole round of questionswould start again, only this time with Prentiss and the Wease munching cookiesand drinking Nozzie. But at some point they’d always give in and allow me adrink and a bite to eat. As interrogators, I’m afraid there just wasn’t enoughNazi in them to make me give up my secrets. They tried to prog me, of course,but… have you heard that old saying about never bullshitting a bullshitter?”
Eddie and Susa
“I bet you have,” Ted resumes. “Well,it’s also fair to say that you can’t prog a progger, at least not one who’sgone beyond a certain level of understanding. And I’d better get to the pointbefore my voice gives out entirely.
“One day about three weeks after the lowmen hauled me back, Trampas approached me on Main Street in Pleasantville. Bythen I’d met Dinky, had identified him as a kindred spirit, and was, with hishelp, getting to know Sheemie better. A lot was going on in addition to mydaily interrogations in Warden’s House. I’d hardly even thought about Trampas sincereturning, but he’d thought of little else than me. As I quickly found out.
“ ‘I know the answers to the questionsthey keep asking you,’ he said. ‘What I don’t know is why you haven’tgiven me up.’
“I said the idea had never crossed mymind—that tattle-taleing wasn’t the way I’d been raised to do things. Andbesides, it wasn’t as if they were putting an electrified cattle-prod up myrectum or pulling my fingernails… although they might have resorted to suchtechniques, had it been anyone other than me. The worst they’d done was to makeme look at the plate of cookies on Prentiss’s desk for an hour and a halfbefore relenting and letting me have one.
“ ‘I was angry at you at first,’ Trampassaid, ‘but then I realized—reluctantly—that I might have done thesame thing in your place. The first week you were back I didn’t sleep much, Ican tell you. I’d lie on my bed there in Damli, expecting them to come for meat any minute. You know what they’d do if they found out it was me, don’t you?’
“I told him I did not. He said that he’dbe flogged by Gaskie, Finli’s Second, and then sent raw-backed into the wastes,either to die in the Discordia or to find service in the castle of the RedKing. But such a trip would not be easy. Southeast of Fedic one may also contractsuch things as the Eating Sickness (probably cancer, but a kind that’s veryfast, very painful, and very nasty) or what they just call the Crazy. TheChildren of Roderick commonly suffer from both these problems, and others, aswell. The minor skin diseases of Thunderclap—the eczema, pimples, andrashes—are apparently only the begi
Roland’s tet can imagine that very well.
“ ‘Don’t make too much of it,’ I said.‘As that new fellow Dinky might say, I don’t put my business on the street.It’s really as simple as that. There’s no chivalry involved.’
“He said he was grateful nevertheless,then looked around and said, very low: ‘I’d pay you back for your kindness,Ted, by telling you to cooperate with them, to the extent that you can. I don’tmean you should get me in trouble, but I don’t want you to get in more troubleyourself, either. They may not need you quite as badly as you may think.’
“And I’d have you hear me well now, ladyand gentlemen, for this may be very important; I simply don’t know. All I knowfor certain is that what Trampas told me next gave me a terrible deep chill. Hesaid that of all the other-side worlds, there’s one that’s unique. They call itthe Real World. All Trampas seems to know about it is that it’s real in thesame way Mid-World was, before the Beams began to weaken and Mid-World movedon. In America-side of this special ‘Real’ World, he says, time sometimes jerksbut always runs one way: ahead. And in that world lives a man who also servesas a kind of facilitator; he may even be a mortal guardian of Gan’s Beam.”