The Dark Tower

“Is that what bothers thee about me, sai?”he enquired sweetly. “That I kiss the pole instead of plug the hole, no morethan that?”

Now there were torches instead of rosesflaring in Tammy Kelly’s cheeks. She’d not meant to go so far, but now that shehad—that they had, for if there was to be a fight, it was hisfault as much as hers—she wouldn’t back away. Was damned if she would.

“Master’s Bible says queerin be a sin,” shetold him righteously. “I’ve read it myself, so I have. Book of Leviticracks,Chapter Three, Verse—”

“And what do Leviticracks say about the sinof gluttony?” he enquired. “What do it say about a woman with tits as big asbolsters and an ass as big as a kitchen ta—”

“Never mind the size o’ my ass, you little cocksucker!”

“At least I can get a man,” he saidsweetly, “and don’t have to lie abed with a dustclout—”

“Don’t you dare!” she cried shrilly. “Shutyour foul mouth before I shut it for you!”

“—to get rid of the cobwebs in mycu

“I’ll knock thy teeth out if theedoesn’t—”

“—finger my tired old pokeberry pie.”Then something which would offend her even more deeply occurred to him. “Mytired, dirty old pokeberry pie!”

She balled her own fists, which wereconsiderably bigger than his. “At least I’ve never—”

“Go no further, sai, I beg you.”

“—never had some man’s nasty old…nasty… old…”

She trailed off, looking puzzled, andsniffed the air. He sniffed it himself, and realized the aroma he was gettingwasn’t new. He’d been smelling it almost since the argument started, but now itwas stronger.

Tammy said, “Do you smell—”

“—smoke!” he finished, and theylooked at each other with alarm, their argument forgotten perhaps only fiveseconds before it would have come to blows. Tammy’s eyes fixed on the samplerhung beside the stove. There were similar ones all over Algul Siento, becausemost of the buildings which made up the compound were wood. Old wood. WEALL MUST WORK TOGETHER TO CREATE A FIRE-FREE ENVIRONMENT, it said.

Somewhere close by—in the backhallway—one of the still-working smoke detectors went off with a loud andfrightening bray. Tammy hurried into the pantry to grab the fire-extinguisherin there.

“Get the one in the library!” she shouted,and Tassa ran to do it without a word of protest. Fire was the one thing theyall feared.

Five

Gaskie o’ Tego, the Deputy Security Chief,was standing in the foyer of Feveral Hall, the dormitory directly behind DamliHouse, talking with James Cagney. Cagney was a redhaired can-toi who favoredWestern-style shirts and boots that added three inches to his actualfive-foot-five. Both had clipboards and were discussing certain necessarychanges in the following week’s Damli security. Six of the guards who’d beenassigned to the second shift had come down with what Gangli, the compounddoctor, said was a hume disease called “momps.” Sickness was common enough inThunderclap—it was the air, as everyone knew, and the poisoned leavingsof the old people—but it was ever inconvenient. Gangli said they werelucky there had never been an actual plague, like the Black Death or the HotShivers.

Beyond them, on the paved court behindDamli House, an early-morning basketball game was going on, several taheen andcan-toi guards (who would be officially on duty as soon as the horn blew)against a ragtag team of Breakers. Gaskie watched Joey Rastosovich take a shotfrom way downtown—swish. Trampas snared the ball and took it outof bounds, briefly lifting his cap to scratch beneath it. Gaskie didn’t caremuch for Trampas, who had an entirely inappropriate liking for the talentedanimals who were his charges. Closer by, sitting on the dorm’s steps and alsowatching the game, was Ted Brautigan. As always, he was sipping at a can ofNozz-A-La.

“Well fuggit,” James Cagney said, speakingin the tones of a man who wants to be finished with a boring discussion. “Ifyou don’t mind taking a couple of humies off the fence-walk for a day ortwo—”

“What’s Brautigan doing up so early?”Gaskie interrupted. “He almost never rolls out until noon. That kid he palsaround with is the same way. What’s his name?”

“Earnshaw?” Brautigan also palled aroundwith that half-bright Ruiz, but Ruiz was no kid.

Gaskie nodded. “Aye, Earnshaw, that’s theone. He’s on duty this morning. I saw him earlier in The Study.”

Cag (as his friends called him) didn’t givea shit why Brautigan was up with the birdies (not that there were many birdiesleft, at least in Thunderclap); he only wanted to get this roster businesssettled so he could stroll across to Damli and get a plate of scrambled eggs.One of the Rods had found fresh chives somewhere, or so he’d heard, and—

“Do’ee smell something, Cag?” Gaskie o’Tego asked suddenly.

The can-toi who fancied himself JamesCagney started to enquire if Gaskie had farted, then rethought this humorousriposte. For in fact he did smell something. Was it smoke?

Cag thought it was.

Six

Ted sat on the cold steps of Feveral Hall,breathing the bad-smelling air and listening to the humes and the taheentrash-talk each other from the basketball court. (Not the can-toi; they refusedto indulge in such vulgarity.) His heart was beating hard but not fast. Ifthere was a Rubicon that needed crossing, he realized, he’d crossed it sometime ago. Maybe on the night the low men had hauled him back from Co

Behind him he heard one idiot (Gaskie)asking t’other idiot (Cagney) if he smelled something, and Ted knew for surethat Haylis had done his part; the game was afoot. Ted reached into his pocketand brought out a scrap of paper. Written on it was a line of perfectpentameter, although hardly Shakespearian: GO SOUTH WITH YOUR HANDS UP, YOUWON’T BE HURT.

He looked at this fixedly, preparing tobroadcast.

Behind him, in the Feveral rec room, asmoke detector went off with a loud donkey-bray.

Here we go, here we go, he thought,and looked north, to where he hoped the first shooter—the woman—washiding.

Seven

Three-quarters of the way up the Malltoward Damli House, Master Prentiss stopped with Finli on one side of him andJakli on the other. The horn still hadn’t gone off, but there was a loudbraying sound from behind them. They had no more begun to turn toward it whenanother bray began from the other end of the compound—the dormitory end.

“What the devil—” Pimli began.

—is that was how he meant tofinish, but before he could, Tammy Kelly came rushing out through the frontdoor of Warden’s House, with Tassa, his houseboy, scampering along right behindher. Both of them were waving their arms over their heads.

“Fire!” Tammy shouted. “Fire!”

Fire? But that’s impossible, Pimlithought. For if that’s the smoke detector I’m hearing in my house andalso the smoke detector I’m hearing from one of the dorms, then surely—

“It must be a false alarm,” he told Finli.“Those smoke detectors do that when their batteries are—”

Before he could finish this hopefulassessment, a side window of Warden’s House exploded outward. The glass wasfollowed by an exhalation of orange flame.

“Gods!” Jakli cried in his buzzing voice.“It is fire!”

Pimli stared with his mouth open. Andsuddenly yet another smoke-and-fire alarm went off, this one in a seriesof loud, hiccuping whoops. Good God, sweet Jesus, that was one of the DamliHouse alarms! Surely nothing could be wrong at—