Dinky Earnshaw had been sitting in the overstuffed easy chair for what seemed like forever, waiting impatiently for the party to begin. Usually being in The Study cheered him up-hell, cheered everybody up, it was the “good-mind” effect-bvit today he only felt the wires of tension inside him winding tighter and tighter, pulling his guts into a ball. He was aware of taheen and can-toi looking down from the balconies every now and again, riding the good-mind wave, but didn’t have to worry about being progged by the likes of them; from that, at least, he was safe.
Was that a smoke alarm? From Feveral, perhaps?
Maybe. But maybe not, too. No one else was looking around.
Wait, he told himself. Ted told you this would be the hard part, didn’t he? And at least Sheemie’s out of the way. Sheemie’s safe in his room, and Corbett Hall’s safe from fire. So calm down. Relax.
That was the bray of a smoke alarm. Dinky was sure of it.
Well… almost sure.
A book of crossword puzzles was open in his lap. For the last fifty minutes he’d been filling one of the grids with nonsenseletters, ignoring the definitions completely. Now, across the top, he printed this in large dark block letters: GO SOUTH WITH YOUR HANDS UP, YOU WON’T BE HU
That was when one of the upstairs fire alarms, probably the one in the west wing, went off with a loud, warbling bray. Several of the Breakers, jerked rudely from a deep daze of concentration, cried out in surprised alarm. Dinky also cried out, but in relief. Relief and something more. Joy? Yeah, very likely it was joy. Because when the fire alarm began to bray, he’d felt the powerful hum of good-mind snap. The eerie combined force of the Breakers had winked out like an overloaded electrical circuit. For the moment, at least, the assault on the Beam had stopped.
Meanwhile, he had a job to do. No more waiting. He stood up, letting the crossword magazine tumble to the Turkish rug, and threw his mind at the Breakers in the room. It wasn’t hard; he’d been practicing almost daily for this moment, with Ted’s help. And if it worked? If the Breakers picked it up, rebroadcasting it and amping what Dinky could only suggest to the level of a command? Why then it would rise. It would become the dominant chord in a new good-mind gestalt.
At least that was the hope.
(IT’s A FIRE FOLKS THERE’s A FIRE IN THE BUILDING)
As if to underscore this, there was a soft bang-and-tinkle as something imploded and the first puff of smoke seeped from the ventilator panels. Breakers looked around with wide, dazed eyes, some getting to their feet.
And Dinky sent:
(DON’T WORRY DON’T PANIC ALL IS WELL WALK UP THE)
He sent a perfect, practiced image of the north stairway, then added Breakers. Breakers walking up the north stairway.
Breakers walking through the kitchen. Crackle of fire, smell of smoke, but both coming from the guards’ sleeping area in the west wing. And would anyone question the truth of this mental broadcast? Would anyone wonder who was beaming it out, or why? Not now. Now they were only scared. Now they were wanting someone to tell them what to do, and Dinky Earnshaw was that someone.
(NORTH STAIRWAY WALK UP THE NORTH STAIRWAY WALK OUT ONTO THE BACK LAWN)
And it worked. They began to walk that way. Like sheep following a ram or horses following a stallion. Some were picking up the two basic ideas
(NO PANIC NO PANIC)
(NORTH STAIRWAY NORTH STAIRWAY)
and rebroadcasting them. And, even better, Dinky heard it from above, too. From the can-toi and the taheen who had been observing from the balconies.
No one ran and no one panicked, but the exodus up the north stairs had begun.
NINE
Susannah sat astride the SCT in the window of the shed where she’d been concealed, not worrying about being seen now.
Smoke detectors-at least three of them-were yowling. A fire alarm was whooping even more loudly; that one was from Damli House, she was quite sure. As if in answer, a series of loud electronic goose-honks began from the Pleasantville end of the compound. This was joined by a multitude of clanging bells.
With all that happening to their south, it was no wonder that the woman north of the Devar-Toi saw only the backs of the three guards in the ivy- covered watchtowers. Three didn’t seem like many, but it was five per cent of the total. A start.
Susannah looked down the barrel of her gun at the one in her sights and prayed. God grant me true aim… true aim… Soon.
It would be soon.
TEN
Finli grabbed the Master’s arm. Pimli shook him off and started toward his house again, staring unbelievingly at the smoke that was now pouring out of all the windows on the left side.
“Boss!” Finli shouted, renewing his grip. “Boss, never mind that! It’s the Breakers we have to worry about! The Breakers!”
It didn’t get through, but the shocking warble of the Damli Hovise fire alarm did. Pimli turned back in that direction, and for a moment he met Jakli’s beady litde bird’s eyes. He saw nothing in them but panic, which had the perverse but welcome effect of steadying Pimli himself. Sirens and buzzers everywhere. One of them was a regular pulsing honk he’d never heard before. Coming from the direction of Pleasantville?
“Come on, boss!” Finli O’Tego almost pleaded. “We have to make sure the Breakers are okay-”
“Smoke!” Jakli cried, fluttering his dark (and utterly useless) wings. “Smoke from Damli House, smoke from Feveral, too!”
Pimli ignored him. He pulled the Peacemaker from the docker’s clutch, wondering briefly what premonition had caused him to put it on. He had no idea, but he was glad for the weight of the gun in his hand. Behind him, Tassa was yelling-
Tammy was, too-but Pimli ignored the pair of them. His heart was beating furiously, but he was calm again. Finli was right. The Breakers were the important thing right now. Making sure they didn’t lose a third of their trained psychics in some sort of electrical fire or half-assed act of sabotage. He nodded at his Security Chief and they began to run toward Damli House with Jakli squawking and flapping along behind them like a refugee from a Warner Bros, cartoon. Somewhere up there,
Gaskie was hollering. And then Pimli o’ New Jersey heard a sound that chilled him to the bone, a rapid chow-chow-chow sound. Gunfire! If some clown was shooting at his Breakers, that clown’s head would finish the day on a high pole, by the gods.
That the guards rather than the Breakers might be under attack had at that point still not crossed his mind, nor that of the slighdy wilier Finli, either. Too much was happening too fast.
ELEVEN
At the south end of the Devar compound, the syncopated honking sound was almost loud enough to split eardrums.
“Christ!” Eddie said, and couldn’t hear himself.
In the south watchtowers, the guards were turned away from them, looking north. Eddie couldn’t see any smoke yet.
Perhaps the guards could from their higher vantage-points.
Roland grabbed Jake’s shoulder, then pointed at the soo LINE boxcar. Jake nodded and scrambled beneath it with Oy at his heels. Roland held both hands out to Eddie-Stay where you are!-and then followed. On the other side of the boxcar the boy and the gunslinger stood up, side by side. They would have been clearly visible to the sentries, had the attention of those worthies not been distracted by the smoke detectors and fire alarms inside the compound.
Suddenly the entire front of the Pleasantville Hardware Company descended into a slot in the ground. A robot fire engine, all bright red paint and gleaming chrome, came bolting out of the hitherto concealed garage. A line of red lights pulsed down the center of its elongated body, and an amplified voice bellowed, “STAND CLEAR! THIS IS FIRE- RESPONSE TEAM BRAVO! STAND CLEAR! MAKE WAY FOR FIRE-RESPONSE
TEAMBRAVOr There must be no gunfire from this part of the Devar, not yet. The south end of the compound must seem safe to the increasingly frightened inmates of Algul Siento: don’t worry, folks, here’s your port in today’s unexpected shitstorm.
The gunslinger dipped a ’Riza from Jake’s dwindling supply and nodded for the boy to take another. Roland pointed to the guard in the righthand tower, then once more at Jake. The boy nodded, cocked his arm across his chest, and waited for Roland to give him the go.
TWELVE
