Blaine didn't respond in words, but the overhead speakers gave out an amplified, catlike hiss of rage that made Eddie wish he had kept his big mouth shut. The air around them began to fill in with curves of color. The dark blue carpet appeared again, blotting out their view of the fuming wilderness beneath them. The indirect lighting reappeared and they were once again sitting in the Barony Coach.
A low humming began to vibrate through the walls. The throb of the engines began to cycle up again. Jake felt a gentle, unseen hand push him back into his seat. Oy looked around, whined uneasily, and began to lick Jake's face. On the screen at the front of the cabin, the green dot—now slightly southeast of the violet circle with the word LUD printed beside it—began to flash faster.
'Will we feel it?' Susannah asked uneasily. 'When it goes through the soundbarrier?'
Eddie shook his head. 'Nope. Relax.'
'I know something,' Jake said suddenly. The others looked around, but Jake was not speaking to them. He was looking at the route-map. Blaine had no face, of course—like Oz the Great and Terrible, he was only a disembodied voice—but the map served as a focusing point. 'I know something about you, Blaine.'
'IS THAT A FACT, LITTLE TRAILHAND?'
Eddie leaned over, placed his lips against Jake's ear, and whispered: 'Be careful—we don't think he knows about the other voice.'
Jake nodded slightly and pulled away, still looking at the route-map. 'I know why you released that gas and killed all the people. I know why you took us, too, and it wasn't just because we solved your riddle.'
Blaine uttered his abnormal, distracted laugh (that laugh, they were discovering, was much more unpleasant than either his bad imitations or melodramatic and somehow childish threats), but said nothing. Below them, the slo-trans turbines had cycled up to a steady thrum. Even with their view of the outside world cut off, the sensation of speed was very clear.
'You're planning to commit suicide, aren't you?' Jake held Oy in his arms, slowly stroking him. 'And you want to take us with you.'
'No!' the voice of Little Blaine moaned. 'If you provoke him you'll drive him to it! Don't you see —'
Then the small, whispery voice was either cut off or overwhelmed by Blaine's laughter. The sound was high, shrill, and jagged—the sound of a mortally ill man laughing in a delirium. The lights began to flicker, as if the force of these mechanical gusts of mirth were drawing too much power. Their shadows jumped up and down on the curved walls of the Barony Coach like uneasy phantoms.
'SEE YOU LATER, ALLIGATOR,' Blaine said through his wild laughter—his voice, calm as ever, seemed to be on an entirely separate track, further emphasizing his divided mind. 'AFTER A WHILE, CROCODILE. DON'T FORGET TO WRITE.'
Below Roland's band of pilgrims, the slo-trans engines throbbed in hard, steady beats. And on the route-map at the front of the carriage, the pulsing green dot had now begun to move perceptibly along the lighted line toward the last stop: Topeka, where Blaine the Mono clearly meant to end all of their lives.
9
AT LAST THE LAUGHTER stopped and the interior lights glowed steadily again.
'WOULD YOU LIKE A LITTLE MUSIC?' Blaine asked. 'I HAVE OVER SEVEN THOUSAND CONCERTI IN MY LIBRARY—A SAMPLING OF OVER THREE HUNDRED LEVELS. THE CONCERTI ARE MY FAVORITES, BUT I CAN ALSO OFFER SYMPHONIES, OPERAS, AND A NEARLY ENDLESS SELECTION OF POPULAR MUSIC. YOU MIGHT ENJOY SOME WAY-GOG MUSIC. THE WAY-GOG IS AN INSTRUMENT SOMETHING LIKE THE BAGPIPE. IT IS PLAYED ON ONE OF THE UPPER LEVELS OF THE TOWER.'
'Way-Gog?' Jake asked. '
Blaine was silent.
'What do you mean, 'it's played on one of the upper levels of the Tower'?' Roland asked.
Blaine laughed . . . and was silent.
'Have you got any Z.Z. Top?' Eddie asked sourly.
'YES INDEED,' Blaine said. 'HOW ABOUT A LITTLE TUBE-SNAKE BOOGIE; EDDIE OF NEW YORK?'
Eddie rolled his eyes. 'On second thought, I'll pass.'
'Why?' Roland asked abruptly. 'Why do you wish to kill yourself?'
'Because lie's a pain,' Jake said darkly.
'I'M BORED. ALSO, I AM PERFECTLY AWARE THAT I AM SUFFERING A DEGENERATIVE DISEASE WHICH HUMANS CALL GOING INSANE, LOSING TOUCH WITH REALITY, GOING LOONYTOONS, BLOWING A FUSE, NOT PLAYING WITH A FULL DECK, ET CETERA. REPEATED DIAGNOSTIC CHECKS HAVE FAILED TO REVEAL THE SOURCE OF THE PROBLEM. I CAN ONLY CONCLUDE THAT THIS IS A SPIRITUAL MALAISE BEYOND MY ABILITY TO REPAIR.'
Blaine paused for a moment, then went on.
'I HAVE FELT MY MIND GROWING STEADILY STRANGER OVER THE YEARS. SERVING THE PEOPLE OF MID-WORLD BECAME POINTLESS CENTURIES AGO. SERVING THOSE FEW PEOPLE OF LUD WHO WISHED TO VENTURE ABROAD BECAME EQUALLY SILLY NOT LONG AFTER, YET I CARRIED ON UNTIL THE ARRIVAL OF DAVID QUICK, A SHORT WHILE AGO. I DON'T REMEMBER EXACTLY WHEN THAT WAS. DO YOU BELIEVE, ROLAND OF GILEAD, THAT MACHINES MAY GROW SENILE?'
'I don't know.' Roland's voice was distant, and Eddie only had to look at his face to know that, even now, hurtling a thousand feet over hell in the grip of a machine which had clearly gone insane, the gunslinger's mind had once more turned to his damned Tower.
'IN A WAY, I NEVER STOPPED SERVING THE PEOPLE OF LUD,' Blaine said. 'I SERVED THEM EVEN AS I RELEASED THE GAS AND KILLED THEM.'
Susannah said, 'You are insane, if you believe that.'
'YES, BUT I'M NOT CRAZY,' Blaine said, and went into another hysterical laughing fit. At last the robot voice resumed.
'AT SOME POINT THEY FORGOT THAT THE VOICE OF THE MONO WAS ALSO THE VOICE OF THE COMPUTER. NOT LONG AFTER THAT THEY FORGOT I WAS A SERVANT AND BEGAN BELIEVING I WAS A GOD. SINCE I WAS BUILT TO SERVE, I FULFILLED THEIR REQUIREMENTS AND BECAME WHAT THEY WANTED—A GOD DISPENSING BOTH FAVOR AND PUNISHMENT ACCORDING TO WHIM … OR RANDOM-ACCESS MEMORY, IF YOU PREFER. THIS AMUSED ME FOR A SHORT WHILE. THEN, LAST MONTH, MY ONLY REMAINING COLLEAGUE— PATRICIA—COMMITTED SUICIDE.'
Either he really is going senile, Susannah thought, or his inability to grasp the passage of time is another manifestation of his insanity, or it's just another sign of how sick Roland's world has gotten.
'I WAS PLANNING TO FOLLOW HER EXAMPLE, WHEN YOU CAME ALONG. INTERESTING PEOPLE WITH A KNOWLEDGE OF RIDDLES!'
'Hold it!' Eddie said, lifting his hand. 'I still don't have this straight. I suppose I can understand you wanting to end it all; the people who built you are gone, there haven't been many passengers over the last two or three hundred years, and it must have gotten boring, doing the Lud to Topeka run empty all the time, but—'
'NOW WAIT JUST A DARN MINUTE, PARD,' Blaine said in his John Wayne voice. 'YOU DON'T WANT TO GET THE IDEA THAT I'M NOTHING BUT A TRAIN. IN A WAY, THE BLAINE YOU ARE SPEAKING TO IS ALREADY THREE HUNDRED MILES BEHIND US, COMMUNICATING BY ENCRYPTED MICROBURST RADIO TRANSMISSIONS.'
Jake suddenly remembered the slim silver rod he'd seen pushing itself out of Blaine's brow. The antenna of his father's Mercedes-Benz rose out of its socket like that when you turned on the radio.
That's how it's communicating with the computer banks under the city, he thought. If we could break that antenna off, somehow . . .
'But you do intend to kill yourself, no matter where the real you is, don't you?' Eddie persisted.
No answer—but there was something cagey in that silence. In it Eddie sensed Blaine watching . . .
