"Echoing back," Eddie murmured. "That's what it is."
"Beg pardon, partner?" Dinky asked. They were once again standing on the path, looking down at the blue-roofed buildings in the distance, and the tangle of stalled traincars, and the perfect little village. Perfect, that was, until you remembered it was behind a triple run of wire, one of those runs carrying an electrical charge strong enough to kill a man on contact.
"Nothing," Eddie said. "What's that smell? Any idea?"
Dinky shook his head, but pointed beyond the prison compound in a direction that might or might not be south or east.
"Something poison out there is all I know," he said. "Once I asked Finli and he said there used to be factories in that direction.
Positronics business. You know that name?"
"Yes. But who's Finli?"
"Finli O'Tego. The top security guy, Prentiss's number one boy, also known as The Weasel. A taheen. Whatever your plans are, you'll have to go through him to make them work. And he won't make it easy for you. Seeing him stretched out dead on the ground would make me feel like it was a national holiday.
By the way, my real name's Richard Earnshaw. Pleased as hell to meetcha." He put out his hand. Eddie shook it.
"I'm Eddie Dean. Known as Eddie of New York out here west of the Pecos. The woman's Susannah. My wife."
Dinky nodded. "Uh-huh. And the boy's Jake. Also of New York."
"Jake Chambers, right. Listen, Rich-"
"I salute the effort," he said, smiling, "but I've been Dinky too long to change now, I guess. And it could be worse. I worked for awhile at the Supr Savr Supermarket with a twentysomething guy known as JJ the Fuckin Blue Jay. People will still be calling him that when he's eighty and wearing a pee-bag."
"Unless we're brave, lucky, and good," Eddie said, "nobody's gonna see eighty. Not in this world or any of the others."
Dinky looked startled, then glum. "You got a point."
"That guy Roland used to know looks bad," Eddie said.
"Did you see his eyes?"
Dinky nodded, glummer than ever. "I think those little spots of blood in the whites are called petechiae. Something like that." Then, in a tone of apology Eddie found rather bizarre, under the circumstances: "I don't know if I'm saying that right."
"I don't care what you call them, it's not good. And him pitching a fit like that-"
"Not a very nice way to put it," Dinky said.
Eddie didn't give a shit if it was or wasn't. "Has it ever happened to him before?"
Dinky's eyes broke contact with Eddie's and looked down at his own shuffling feet, instead. Eddie thought that was answer enough.
"How many times?" Eddie hoped he didn't sound as appalled as he felt. There were enough pinprick-sized bloodspots in the whites of Sheemie's eyes to make them look as if someone had flung paprika into them. Not to mention the bigger ones in the corners.
Still without looking at him, Dinky raised four fingers.
"Four times?"
"Yuh," Dinky said. He was still studying his makeshift mocs.
"Starting with the time he sent Ted to Connecticut in 1960. It was like doing that ruptured something inside him." He looked up, trying to smile. "But he didn't faint yesterday, when the three of us went back to the Devar."
"Let me make sure I've got this right. In the prison down there, you guys have all sorts of venial sins, but only one mortal one: teleportation."
Dinky considered this. The rules certainly weren't that liberal for the taheen and the can-toi; they could be exiled or lobotomized for all sorts of reasons, including such wrongs as negligence, teasing the Breakers, or the occasional act of outright cruelty. Once-so he had been told-a Breaker had been raped by a low man, who was said to have explained earnestly to the camp's last Master that it was part of his becoming-the Crimson King himself had appeared to this fellow in a dream and told him to do it. For this the can-toi had been sentenced to death. The Breakers had been invited to attend his execution (accomplished by a single pistol-shot to the head), which had taken place in the middle of Pleasantville's Main Street.
Dinky told Eddie about this, then admitted that yes, for the inmates, at least, teleportation was the only mortal sin. That he knew of, anyway.
"And Sheemie's your teleport," Eddie said. 'You guys help him-facilitate for him, to use the Tedster's word-and you cover up for him by fudging the records, somehow-"
"They have no idea how easy it is to cook their telemetry,"
Dinky said, almost laughing. "Partner, they'd be shocked. The hard part is making sure we don't tip over the whole works."
Eddie didn't care about that, either. It worked. That was the only thing that mattered. Sheemie also worked... but for how long?
"-but he's the one who does it," Eddie finished. "Sheemie."
"Yuh."
"The only one who can do it."
"Yuh."
Eddie thought about their two tasks: freeing the Breakers