"Nothing, Nigel."
"Madam, may I ask-"
"What I'm doing?"
"Exactly, madam."
"Waiting on a friend, Chumley. Just waiting on a friend."
She thought that DNK 45932 would remind her that his name was Nigel, but he didn't. Instead, he asked how long she would wait for her friend. Susannah told him until hell froze over. This elicited a long silence. Finally Nigel asked: "May I go, then, madam?"
"How will you see?"
"I have switched to infrared. It is less satisfying than three-X macrovision, but it will suffice to get me to the repair bays."
Is there anyone in the repair bays who can fix you?" Susannah asked with mild curiosity. She pushed the button that dropped the clip out of the Walther's butt, then rammed it back In taking a certain elemental pleasure in the oily, metallic sound it made.
I m sure I can't say, madam," Nigel replied, "although the probability of such a thing is very low, certainly less than one Pe r cent. If no one comes, then I, like you, will wait."
She nodded, suddenly tired and very sure that this was where the grand quest ended-here, leaning against this door.
But you didn't give up, did you? Giving up was for cowards, not gunslingers.
"May ya do fine, Nigel-thanks for the piggyback. Long days and pleasant nights. Hope you get your eyes back. Sorry I shot em out, but I was in a bit of a tight and didn't know whose side you were on."
"And good wishes to you, madam."
Susannah nodded. Nigel clumped off and then she was alone, leaning against the door to New York. Waiting for Jake.
Listening for Jake.
All she heard was the rusty, dying wheeze of the machinery in the walls.
Chapter V:IN THE JUNGLE, THE MIGHTY JUNGLE
ONE
The threat that the low men and the vampires might kill Oy was the only thing that kept Jake from dying with the Pere. There was no agonizing over the decision; Jake yelled
(OY, TOME!)
with all the mental force he could muster, and Oy ran swiftly at his heel. Jake passed low men who stood mesmerized by the turtle and straight-armed a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. From the dim orange-red glow of the restaurant he and Oy entered a zone of brilliant white light and charred, pungent cookery. Steam billowed against his face, hot and wet,
(the jungle)
perhaps setting the stage for what followed,
(the mighty jungle)
perhaps not. His vision cleared as his pupils shrank and he saw he was in the Dixie Pig's kitchen. Not for the first time, either. Once, not too long before the coming of the Wolves to Calla Bryn Sturgis, Jake had followed Susannah (only then she'd have been Mia) into a dream where she'd been searching some vast and deserted kitchen for food. This kitchen, only now the place was bustling with life. A huge pig sizzled on an iron spit over an open fire, the flames leaping up through a food-caked iron grate at every drop of grease. To either side were gigantic copper-hooded stoves upon which pots nearly as tall as Jake himself fumed. Stirring one of these was a gray-skinned creature So hideous that Jake's eyes hardly knew how to look at it. Tusks rose from eitfier side of its gray, heavy-lipped mouth. Dewlapped cheeks hung in great warty swags of flesh. The fact that the creature was wearing foodstained cook's whites and a puffy popcorn chefs toque somehow finished the nightmare, sealed it beneath a coat of varnish. Beyond this apparition, nearly lost in the steam, two other creatures dressed in whites were washing dishes side by side at a double sink. Both wore neckerchiefs. One was human, a boy of perhaps seventeen. The other appeared to be some sort of monster housecat on legs.
"Vai, vai, los mostros pubes, tre cannits en fauns!" the tusked chef screeched at the washerboys. It hadn't noticed Jake. One of them-the cat-did. It laid back its ears and hissed. Without thinking, Jake threw the Oriza he'd been holding in his right hand. It sang across the steamy air and sliced through the catthing's neck as smoothly as a knife through a cake of lard. The head toppled into the sink with a sudsy splash, the green eyes still blazing.
"San fai, can dit los!" cried the chef. He seemed either unaware of what had happened or was unable to grasp it. He turned to Jake. The eyes beneath his sloping, crenellated forehead were a bleary blue-gray, the eyes of a sentient being. Seen head-on, Jake realized what it was: some kind of freakish, intelligent warthog. Which meant it was cooking its own kind. That seemed perfectly fitting in the Dixie Pig.
"Can foh pube ain-tet can fah! She-so pan! Vai!" This was addressed to Jake. And then, just to make the lunacy complete:
"And eef you won'd scrub, don'd even stard!"