"Yes," Ted agreed. "I suppose you're right. Five more minutes?"
Dinky nodded reluctantly. The sound of a siren, made faint by distance, came on the wind, and the young man's teeth showed in a smile of genuine amusement. "They get so upset when the sun goes in," he said. "When they have to face up to what's really around them, which is some f**ked-up version of nuclear winter."
Ted put his hands in his pockets for a moment, looking down at his feet, then up at Roland. "It's time that this... this grotesque comedy came to an end. We three will be back tomorrow, if all goes well. Meanwhile, there's a bigger cave about forty yards down the slope, and on the side away from Thunderclap Station and Algul Siento. There's food and sleeping bags and a stove that runs on propane gas. There's a map, very crude, of the Algul. I've also left you a tape recorder and a number of tapes. They probably don't explain everything you'd like to know, but they'll fill in many of the blank spots. For now, just realize that Blue Heaven isn't as nice as it looks. The ivy towers are watchtowers. There are three runs offence around the whole place. If you're trying to get out from the inside, the first run you strike gives you a sting-"
"Like barbwire," Dink said.
"The second one packs enough of a wallop to knock you out," Ted went on. "And the third-"
"I think we get the picture," Susannah said.
"What about the Children of Roderick?" Roland asked.
"They have something to do with the Devar, for we met one on our way here who said so."
Susannah looked at Eddie with her eyebrows raised. Eddie gave her a tell-you-laterlook in return. It was a simple and perfect bit of wordless communication, the sort people who love each other take for granted.
"Those wanks," Dinky said, but not without sympathy.
"They're... what do they call em in the old movies? Trusties, I guess. They've got a little village about two miles beyond the station in that direction." He pointed. "They do groundskeeping work at the Algul, and there might be three or four skilled enough to do roofwork... replacing shingles and such. Whatever contaminants there are in the air here, those poor shmucks are especially vulnerable to em. Only on them it comes out looking like radiation sickness instead of just pimples and eczema."
"Tell me about it," Eddie said, remembering poor old Chevin of Chayven: his sore-eaten face and urine-soaked robe.
"They're wandering folhen," Ted put in. "Bedouins. I think they follow the railroad tracks, for the most part. There are catacombs under the station and Algul Siento. The Rods know their way around them. There's tons of food down there, and twice a week they'll bring it into the Devar on sledges. Mostly now that's what we eat. It's still good, but..." He shrugged.
"Things are falling down fast," Dinky said in a tone of uncharacteristic gloom. "But like the man said, the wine's great."
"If I asked you to bring one of the Children of Roderick with you tomorrow," Roland said, "could you do that?"
Ted and Dinky exchanged a startled glance. Then both of them looked at Stanley. Stanley nodded, shrugged, and spread his hands before him, palms down: Why, gunslinger?
Roland stood for a moment lost in thought. Then he turned to Ted. "Bring one with half a brain left in his head," Roland instructed. "Tell him 'dan sur, dan tur, dan Roland, dan Gilead."
Tell it back."
Without hesitation, Ted repeated it.
Roland nodded. "If he still hesitates, tell him Chevin of Chayven says he must come. They speak a little plain, do they not?"
"Sure," Dinky said. "But mister... you couldn't let a Rod come up here and see you and then turn him free again. Their mouths are hung in the middle and run on both ends."
"Bring one," Roland said, "and we'll see what we see. I have what my ka-mai Eddie calls a hunch. Do you ken hunch-think?"
Ted and Dinky nodded.
"If it works out, fine. If not... be assured that the fellow you bring will never tell what he saw here."
"You'd kill him if your hunch doesn't pan out?" Ted asked.
1 Roland nodded.
Ted gave a bitter laugh. "Of course you would. It reminds me of the part in Huckleberry Finn when Huck sees a steamboat blow up. He runs to Miss Watson and the Widow Douglas with the news, and when one of them asks if anyone was killed, Huck says with perfect aplomb, 'No, ma'am, only a nigger.' In this case we can say 'Only a Rod. Gunslinger-man had a hunch, but it didn't pan out.'"
Roland gave him a cold smile, one that was unnaturally full of teeth. Eddie had seen it before and was glad it wasn't aimed at him. He said, "I thought you knew what the stakes were, sai Ted. Did I misunderstand?"
Ted met his gaze for a moment, then looked down at the ground. His mouth was working.
During this, Dinky appeared to be engaged in silent palaver with Stanley. Now he said: "If you want a Rod, we'll get you one.
It's not much of a problem. The problem may be getting here at all. If we don't..."