"So," Pimli said, sitting down in one of the two wing chairs by the window, "you found a maintenance drone. Where?"
"Close to where Track 97 leaves the switching-yard," said Finli. "That track's still hot-has what you call 'a third rail'-and so that explains that. Then, after we'd left, you call and say there's been a second alarm."
"Yes. And you found-?"
"Nothing," Finli said. "That time, nothing. Probably a malfunction, maybe even caused by the first alarm." He shrugged, a gesture that conveyed what they both knew: it was all going to hell. And the closer to the end they moved, the faster it went.
"You and your fellows had a good look, though?"
"Of course. No intruders."
But both of them were thinking in terms of intruders who were human, taheen, can-toi, or mechanical. No one in Finli's search-party had thought to look up, and likely would not have spotted Mordred even if they had: a spider now as big as a medium-sized dog, crouched in the deep shadow under the main station's eave, held in place by a little hammock of webbing.
"You're going to check the telemetry again because of the second alarm?"
"Pardy," Finli said. "Mostly because things feel hinky to me." This was a word he'd picked up from one of the many other-side crime novels he read-they fascinated him-and he used it at every opportunity.
"Hinky how?"
Finli only shook his head. He couldn't say. "But telemetry doesn't lie. Or so I was taught."
"You question it?"
Aware he was on thin ice again-that they both were-
Finli hesitated, and then decided what the hell. "These are the end-times, boss. I question damn near everything."
"Does that include your duty, Finli O'Tego?"
Finli shook his head with no hesitation. No, it didn't include his duty. It was the same with the rest of them, including the former Paul Prentiss of Rahway. Pimli remembered some old soldier-maybe "Dugout" Doug MacArthur-saying, "When my eyes close in death, gentlemen, my final thought will be of the corps. And the corps. And the corps." Pimli's own final thought would probably be of Algul Siento. Because what else was there now? In the words of another great American-Martha Reeves of Martha and the Vandellas-they had nowhere to run, baby, nowhere to hide. Things were out of control, running downhill with no brakes, and there was nothing left to do but enjoy the ride.
"Would you mind a little company as you go your rounds?"
Pimli asked.
"Why not?" The Weasel replied. He smiled, revealing a mouthful of needle-sharp teeth. And sang, in his odd and wavering voice: "dream with me... I'm on my way to the moon of my fa-aathers..."
"Give me one minute," Pimli said, and got up.
"Prayers?" Finli asked.
Pimli stopped in die doorway. 'Yes," he said. "Since you ask.
Any comments, Finli O'Tego?"
"Just one, perhaps." The smiling thing with the human body and the sleek brown weasel's head continued to smile. "If prayer's so exalted, why do you kneel in the same room where you sit to shit?"
"Because the Bible suggests that when one is in company, one should do it in one's closet. Further comments?"
"Nay, nay." Finli waved a negligent hand. "Do thy best and thy worst, as the Manni say."
THREE
In the bathroom, Paul o' Rahway closed the lid on the toilet, knelt on the tiles, and folded his hands.
If prayer's so exalted, why do you kneel in the same room where you sit to shit?
Maybe I should have said because it keeps me humble, he thought.
Because it keeps me right-sized. It's dirt from which we arose and it's dirt to which we return, and if there's a room where it's hard to forget that, it's this one.
"God," he said, "grant me strength when I am weak, answers when I am confused, courage when I am afraid. Help me to hurt no one who doesn't deserve it, and even then not unless they leave me no other choice. Lord..."
And while he's on his knees before the closed toilet seat, this man who will shortly be asking his God to forgive him for working to end creation (and with absolutely no sense of irony), we might as well look at him a bit more closely. We won't take long, for Pimli Prentiss isn't central to our tale of Roland and his katet.
Still, he's a fascinating man, full of folds and contradictions and dead ends. He's an alcoholic who believes deeply in a personal God, a man of compassion who is now on the very verge of toppling the Tower and sending the trillions of worlds that spin on its axis flying into the darkness in a trillion different directions. He would quickly put Dinky Earnshaw and Stanley Ruiz to death if he knew what they'd been up to... and he spends most of every Mother's Day in tears, for he loved his own Ma dearly and misses her bitterly. When it comes to the Apocalypse, here's the perfect guy for the job, one who knows how to get kneebound and can speak to the Lord God of Hosts like an old friend.
And here's an irony: Paul Prentiss could be right out of the ads that proclaim "I got myjob through The New York TimesV In