"Yar. Certainly I know that the Bleeding Lion hasn't reappeared in the north, nor do I believe that the sun's cooling from the inside. I've heard tales of the Red King's madness and diat the Dan-Tete has come to take his place, and all I can say is 'I'll believe it when I see it. Same with this wonderful news about how a gunslinger-man's come out of the west to save the Tower, as the old tales and songs predict. Bullshit, every bit of it."
Pimli clapped him on the shoulder. "Does my heart good to hear you say so!"
It did, too. Finli O'Tego had done a hell of a job during his tenure as Head. His security cadre had had to kill half a dozen Breakers over the years-all of them homesick fools trying to escape-and two others had been lobotomized, but Ted Brautigan was the only one who'd actually made it "under the fence"
(this phrase Pimli had picked up from a film called Stalag 17),
and they had reeled him back in, by God. The can-toi took the credit, and the Security Chief let them, but Pimli knew the truth: it was Finli who'd choreographed each move, from beginning to end.
"But it might be more than just nerves, this feeling of mine," Finli continued. "I do believe that sometimes folk can have bona fide intuitions." He laughed. "How could one not believe that, in a place as lousy with precogs and postcogs as this one?"
"But no teleports," Pimli said. "Right?"
Teleportation was the one so-called wild talent of which all the Devar staff was afraid, and with good reason. There was no end to the sort of havoc a teleport could wreak. Bringing in about four acres of outer space, for instance, and creating a vacuum-induced hurricane. Fortunately there was a simple test to isolate that particular talent (easy to administer, although the equipment necessary was another leftover of the old people and none of them knew how long it would continue to work) and a simple procedure (also left behind by the old ones) for shorting out such dangerous organic circuits. Dr.
Gangli was able to take care of potential teleports in under two minutes. "So simple it makes a vasectomy look like brainsurgery," he'd said once.
"Absa-fackin-lutely no teleports," was what Finli said now, and led Prentiss to an instrument console that looked eerily like Susannah Dean's visualization of her Dogan. He pointed at two dials marked in the henscratch of the old people (marks similar to those on the Unfound Door). The needle of each dial lay flat against the O mark on the left. When Finli tapped them with his furry thumbs, they jumped a little and then fell back.
"We don't know exactly what these dials were actually meant to measure," he said, "but one thing they do measure is teleportation potential. We've had Breakers who've tried to shield the talent and it doesn't work. If there was a teleport in the woodpile, Pimli o' New Jersey, these needles would be jittering all the way up to fifty or even eighty."
"So." Half-smiling, half-serious, Pimli began to count off on his fingers. "No teleports, no Bleeding Lion stalking from the north, no gunslinger-man. Oh, and the Greencloaks succumbed to a computer virus. If all that's the case, what's gotten under your skin? What feels hinky-di-di to ya?"
"The approaching end, I suppose." Finli sighed heavily.
"I'm going to double the guard in the watchtowers tonight, any ro', and humes along the fence, as well."
"Because it feels hinky-di-di." Pimli, smiling a little.
"Hinky-di-di, yar." Finli did not smile; his cunning little teeth remained hidden inside his shiny brown muzzle.
Pimli clapped him on the shoulder. "Come on, let's go up to The Study. Perhaps seeing all those Breakers at work will soothe you."
"P'rhaps it will," Finli said, but he still didn't smile.
Pimli said gently, "It's all right, Fin."
"I suppose," said the taheen, looking doubtfully around at the equipment, and then at Beeman and Trelawney, the two low men, who were respectfully waiting at the door for the two big bugs to finish their palaver. "I suppose 'tis." Only his heart didn't believe it. The only thing he was sure his heart believed was that there were no teleports left in Algul Siento.
Telemetry didn't lie.
SEVEN
Beeman and Trelawney saw them all the way down the oakpaneled basement corridor to the staff elevator, which was also oak-paneled. There was a fire-extinguisher on the wall of the car and another sign reminding Devar-folken that they had to work together to create a fire-free environment.
This too had been turned upside down.
Pimli's eyes met Finli's. The Master believed he saw amusement in his Security Chiefs look, but of course what he saw might have been no more than his own sense of humor, reflected back at him like a face in a mirror. Finli untacked the sign without a word and turned it rightside up. Neither of them commented on the elevator machinery, which was loud and ill-sounding. Nor on the way the car shuddered in the shaft. If it froze, escape through the upper hatch would be no problem, not even for a slighdy overweight (well... quite overweight) fellow like Prentiss. Damli House was hardly a skyscraper, and there was plenty of help near at hand.