Roland gave her a grateful (if distracted)smile—he seemed to have gone away from her somehow during these last fewdays—and then turned back to Bill. “I wonder if you have a cart I couldpull? For we’ll have to take at least some gunna… and there’s Patrick. He’llhave to ride part of the time.”
Patrick looked indignant. He cocked an armin front of him, made a fist, and flexed his muscle. The result—a tinygoose-egg rising on the biceps of his drawing-arm—seemed to shame him,for he dropped it quickly.
Susannah smiled and reached out to pat hisknee. “Don’t look like that, sugar. It’s not your fault that you spent Godknows how long caged up like Hansel and Gretel in the witch’s house.”
“I’m sure I have such a thing,” Bill said,“and a battery-powered version for Susannah. What I don’t have, I can make. Itwould take an hour or two at most.”
Roland was calculating. “If we leave herewith five hours of daylight ahead of us, we might be able to make twelve wheelsby sunset. What Susannah would call nine or ten miles. Another five days atthat rather leisurely speed would bring us to the Tower I’ve spent my lifesearching for. I’d come to it around sunset if possible, for that’s when I’vealways seen it in my dreams. Susannah?”
And the voice inside—that deepvoice—whispered: Four nights. Four nights to dream. That should beenough. Maybe more than enough. Of course, ka would have to intervene. Ifthey had indeed outrun its influence, that wouldn’t—couldn’t—happen.But Susannah now thought ka reached everywhere, even to the Dark Tower. Was,perhaps, embodied by the Dark Tower.
“That’s fine,” she told him in a faintvoice.
“Patrick?” Roland asked. “What do you say?”
Patrick shrugged and flipped a hand intheir direction, hardly looking up from his pad. Whatever they wanted, thatgesture said. Susannah guessed that Patrick understood little about the DarkTower, and cared less. And why would he care? He was free of the monster, andhis belly was full. Those things were enough for him. He had lost his tongue,but he could sketch to his heart’s content. She was sure that to Patrick, thatseemed like more than an even trade. And yet… and yet…
He’s not meant to go, either. Not him,not Oy, not me. But what is to become of us, then?
She didn’t know, but she was queerlyunworried about it. Ka would tell. Ka, and her dreams.
Four
An hour later the three humes, the bumbler,and Bill the robot stood clustered around a cut-down wagon that looked like aslightly larger version of Ho Fat’s Luxury Taxi. The wheels were tall but thin,and spun like a dream. Even when it was full, Susannah thought, it would belike pulling a feather. At least while Roland was fresh. Pulling it uphillwould undoubtedly rob him of his energy after awhile, but as they ate the foodthey were carrying, Ho Fat II would grow lighter still… and she thought therewouldn’t be many hills, anyway. They had come to the open lands, theprairie-lands; all the snow- and tree-covered ridges were behind them. Bill hadprovided her with an electric runabout that was more scooter than golf-cart.Her days of being dragged along behind (“like a busted tailpipe”) were done.
“If you’ll give me another half an hour, Ican smooth this off,” Bill said, running a three-fingered steel hand along theedge where he had cut off the front half of the small wagon that was now Ho FatII.
“We say thankya, but it won’t benecessary,” Roland said. “We’ll lay a couple of hides over it, just so.”
He’s impatient to be off, Susannahthought, and after all this time, why wouldn’t be be? I’m anxious to be off,myself.
“Well, if you say so, let it be so,” Billsaid, sounding unhappy about it. “I suppose I just hate to see you go. Whenwill I see humes again?”
None of them answered that. They didn’tknow.
“There’s a mighty loud horn on the roof,”Bill said, pointing at the Federal. “I don’t know what sort of trouble it wasmeant to signal—radiation leaks, mayhap, or some sort of attack—butI do know the sound of it will carry across a hundred wheels at least. More, ifthe wind’s blowing in the right direction. If I should see the fellow you thinkis following you, or if such motion-sensors as still work pick him up, I’ll setit off. Perhaps you’ll hear.”
“Thank you,” Roland said.
“Were you to drive, you could outrun himeasily,” Bill pointed out. “You’d reach the Tower and never have to see him.”
“That’s true enough,” Roland said, but heshowed absolutely no sign of changing his mind, and Susannah was glad.
“What will you do about the one you callhis Red Father, if he really does command Can’-Ka No Rey?”
Roland shook his head, although he haddiscussed this probability with Susannah. He thought they might be able tocircle the Tower from a distance and come then to its base from a directionthat was blind to the balcony on which the Crimson King was trapped. Then theycould work their way around to the door beneath him. They wouldn’t know if thatwas possible until they could actually see the Tower and the lay of the land,of course.
“Well, there’ll be water if God wills it,”said the robot formerly known as Stuttering Bill, “or so the old people didsay. And mayhap I’ll see you again, in the clearing at the end of the path, ifnowhere else. If robots are allowed to go there. I hope it’s so, for there’smany I’ve known that I’d see again.”
He sounded so forlorn that Susannah went tohim and raised her arms to be picked up, not thinking about the absurdity ofwanting to hug a robot. But he did and she did—quite fervently, too. Billmade up for the malicious Andy, back in Calla Bryn Sturgis, and was worthhugging for that, if nothing else. As his arms closed around her, it occurredto Susannah that Bill could break her in two with those titanium-steel arms ifhe wanted to. But he didn’t. He was gentle.
“Long days and pleasant nights, Bill,” shesaid. “May you do well, and we all say so.”
“Thank you, madam,” he said and put herdown. “I say thudda-thank, thumma-thank, thukka—” Wheep! And hestruck his head, producing a bright clang. “I say thank ya kindly.” He paused.“I did fix the stutter, say true, but as I may have told you, I am notentirely without emotions.”
Five
Patrick surprised them both by walking foralmost four hours beside Susannah’s electric scooter before tiring and climbinginto Ho Fat II. They listened for the horn warning them that Bill had seenMordred (or that the instruments in the Federal had detected him), but did nothear it… and the wind was blowing their way. By sunset, they had left the lastof the snow. The land continued to flatten out, casting their shadows longbefore them.
When they finally stopped for the night,Roland gathered enough brush for a fire and Patrick, who had dozed off, woke uplong enough to eat an enormous meal of Vienna sausage and baked beans.(Susannah, watching the beans disappear into Patrick’s tongueless mouth,reminded herself to spread her hides upwind of him when she finally laid downher weary head.) She and Oy also ate heartily, but Roland hardly touched hisown food.
When dinner was done, Patrick took up hispad to draw, frowned at his pencil, and then held out a hand to Susannah. Sheknew what he wanted, and took the glass canning jar from the little bag ofpersonals she kept slung over her shoulder. She held onto this because therewas only the one pencil sharpener, and she was afraid that Patrick might loseit. Of course Roland could sharpen the Eberhard-Fabers with his knife, but itwould change the quality of the points somewhat. She tipped the jar, spillingerasers and paperclips and the required object into her cupped palm. Then shehanded it to Patrick, who sharpened his pencil with a few quick twists, handedit back, and immediately fell to his work. For a moment Susannah looked at thepink erasers and wondered again why Dandelo had bothered to cut them off. As away of teasing the boy? If so, it hadn’t worked. Later in life, perhaps, whenthe sublime connections between his brain and his fingers rusted a little (whenthe small but undeniably brilliant world of his talent had moved on), he mightrequire erasers. For now even his mistakes continued to be inspirations.