Stephen King - Wolves of the Calla

Jake went for the door, and it was just as well he went when he did, because Slightman didn't let the recording finish its spiel. "Ninety-nine," came his voice from the loudspeakers, and the recording thanked him.

It was another closet, this one empty except for two or three moldering shirts in one corner and a dust-caked poncho slumped on a hook. The air was almost as dusty as the poncho, and Oy uttered three fast, delicate sneezes as he padded in.

Jake dropped to one knee and put an arm around Oy's slender neck. "No more of that unless you want to get us both killed," he said. "You be quiet, Oy."

"Kiyit Oy," the bumbler whispered back, and winked. Jake reached up and pulled the door back to within two inches of shut, as it had been before. He hoped.

He could hear them quite clearly- too clearly. Jake realized there were mikes and speakers all over this place. The idea did nothing for his peace of mind. Because if he and Oy could hear them …

It was the cactuses they were talking about, or rather that Slightman was talking about. He called them boom-flurry, and wanted to know what had gotten them all fashed.

"Almost certainly more rock-cats, sai," Andy said in his complacent, slightly prissy voice. Eddie said Andy reminded him of a robot named C3PO in Star Wars , a movie to which Jake had been looking forward. He had missed it by less than a month. "It's their mating season, you know."

"Piss on that," Slightman said. "Are you telling me boom-flurry don't know rock-cats from something they can actually catch and eat? Someone's been out here, I tell you. And not long since."

A cold thought slipped into Jake's mind: had the floor of the Dogan been dusty? He'd been too busy gawking at the control panels and TV monitors to notice. If he and Oy had left tracks, those two might have noticed already. They might only be pretending to have a conversation about the cactuses while they actually crept toward the bunkroom door.

Jake took the Ruger out of the docker's clutch and held it in his right hand with his thumb on the safety.

"A guilty conscience doth make cowards of us all," Andy said in his complacent, just-thought-you'd-like-to-know voice. "That's my free adaptation of a-"

"Shut up, you bag of bolts and wires," Slightman snarled. "I-" Then he screamed. Jake felt Oy stiffen against him, felt his fur begin to rise. The bumbler started to growl. Jake slipped a hand around his snout.

"Let go!" Slightman cried out. "Let go of me!"

"Of course, sai Slightman," Andy said, now sounding solicitous. "I only pressed a small nerve in your elbow, you know. There would be no lasting damage unless I applied at least twenty foot-pounds of pressure."

"Why in the hell would you do that?" Slightman sounded injured, almost whiny. "En't I doing all you could want, and more? En't I risking my life for my boy?"

"Not to mention a few little extras," Andy said silkily. "Your spectacles… the music machine you keep deep down in your saddlebag… and, of course-"

"You know why I'm doing it and what'd happen to me if I was found out," Slightman said. The whine had gone out of his voice. Now he sounded dignified and a little weary. Jake listened to that tone with growing dismay. If he got out of this and had to squeal on Benny's Da', he wanted to squeal on a villain. "Yar, I've taken a few little extras, you say true, I say thankya. Glasses, so I can see better to betray the people I've known all my life. A music machine so I won't have to hear the conscience you prate about so easy and can get to sleep at night. Then you pinch something in my arm that makes me feel like my by-Riza eyes are going to fall right out of my by-Riza head.'"

"I allow it from the rest of them," Andy said, and now his voice had changed. Jake once more thought of Blaine, and once more his dismay grew. What if Tian Jaffords heard this voice? What if Vaughn Eisenhart heard it? Overholser? The rest of the folken ? "They heap contumely on my head like hot coals and never do I raise a word o' protest, let alone a hand. 'Go here, Andy. Go there, Andy. Stop yer foolish singing, Andy. Stuff yer prattle. Don't tell us of the future, because we don't want to hear it.' So I don't, except of the Wolves, because they'd hear what makes em sad and I'd tell em, yes I would; to me each tear's a drop of gold. 'You're nobbut a stupid pile of lights n wires,' they say. 'Tell us the weather, sing the babby to sleep, then get't'hell out o' here.' And I allow it. Foolish Andy am I, every child's toy and always fair game for a tongue-whipping. But I won't take a tongue-whipping from you , sai. You hope to have a future in the Calla after the Wolves are done with it for another few years, don't you?"

"You know I do," Slightman said, so low Jake could barely hear him. "And I deserve it."

"You and your son, both say thankya, passing your days in the Calla, both say commala! And that can happen, but it depends on more than the death of the outworlders. It depends on my silence . If you want it, I demand respect."

"That's absurd," Slightman said after a brief pause. From his place in the closet, Jake agreed wholeheartedly. A robot demanding respect was absurd. But so was a giant bear patrolling an empty forest, a Morlock thug trying to unravel the secrets of dipolar computers, or a train that lived only to hear and solve new riddles. "And besides, hear me I beg, how can I respect you when I don't even respect myself?"

There was a mechanical click in response to this, very loud. Jake had heard Blaine make a similar sound when he-or it- had felt the absurd closing in, threatening to fry his logic circuits. Then Andy said: "No answer, nineteen. Connect and report, sai Slightman. Let's have done with this."

"All right."

There were thirty or forty seconds' worth of keyboard-clatter, then a high, warbling whistle that made Jake wince and Oy whine far back in his throat. Jake had never heard a sound quite like it; he was from the New York of 1977, and the word modem would have meant nothing to him.

The shriek cut off abruptly. There was a moment's silence. Then: "THIS IS ALGUL SIENTO. FINLI O' TEGO HERE. PLEASE GIVE YOUR PASSWORD. YOU HAVE TEN SEC-"

"Saturday," Slightman replied, and Jake frowned. Had he ever heard that happy weekend word on this side? He didn't think so.

"THANK YOU. ALGUL SIENTO ACKNOWLEDGES. WE ARE ONLINE." There was another brief, shrieking whistle. Then: "REPORT, SATURDAY."

Slightman told of watching Roland and "the younger one" going up to the Cave of the Voices, where there was now some sort of door, very likely conjured by the Manni. He said he'd used the far-seer and thus gotten a very good look-

"Telescope," Andy said. He had reverted to his slightly prissy, complacent voice. "Such are called telescopes."

"Would you care to make my report, Andy?" Slightman inquired with cold sarcasm.

"Cry pardon," Andy said in a long-suffering voice. "Cry pardon, cry pardon, go on, go on, as ye will."

There was a pause. Jake could imagine Slightman glaring at the robot, the glare robbed of its ferocity by the way the foreman would have to crane his neck in order to deliver it. Finally he went on.

"They left their horses below and walked up. They carried a pink sack which they passed from hand to hand, as if 'twere heavy. Whatever was in it had square edges; I could make that out through the telescope far-seer. May I offer two guesses?"

"YES."

"First, they might have been putting two or three of the Pere's most valuable books in safekeeping. If that's the case, a Wolf should be sent to destroy them after the main mission's accomplished."

"WHY?" The voice was perfectiy cold. Not a human being's voice, Jake was sure of that. The sound of it made him feel weak and afraid.