the bars at the smooth pink line of Blaine’s back. But Blaine did not reply to this or any of the other questions they asked. The bright orange lights stayed on, but both Big Blaine and Little Blaine seemed to have gone into hibernation. Eddie, however, knew better. Blaine was awake. Blaine was watching them. Blaine was listening to their frictive patterns and diphthong stress-emphasis.
He looked at Susannah.
“ ‘You’ll have to prime the pump, but my pump primes backward,’ ” he said bleakly. “It’s a riddle, isn’t it?”
“Yes, of course.” She looked at the triangular window, so like a half-lidded, mocking eye, and then pulled him close so she could whisper in his ear. “It’s totally insane, Eddie—schizophrenic, paranoid, probably delusional as well.”
“Tell me about it,” he breathed back. “What we’ve got here is a lunatic genius ghost-in-the-computer monorail that likes riddles and goes faster than the speed of sound. Welcome to the fantasy version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
“Do you have any idea what the answer is?”
Eddie shook his head. “You?”
“A little tickle, way back in my mind. False light, probably. I keep thinking about what Roland said: a good riddle is always sensible and always solvable. It’s like a magician’s trick.”
“Misdirection.”
She nodded. “Go fire another shot, Eddie—let em know we’re still here.”
“Yeah. Now if we could only be sure that they’re still there.”
“Do you think they are, Eddie?”
Eddie had started away, and he spoke without stopping or looking back. “I don’t know—that’s a riddle not even Blaine could answer.”
31
“COULD I HAVE SOMETHING to drink?” Jake asked. His voice came out sounding furry and nasal. Both his mouth and the tissues in his abused nose were swelling up. He looked like someone who has gotten the worst of it in a nasty street-fight.
“Oh, yes,” Tick-Tock replied judiciously. “You could. I’d say you certainly could. We have lots to drink, don’t we, Copperhead?”
“Ay,” said a tall, bespectacled man in a white silk shirt and a pair of black silk trousers. He looked like a college professor in a turn-of-the-century Punch cartoon. “No shortage of po-ter-bulls here.”
The Tick-Tock Man, once more seated at ease in his throne-like chair, looked humorously at Jake. “We have wine, beer, ale, and, of course, good old water. Sometimes that’s all a body wants, isn’t it? Cool, clear, sparkling water. How does that sound, cully?”
Jake’s throat, which was also swollen and as dry as sandpaper, prickled painfully. “Sounds good,” he whispered.
“It’s woke my thirsty up, I know that,” Tick-Tock said. His lips spread in a smile. His green eyes sparkled. “Bring me a dipper of water, Tilly—I’ll be damned if I know what’s happened to my manners.”
Tilly stepped through the hatchway on the far side of the room—it was opposite the one through which Jake and Gasher had entered. Jake watched her go and licked his swollen lips.
“Now,” Tick-Tock said, returning his gaze to Jake, “you say the American city you came from—this New York—is much like Lud.”
“Well . . . not exactly . . .”
“But you do recognize some of the machinery,” Tick-Tock pressed. “Valves and pumps and such. Not to mention the firedim tubes.”
“Yes. We call it neon, but it’s the same.”
Tick-Tock reached out toward him. Jake cringed, but Tick-Tock only patted him on the shoulder. “Yes, yes; close enough.” His eyes gleamed. “And you’ve heard of computers?”
“Sure, but—”
Tilly returned with the dipper and timidly approached the Tick-Tock Man’s throne. He took it and held it out to Jake. When Jake reached for it, Tick-Tock pulled it back and drank himself. As Jake watched the water trickle from Tick-Tock’s mouth and roll down his naked chest, he began to shake. He couldn’t help it.
The Tick-Tock Man looked over the dipper at him, as if just remembering that Jake was still there. Behind him, Gasher, Copperhead, Brandon, and Hoots were grinning like schoolyard kids who have just heard an amusing dirty joke.
“Why, I got thinking about how thirsty I was and forgot all about you!” Tick-Tock cried. “That’s mean as hell, gods damn my eyes! But, of course, it looked so good . . . and it is good . . . cold . . . clear . . .”
He held the dipper out to Jake. When Jake reached for it, Tick-Tock pulled it back.
“First, cully, tell me what you know about dipolar computers and transitive circuits,” he said coldly.
“What . . .” Jake looked toward the ventilator grille, but the golden eyes were still gone. He was beginning to think he had