6 on its head and you get 9."
"Yeah, and spell dog backward, you get god," Eddie said, but he sounded uneasy.
"I think she's right," Jake said. "I think it's June 19th. That's when King gets turned into roadkill and even the chance that he might go back to work on the Dark Tower story-our story-is kaput. Gan's Beam is lost in the overload. Shardik's Beam is left, but it's already eroded." He looked at Roland, his face pale, his lips almost blue. "It'll snap like a toothpick."
"Maybe it's happened already," Susannah said.
"No," Roland said.
"How can you be sure?" she asked.
He gave her a wintry, humorless smile. "Because," he said, "we'd no longer be here."
NINETEEN
"How can we stop it from happening?" Eddie asked. "That guy Trampas told Ted it was ka."
"Maybe he got it wrong," Jake said, but his voice was thin.
Trailing. "It was only a rumor, so maybe he got it wrong. And hey, maybe King's got until July. Or August. Or what about September? It could be September, doesn't that seem likely?
September's the 9-month, after all..."
They looked at Roland, who was now sitting with his leg stretched out before him. "Here's where it hurts," he said, as if speaking to himself. He touched his right hip... then his ribs... last the side of his head. "I've been having headaches.
Worse and worse. Saw no reason to tell you." He drew his diminished right hand down his right side. "This is where he'll be hit. Hip smashed. Ribs busted. Head crushed. Thrown dead into the ditch. Ka... and the end of ka." His eyes cleared and he turned urgently to Susannah. "What date was it when you were in New York? Refresh me."
"June first of 1999."
Roland nodded and looked to Jake. "And you? The same, yes?"
"Yes."
"Then to Fedic... a rest... and on to Thunderclap." He paused, thinking, then spoke four words with measured emphasis. "There is still time."
"But time moves faster over there-"
"And if it takes one of those hitches-"
Their words overlapped. Then they fell quiet again, looking at him again.
"We can change ka," Roland said. "It's been done before.
There's always a price to pay-ka-shume, mayhap-but it can be done."
"How do we get there?" Eddie asked.
"There's only one way," Roland said. "Sheemie must send us.
Silence in the cave, except for a distant roll of the thunder that gave this dark land its name.
"We have two jobs," Eddie said. "The writer and the Breakers.
Which comes first?"
"The writer," Jake said. "While there's still time to save him."
But Roland was shaking his head.
"Why not?" Eddie cried. "Ah, man, why notfYou know how slippery time is over there! And it's one-way! If we miss the window, we'll never get another chance!"
"But we have to make Shardik's Beam safe, too," Roland said.
"Are you saying Ted and this guy Dinky wouldn't let Sheemie help us unless we help them first?"
"No. Sheemie would do it for me, I'm sure. But suppose something happened to him while we were in the Keystone World? We'd be stranded in 1999."
"There's the door on Turtleback Lane-" Eddie began.
"Even if it's still there in 1999, Eddie, Ted told us that Shardik's Beam has already started to bend." Roland shook his head. "My heart says yonder prison is the place to start. If any of you can say different, I will listen, and gladly."
They were quiet. Outside the cave, the wind blew.
"We need to ask Ted before we make any final decision,"
Susannah said at last.
"No," Jake said.
"No!" Oy agreed. Zero surprise there; if Ake said it, you could take it to the humbler bank, as far as Oy was concerned.
"Ask Sheemie," Jake said. "Ask Sheemie what he thinks we should do."
Slowly, Roland nodded.
Part Two BLUE HEAVEN Chapter IX:TRACKS ON THE PATH
ONE
When Jake awoke from a night of troubled dreams, most of them set in the Dixie Pig, a thin and listless light was seeping into the cave. In New York, that kind of light had always made him want to skip school and spend the entire day on the sofa, reading books, watching game-shows on TV, and napping the afternoon away. Eddie and Susannah were curled up together inside a single sleeping-bag. Oy had eschewed the bed which had been left him in order to sleep beside Jake. He was curled into a U, snout on left forepaw. Most people would have thought him asleep, but Jake saw the sly glimmer of gold beneath his lids and knew that Oy was peeking. The gunslinger's sleeping-bag was unzipped and empty.
Jake thought about this for a