her harness (this less than a minute since she had fastened it) and went forward to a small door. That’s where the driver sits, the gunslinger thought, but when the door was opened and she stepped in he saw it apparently took three drivers to operate the air-carriage, and even the brief glimpse he was afforded of what seemed like a million dials and levers and lights made him understand why.
The prisoner was looking at all but seeing nothing—Cort would have first sneered, then driven him through the nearest wall. The prisoner’s mind was completely occupied with grabbing the bag under the seat and his light jacket from the overhead bin . . . and facing the ordeal of the ritual.
The prisoner saw nothing; the gunslinger saw everything.
The woman thought him a thief or a madman. He—or perhaps it was I, yes, that’s likely enough—did something to make her think that. She changed her mind, and then the other woman changed it back . . . only now I think they know what’s really wrong. They know he’s going to try to profane the ritual.
Then, in a thunderclap, he saw the rest of his problem. First, it wasn’t just a matter of taking the bags into his world as he had the coin; the coin hadn’t been stuck to the prisoner’s body with the glue-string the prisoner had wrapped around and around his upper body to hold the bags tight to his skin. This glue-string was only part of his problem. The prisoner hadn’t missed the temporary disappearance of one coin among many, but when he realized that whatever it was he had risked his life for was suddenly gone, he was surely going to raise the racks . . . and what then?
It was more than possible that the prisoner would begin to behave in a manner so irrational that it would get him locked away in gaol as quickly as being caught in the act of profanation. The loss would be bad enough; for the bags under his arms to simply melt away to nothing would probably make him think he really had gone mad.
The air-carriage, ox-like now that it was on the ground, labored its way through a left turn. The gunslinger realized that he had no time for the luxury of further thought. He had to do more than come forward; he must make contact with Eddie Dean.
Right now.
9
Eddie tucked his declaration card and passport in his breast pocket. The steel wire was now turning steadily around his guts, sinking in deeper and deeper, making his nerves spark and sizzle. And suddenly a voice spoke in his head.
Not a thought; a voice.
Listen to me, fellow. Listen carefully. And if you would remain safe, let your face show nothing which might further rouse the suspicions of those army women. God knows they’re suspicious enough already.
Eddie first thought he was still wearing the airline earphones and picking up some weird transmission from the cockpit. But the airline headphones had been picked up five minutes ago.
His second thought was that someone was standing beside him and talking. He almost snapped his head to the left, but that was absurd. Like it or not, the raw truth was that the voice had come from inside his head.
Maybe he was receiving some sort of transmission—AM, FM, or VHF on the fillings in his teeth. He had heard of such th—
Straighten up, maggot! They’re suspicious enough without you looking as if you’ve gone crazy!
Eddie sat up fast, as if he had been whacked. That voice wasn’t Henry’s, but it was so much like Henry’s when they had been just a couple of kids growing up in the Projects, Henry eight years older, the sister who had been between them now only a ghost of memory; Selina had been struck and killed by a car when Eddie was two and Henry ten. That rasping tone of command came out whenever Henry saw him doing something that might end with Eddie occupying a pine box long before his time . . . as Selina had.
What in the blue fuck is going on here?
You’re not hearing voices that aren’t there, the voice inside his head returned. No, not Henry’s voice—older, dryer . . . stronger. But like Henry’s voice . . . and impossible not to believe. That’s the first thing. You’re not going crazy. I AM another person.
This is telepathy?
Eddie was vaguely aware that his face was completely expressionless. He thought that, under the