The Waste Lands (Page 139)

Tick-Tock shook him back and forth by the nose. “Not-See! Not-See! You just want to stop playing with me, boy!”

“I don’t understand—” Jake began, and then he looked at the old machine-gun hanging from the chair and thought once more of the crashed Focke-Wulf. The pieces fell together in his mind. “No—I’m not a Nazi. I’m an American. All that ended long before I was born!”

The Tick-Tock Man released his hold on Jake’s nose, which immedi-ately began to gush blood. “You could have told me that in the first place and saved yourself all sorts of pain, Jake Chambers . . . but at least now you understand how we do things around here, don’t you?”

Jake nodded.

“Ay. Well enough! We’ll start with the simple questions.” Jake’s eyes drifted back to the ventilator grille. What he had seen before was still there; it hadn’t been just his imagination. Two gold-ringed eyes floated in the dark behind the chrome louvers.

Oy.

Tick-Tock slapped his face, knocking him back into Gasher, who immediately pushed him forward again. “It’s school-time, dear heart,” Gasher whispered. “Mind yer lessons, now! Mind em wery sharp!” “Look at me when I’m talking to you,” Tick-Tock said. “I’ll have some respect, Jake Chambers, or I’ll have your balls.” “All right.”

Tick-Tock’s green eyes gleamed dangerously. “All right what?” Jake groped for the right answer, pushing away the tangle of ques-tions and the sudden hope which had dawned in his mind. And what came was what would have served at his own Cradle of the Pubes . . . otherwise known as The Piper School. “All right, sir?”

Tick-Tock smiled. “That’s a start, boy,” he said, and leaned forward, forearms on his thighs. “Now . . . what’s an American?” Jake began to talk, trying with all his might not to look toward the ventilator grille as he did so.

ROLAND BOLSTERED HIS GUN, laid both hands on the valve-wheel, and tried to turn it. It wouldn’t budge. That didn’t much surprise him, but it presented serious problems.

Oy stood by his left boot, looking up anxiously, waiting for Roland to open the door so they could continue the journey to Jake. The gunslinger only wished it was that easy. It wouldn’t do to simply stand out here and wait for someone to leave; it might be hours or even days before one of the Grays decided to use this particular exit again. Gasher and his friends might take it into their heads to flay Jake alive while the gunslinger was waiting for it to happen. He leaned his head against the steel but heard nothing. That didn’t surprise him, either. He had seen doors like this a long time ago—you couldn’t shoot out the locks, and you certainly couldn’t hear through them. There might be one; there might be two, facing each other, with some dead airspace in between. Somewhere, though, there would be a button which would spin the wheel in the middle of the door and release the locks. If Jake could reach that button, all might still be well.

Roland understood that he was not a full member of this ka-tet; he guessed that even Oy was more fully aware than he of the secret life which existed at its heart (he very much doubted that the bumbler had tracked Jake with his nose alone through those tunnels where water ran in polluted streamlets). Nevertheless, he had been able to help Jake when die boy had been trying to cross from his world to this one. He had been able to see . . . and when Jake had been trying to regain the key he had dropped, he had been able to send a message.

He had to be very careful about sending messages this time. At best, the Grays would realize something was up. At worst, Jake might misinterpret what Roland tried to tell him and do something foolish. But if he could see . . .

Roland closed his eyes and bent all his concentration toward Jake. He thought of the boy’s eyes and sent his ka out to find them. At first there was nothing, but at last an image began to form. It was a face framed by long, gray-blonde hair. Green eyes gleamed in deep sockets like firedims in a cave. Roland quickly understood that this was the Tick-Tock Man, and that he was a descendent of the man who had died in the air-carriage—interesting, but of no practical value in this situation. He tried to look beyond the Tick-Tock Man, to see the rest of the room in which Jake was being held, and the people in it.

“Ake,” Oy whispered, as if reminding Roland that this was neither the time nor the place to take a nap.

“Shhh,” the gunslinger said, not opening his eyes. But it was no good. He caught only blurs, probably because Jake’s concentration was focused so tightly on the Tick-Tock Man; everyone and everything else was little more than a series of gray-shrouded shapes on the edges of Jake’s perception.

Roland opened his eyes again and pounded his left fist lightly into the open palm of his right hand. He had an idea that he could push harder and see more . . . but that might make the boy aware of his presence. That would be dangerous. Casher might smell a rat, and if he didn’t the Tick-Tock Man would. He looked up at the narrow ventilator grilles, then down at Oy. He had wondered several times just how smart he was; now it looked as though he was going to find out.

Roland reached up with his good left hand, slipped his fingers between the horizontal slats of the ventilator grille closest to the hatchway through which Jake had been taken, and pulled. The grille popped out in a shower of rust and dried moss. The hole behind it was far too small for a man . . . but not for a billy-bumbler. He put the grille down, picked Oy up, and spoke softly into his ear.

“Go . . . see . . . come back. Do you understand? Don’t let them see you. Just go and see and come back.”