The Waste Lands (Page 159)
AT LAST THE LAUGHTER stopped and the interior lights glowed steadily again. “WOULD YOU LIKE A LITTLE MUSIC?” Blaine asked. “I HAVE OVER SEVEN THOUSAND CONCERTI IN MY LIBRARY—A SAM-PLING OF OVER THREE HUNDRED LEVELS. THE CONCERTI ARE MY FAVORITES, BUT I CAN ALSO OFFER SYMPHONIES, OPERAS, AND A NEARLY ENDLESS SELECTION OF POPULAR MUSIC. YOU MIGHT ENJOY SOME WAY-GOG MUSIC. THE WAY-GOG IS AN INSTRUMENT SOMETHING LIKE THE BAGPIPE. IT IS PLAYED ON ONE OF THE UPPER LEVELS OF THE TOWER.”
“Way-Gog?” Jake asked. ‘
Blaine was silent.
“What do you mean, ‘it’s played on one of the upper levels of the Tower’?” Roland asked.
Blaine laughed . . . and was silent.
“Have you got any Z.Z. Top?” Eddie asked sourly. “YES INDEED,” Blaine said. “HOW ABOUT A LITTLE TUBE-SNAKE BOOGIE; EDDIE OF NEW YORK?”
Eddie rolled his eyes. “On second thought, I’ll pass.” “Why?” Roland asked abruptly. “Why do you wish to kill yourself?” “Because lie’s a pain,” Jake said darkly. “I’M BORED. ALSO, I AM PERFECTLY AWARE THAT I AM SUFFERING A DEGENERATIVE DISEASE WHICH HUMANS CALL GOING INSANE, LOSING TOUCH WITH REALITY, GOING LOONYTOONS, BLOWING A FUSE, NOT PLAYING WITH A FULL DECK, ET CETERA. REPEATED DIAGNOSTIC CHECKS HAVE FAILED TO REVEAL THE SOURCE OF THE PROBLEM. I CAN ONLY CONCLUDE THAT THIS IS A SPIRITUAL MALAISE BEYOND MY ABILITY TO REPAIR.” Blaine paused for a moment, then went on. “I HAVE FELT MY MIND GROWING STEADILY STRANGER OVER THE YEARS. SERVING THE PEOPLE OF MID-WORLD BECAME POINTLESS CENTURIES AGO. SERVING THOSE FEW PEOPLE OF LUD WHO WISHED TO VENTURE ABROAD BECAME EQUALLY SILLY NOT LONG AFTER, YET I CARRIED ON UNTIL THE ARRIVAL OF DAVID QUICK, A SHORT WHILE AGO. I DON’T REMEMBER EXACTLY WHEN THAT WAS. DO YOU BELIEVE, ROLAND OF GILEAD, THAT MACHINES MAY GROW SENILE?”
“I don’t know.” Roland’s voice was distant, and Eddie only had to look at his face to know that, even now, hurtling a thousand feet over hell in the grip of a machine which had clearly gone insane, the gunslinger’s mind had once more turned to his damned Tower.
“IN A WAY, I NEVER STOPPED SERVING THE PEOPLE OF LUD,” Blaine said. “I SERVED
THEM EVEN AS I RELEASED THE GAS AND KILLED THEM.”
Susannah said, “You are insane, if you believe that.” “YES, BUT I’M NOT CRAZY,” Blaine said, and went into another hysterical laughing fit. At last the robot voice resumed.
“AT SOME POINT THEY FORGOT THAT THE VOICE OF THE MONO WAS ALSO THE VOICE OF THE COMPUTER. NOT LONG AFTER THAT THEY FORGOT I WAS A SERVANT AND BEGAN BELIEVING I WAS A GOD. SINCE I WAS BUILT TO SERVE, I FULFILLED THEIR REQUIREMENTS AND BECAME WHAT THEY WANTED—A GOD DISPENSING BOTH FAVOR AND PUNISHMENT ACCORDING TO WHIM … OR RANDOM-ACCESS MEMORY, IF YOU PREFER. THIS AMUSED ME FOR A SHORT WHILE. THEN, LAST MONTH, MY ONLY REMAINING COLLEAGUE—PATRICIA—COMMITTED SUICIDE.” Either he really is going senile, Susannah thought, or his inability to grasp the passage of time is another manifestation of his insanity, or it’s just another sign of how sick Roland’s world has gotten. “I WAS PLANNING TO FOLLOW HER EXAMPLE, WHEN YOU CAME ALONG. INTERESTING PEOPLE WITH A KNOWL-EDGE OF RIDDLES!”
“Hold it!” Eddie said, lifting his hand. “I still don’t have this straight. I suppose I can understand you wanting to end it all; the people who built you are gone, there haven’t been many passengers over the last two or three hundred years, and it must have gotten boring, doing the Lud to Topeka run empty all the time, but—“
“NOW WAIT JUST A DARN MINUTE, PARD,” Blaine said in his John Wayne voice. “YOU DON’T WANT TO GET THE IDEA THAT I’M NOTHING BUT A TRAIN. IN A WAY, THE BLAINE YOU ARE SPEAKING TO IS ALREADY THREE HUNDRED MILES BEHIND US, COMMUNICATING BY ENCRYPTED MICROBURST RADIO TRANSMISSIONS.” Jake suddenly remembered the slim silver rod he’d seen pushing itself out of Blaine’s brow. The antenna of his father’s Mercedes-Benz rose out of its socket like that when you turned on the radio.
That’s how it’s communicating with the computer banks under the city, he thought. If we could break that antenna off, somehow . . . “But you do intend to kill yourself, no matter where the real you is, don’t you?” Eddie persisted.
No answer—but there was something cagey in that silence. In it Eddie sensed Blaine watching . . . and waiting.
“Were you awake when we found you?” Susannah asked. “You weren’t, were you?” “I WAS RUNNING WHAT THE PUBES CALLED THE GOD-DRUMS ON BEHALF OF THE GRAYS, BUT THAT WAS ALL. YOU WOULD SAY I WAS DOZING.” “Then why don’t you just take us to the end of the line and go back to sleep?” “Because he’s a pain,” Jake repeated in a low voice. “BECAUSE THERE ARE DREAMS,” Blaine said at exactly the same time, and in a voice that was eerily like Little Blaine’s.
“Why didn’t you end it all when Patricia destroyed herself?” Eddie asked. “For that matter, if your brain and her brain are both part of the same computer, how come you both didn’t step out together?” “PATRICIA WENT MAD,” Blaine said patiently, speaking as if he himself had not just admitted the same thing was happening to him. “IN HER CASE, THE PROBLEM INVOLVED EQUIPMENT MAL-FUNCTION AS WELL AS SPIRITUAL MALAISE. SUCH MAL-FUNCTIONS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE IMPOSSIBLE WITH SLO-TRANS TECHNOLOGY, BUT OF COURSE THE WORLD HAS MOVED ON … HAS IT NOT, ROLAND OF GILEAD?” “Yes,” Roland said. “There is some deep sickness at the Dark Tower, which is the heart of everything. It’s spreading. The lands below us are only one more sign of that sickness.”