The Dark Tower

Susannah worked her way over to Nigel, and found she had to conquer a moment’s fear before reaching up and taking one three-fingered steel hand. She needed to remind herself that this wasn’t Andy from Calla Bryn Sturgis, nor could Nigel know about Andy. The butler-robot might or might not be sophisticated enough to crave revenge—certainly Andy had been—but you couldn’t crave what you didn’t know about.

She hoped.

“Nigel, pick me up.”

There was a whine of servomotors as the robot bent.

“No, hon, you have to come forward a little bit. There’s broken glass where you are.”

“Pawdon, madam, but I’m blind. I believe it was you who shot my eyes out.”

Oh. That.

“Well,” she said, hoping her tone of irritation would disguise the fear beneath, “I can’t very well get you new ones if you don’t pick me up, can I? Now get a wiggle on, may it do ya. Time’s wasting.”

Nigel stepped forward, crushing broken glass beneath its feet, and came to the sound of her voice. Susannah controlled the urge to cringe back, but once the Domestic Robot had set its grip on her, its touch was quite gentle. It lifted her into its arms.

“Now take me to the door.”

“Madam, beg pawdon but there are many doors in Sixteen. More still beneath the castle.”

Susannah couldn’t help being curious. “How many?”

A brief pause. “I should say five hundred and ninety-five are currently operational.” She immediately noticed that five-ninety-five added up to nineteen. Added up to chassit.

“Do you mind giving me a carry to the one I came through before the shooting started?” Susannah pointed toward the far end of the room.

“No, madam, I don’t mind at all, but I’m sorry to tell you that it will do you no good,” Nigel said in his plummy voice. “That door, NEW YORK #7/FEDIC, is one-way.” A pause. Relays clicking in the steel dome of its head. “Also, it burned out after its last use. It has, as you might say, gone to the clearing at the end of the path.”

“Oh, that’s just wonderful!” Susannah cried, but realized she wasn’t exactly surprised by Nigel’s news. She remembered the ragged humming sound she’d heard it making just before Sayre had pushed her rudely through it, remembered thinking, even in her distress, that it was a dying thing. And yes, it had died. “Just wonderful!”

“I sense you are distressed, madam.”

“You’re goddamned right I’m distressed! Bad enough the damned thing only opened one-way! Now it’s shut down completely!”

“Except for the default,” Nigel agreed.

“Default? What do you mean, default?”

“That would be NEW YORK #9/FEDIC,” Nigel told her. “At one time there were over thirty one-way New York–to–Fedic ports, but I believe #9 is the only one that remains. All commands pertaining to NEW YORK #7/FEDIC will now have defaulted to #9.”

Chassit, she thought . . . almost prayed. He’s talking about chassit, I think. Oh God, I hope he is.

“Do you mean passwords and such, Nigel?”

“Why, yes, madam.”

“Take me to Door #9.”

“As you wish.”

Nigel began to move rapidly up the aisle between the hundreds of empty beds, their taut white sheets gleaming under the brilliant overhead lamps. Susannah’s imagination momentarily populated this room with screaming, frightened children, freshly arrived from Calla Bryn Sturgis, maybe from the neighboring Callas, as well. She saw not just a single rathead nurse but battalions of them, eager to clamp the helmets over the heads of the kidnapped children and start the process that . . . that did what? Ruined them in some way. Sucked the intelligence out of their heads and knocked their growth-hormones out of whack and ruined them forever. Susannah supposed that at first they would be cheered up to hear such a pleasant voice in their heads, a voice welcoming them to the wonderful world of North Central Positronics and the Sombra Group. Their crying would stop, their eyes fill with hope. Perhaps, they would think the nurses in their white uniforms were good in spite of their hairy, scary faces and yellow fangs. As good as the voice of the nice lady.

Then the hum would begin, quickly building in volume as it moved toward the middle of their heads, and this room would again fill with their frightened screams—

“Madam? Are you all right?”

“Yes. Why do you ask, Nigel?”

“I believe you shivered.”

“Never mind. Just get me to the door to New York, the one that still works.”

SIX

Once they left the infirmary, Nigel bore her rapidly down first one corridor and then another. They came to escalators that looked as if they had been frozen in place for centuries. Halfway down one of them, a steel ball on legs flashed its amber eyes at Nigel and cried, “Howp! Howp!” Nigel responded “Howp, howp!” in return and then said to Susannah (in the confidential tone certain gossipy people adopt when discussing Those Who Are Unfortunate), “He’s a Mech Foreman and has been stuck there for over eight hundred years—fried boards, I imagine. Poor soul! But he still tries to do his best.”