I will listen very well, Roland replied, and was dropped. He gagged, weightless and nauseated.

More chimes. Then, suddenly, he was floating again, this time above a room filled with empty beds. One look was enough to assure him that this was where the Wolves brought the children they kidnapped from the Borderland Callas. At the far end of the room-

A hand grasped his arm, a thing Roland would have thought impossible in this state. He looked to his left and saw Eddie beside him, floating naked. They were both naked, their clothes left behind in the writer’s world.

Roland had already seen what Eddie was pointing to. At the far end of the room, a pair of beds had been pushed together.

A white woman lay on one of them. Her legs-the very ones Susannah had used on their todash visit to New York, Roland had no doubt-were spread wide. A woman with the head of a rat-one of the taheen, he felt sure-bent between them.

Next to the white woman was a dark-skinned one whose legs ended just below the knees. Floating naked or not, nauseated or not, todash or not, Roland had never in his life been so glad to see anyone. And Eddie felt the same. Roland heard him cry out joyfully in the center of his head and reached a hand to still the younger man. He had to still him, for Susannah was looking at them, had almost certainly seen them, and if she spoke to them, he needed to hear every word she said. Because although those words would come from her mouth, it would very likely be the Beam that spoke; the Voice of die Bear or that of the Turde.

Both women wore metal hoods over their hair. A length of segmented steel hose connected them.

Some kind of Vulcan mind-meld, Eddie said, once again filling the center of his head and blotting out everything else. Or maybe-

Hush! Roland broke in. Hush, Eddie, for your father’s sake!