Gwendy’s Final Task

46

THAT NIGHT.

Gwendy is walking the outer rim of the Many Flags space station. It makes its usual creaks and groans, haunted house sounds that the other man, the bad man, didn’t like, but Gwendy doesn’t mind them. She can’t remember the bad man’s name, although she’s sure she could come up with it using Dr. Ambrose’s chain of association. I’d just start with cigar, she thinks.

The man walking beside her doesn’t seem to mind the creaking sounds either. His face is serene and he’s very beautiful. Except his beauty is a mask. Sometimes his features waver like water in a pond blown by a strong breeze and she can see his real face and head. He’s some sort of weasel, like the chocolate treat the biologist got. Gwendy can’t remember his name, either. That’s all right. She can remember the name of the man-who-isn’t-a-man, though: it’s Bobby. That’s what the bad man called him. She thinks: Cigar. She thinks, Who smoked cigars? Winston Churchill did. And there it is.

“The bad man’s name was Garin Winston,” she says.

“Close enough,” Bobby says. “It doesn’t matter, he’s dead.”

“Melted,” Gwendy says. “Like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Ooze.”

“Close enough,” Bobby says again. “What matters is this: there are other worlds than these.”

“I know,” Gwendy says. “Someone told me, but I don’t remember who. Maybe Mr. Farris.”

“That meddler,” Bobby says.

They walk. The space station creaks. They see no one, because this is sleep time on MF. Except for the Chinese, holed up in their spoke, they are alone in the haunted house.

“There are twelve worlds,” Bobby says. “Six beams, twelve worlds, one at each end of each beam. And in the center is the Tower. We call it Black Thirteen.”

“Who is we?”

“The taheen.”

This means nothing to Gwendy.

“The beams hold the worlds and the Tower powers the beams,” Bobby says in a lecturely tone. “Only one thing can destroy it, now that the Crimson King is dead.”

“The button box,” Gwendy says, but Bobby smiles and shakes his head. He makes a come-on gesture with hands that sometimes blur into paws with sharp claws at the ends. The gesture says you can do better. Gwendy starts to protest that she really can’t, she’s suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s (probably caused by the box, but who knows for sure), then realizes she can. “The black button on the button box. The Cancer Button.”

“Yes!” Bobby says, and pats her shoulder. Gwendy shrinks away. She doesn’t want him to touch her. It makes her feel the way the station’s creaks and groans made the late Garin Winship feel. “You must not send the box away, Gwendy. What you need to do is push the black button. Destroy the Tower, destroy the beams, destroy the worlds.”

“Rule Discordia?”

“That’s right, rule Discordia. End the universe. Bring the darkness.”

“Like in Jonestown? Only everyone and everything?”

“Yes.”

“But why?”

“Because chaos is the only answer.”

He looks down. Gwendy follows his gaze and sees she’s holding the button box.

“Push it, Gwendy. Push it now. You must, because—”