“Who’s Carter?” Susannah asked. “Is he the President before… Ronald Reagan?” She garnished the last two words with a large wink. Eddie had so far been unable to convince her that he was serious about Reagan’s being President. Nor would she believe Jake when the boy told her he knew it sounded crazy, but the idea was at least faintly plausible because Reagan had been governor of California. Susannah had simply laughed at this and nodded, as if giving him high marks for creativity. She knew Eddie had talked Jake into backing up his fish story, but she would not be hooked. She supposed she could see Paul Newman as President, maybe even Henry Fonda, who had looked presidential enough in Fail-Safe, but the host of Death Valley Days ? Not on your bottom.

“Never mind Carter,” Eddie said. “Look at the date .”

Roland tried, but it kept swimming in and out. It would almost settle into Great Letters that he could read, and then fall back into gibberish. “What is it, for your father’s sake?”

“June second,” Jake said. He looked at Eddie. “But if time’s the same here and over on the other side, shouldn’t it be June first ?”

“But it’s not the same,” Eddie said grimly. “It’s not . Time goes by faster on this side. Game on. And the game-clock’s running fast.”

Roland considered. “If we come here again, it’s going to be later each time, isn’t it?”

Eddie nodded.

Roland went on, talking to himself as much as to the others. “Every minute we spend on the other side—the Calla side—a minute and a half goes by over here. Or maybe two.”

“No, not two,” Eddie said. “I’m sure it’s not going double-time.” But his uneasy glance back down at the date on the newspaper suggested he wasn’t sure at all.

“Even if you’re right,” Roland said, “all we can do now is go forward.”

“Toward the fifteenth of July,” Susannah said. “When Balazar and his gentlemen stop playing nice.”

“Maybe we ought to just let these Calla-folk do their own thing,” Eddie said. “I hate to say that, Roland, but maybe we should.”

“We can’t do that, Eddie.”

“Why not?”

“Because Callahan’s got Black Thirteen,” Susannah said. “Our help is his price for turning it over. And we need it.”

Roland shook his head. “He’ll turn it over in any case—I thought I was clear about that. He’s terrified of it.”

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “I got that feeling, too.”

“We have to help them because it’s the Way of Eld,” Roland told Susannah. “And because the way of ka is always the way of duty.”