He looks at the door for several moments, pondering, then walks deeper into the stable, curious about the machine he heard. There’s no pain when he walks, if he just took a long fall his body hasn’t yet got the news, but Kee-rist is it ever hot in here!

There are horse stalls, long abandoned. There’s a pile of ancient hay, and beside it a neatly folded blanket and what looks like a breadboard. On the board is a single scrap of dried meat. He picks it up, sniffs it, smells salt.Jerky, he thinks, and pops it into his mouth. He’s not very worried about being poisoned. How can you poison a man who’s already dead?

Chewing, he continues his explorations. At the rear of the stable is a small room like an afterthought. There are a few chinks in the walls of this room, too, enough for him to see a machine squatting on a concrete pad. Everything in the stable whispers of long years and abandonment, but this gadget, which looks sort of like a milking machine, appears brand new. No rust, no dust. He goes closer. There’s a chrome pipe jutting from one side. Beneath it is a drain. The steel collar around it looks damp. On top of the machine is a small metal plate. Next to the plate is a red button. Stamped on the plate is this:

LaMERK INDUSTRIES

834789-AA-45-776019

DO NOT REMOVE SLUG

ASK FOR ASSISTANCE

The red button is stamped with the word ON. Callahan pushes it. The weary thudding sound resumes, and after a moment water gushes from the chrome pipe. He puts his hands under it. The water is numbingly cold, shocking his overheated skin. He drinks. The water is neither sweet nor sour and he thinks,Such things as taste must be forgotten at great depths. This—

“Hello, Faddah.”

Callahan screams in surprise. His hands fly up and for a moment jewels of water sparkle in a dusty sunray falling between two shrunken boards. He wheels around on the eroded heels of his boots. Standing just outside the door of the pump-room is a man in a hooded robe.

Sayre, he thinks . It’s Sayre, he’s followed me, he came through that damn door—