"Well, sir, it's an earthquake, isn't it? In disaster drill, sir, they say that you're supposed to evacuate tall buildings."
Lieutenant Marino slapped the palm of his hand on the desk.
"Earthquake?" he said bitterly. "I wish it damned well was. Just round up two or three of the guys and see if you can help that idiot Geoghegan to get in. Take the stairs and watch out for the tenth floor."
"Right, sir. Oh — and sir?"
"Yes, Redfern?"
"Detective Wisbech told me to say that he's run the m.o. through Unitrak, and so far there's no precedent. No known murderer kills that way, sir. Not by freezing."
Lieutenant Marino sighed. "All right, Redfern." He turned back to us, and said: "That's police efficiency for you. Eleven men get chopped up and chilled, and we have to run it through a computer to see if anyone ever went around doing things like that before. What the hell is wrong with memories these days?"
Redfern left, with a quick salute. The floor was stirring again, and he looked relieved to have been sent down to street level. What's more, the wind noise was moaning even louder, and how can you explain to people who hear gales blowing that there are no gales, and that the wind is the wind of occult malevolence?
"Just a minute," said Jack Hughes, "how did your detective get in touch with this computer?"
Lieutenant Marino said: "By phone. It's available to all police forces in the state of New York. If there's anything you need to know about missing automobiles, missing persons, crime patterns, anything like that, it can tell you in just a few seconds."
"Is it a big computer?"
"Sure. Unitrak is one of the largest on the Eastern seaboard."
Jack Hughes turned to Singing Rock. "I think we have found you a technological manitou," he said. "The Unitrak computer."
Singing Rock nodded. "That sounds more like it," he said. "Do you have the phone number, lieutenant?"
Lieutenant Marino looked bewildered. "Now wait a minute," he said. "That computer is strictly for authorized police personnel only. You need a code to get through."
"Have you got a code?" asked Singing Rock.
"Sure, but —"
"But me no buts," said Singing Rock. "If you want to catch the thing that killed your eleven men, then this is the only way to do it."
"What are you talking about?" snapped Lieutenant Marino. "Are you trying to tell me that you can conjure up a goddamned spirit out of a police department computer?"
"Why not?" said Singing Rock. "I won't say it's going to be easy, but Unitrak's manitou is bound to be Christian and God-fearing and dedicated to the cause of law and order. Unitrak was made for that purpose. A machine's manitou cannot go contrary to the underlying intent with which it was fashioned. If I can summon it up, it will be perfect. History will repeat itself."
"What do you mean — history will repeat itself?"
Singing Rock rubbed the back of his neck tiredly. "This continent and its Red Indian spirits were defeated once by the white manitous of law and Christianity. I expect they can be defeated again."
Lieutenant Marino was just reaching for his computer code card when the air seemed to go suddenly still. We looked around at each other uncertainly. The floor had stopped swaying, but now it was vibrating, very faintly, as if someone was drilling their way through concrete, floors and floors beneath us. Way down below in the street, we heard sirens and fire truck horns, and also the sorrowful moan of that magical wind.
Abruptly, the lights died Lieutenant Marino shouted: "Don't move! Nobody move! If anyone moves, I'll shoot!" We stayed frozen like statues, listening and waiting to see if we were being attacked. I felt drops of sweat sliding silently down the side of my face and into my collar. The rooms on the eighteenth floor were stifling and airless, and it was obvious that the air-conditioning had stopped, too.
I heard them first. Rushing and scurrying down the walls, like a phantom river. I saw Lieutenant Marino raise his police special in alarm, but he didn't fire. Chilled with fright, we peered through the luminous gloom of the offices, and saw them. They were like ghostly rats — torrents and torrents of scampering ghostly rats — and they were pouring down every wall. They emerged from nowhere, and disappeared into the floor as if it wasn't solid at all. There must have been millions of them — whispering and rustling and scuttling everywhere in a hideous tide of furry bodies.
"What is it?" said Lieutenant Marino hoarsely. "What are they?"
"Exactly what they look like," said Singing Rock. "They are the parasites that accompany the Great Old One. In a spiritual sense, he is verminous, and these are the vermin. It looks as if Misquamacus is using the hospital building itself as a gateway to summon the Great Old One, and that's why they're pouring down the walls like that. I expect they're assembling on the tenth floor. After that — well, who knows?"
Lieutenant Marino didn't say a word. He simply handed his computer code card to Singing Rock, and pointed to the number on it. He seemed to be shocked and numbed, but then we all were. Even the newspaper reporters and the television crew were silent and apprehensive, and we stared at each other with the haunted eyes of men who are trapped in a sinking submarine.
Singing Rock went into a small side office and picked up the phone. I stayed with him while he dialed, and I could hear the ringing tone, and the click of the recorded answering machine. Squinting closely at Lieutenant Marino's card, Singing Rock read off a series of numbers, and waited to be put in touch with Unitrak.
"What are you going to do?" I asked him. "How can you tell a computer that you need some help from its manitou?"
Singing Rock lit himself a small cigar, and puffed out smoke. "I guess it's going to be a question of using the right language," he said. "And also persuading the programmers that I'm not totally crazy."
There was another click, and a matter-of-fact WASPish voice said: "Unitrak. Could you state your business please?"
Singing Rock coughed. "I'm speaking for Lieutenant Marino of the New York Police Department. Lieutenant Marino would like to know if Unitrak has a spiritual existence."
There was a silence. Then the voice said: "What? Would you repeat that?"
"Lieutenant Marino would like Unitrak to state if it has a spiritual existence."
There was another silence. Then the voice said: "Look — what is this? Some kind of a joke?"
"Please — just ask the question."
There was a sigh. "Unitrak is not programmed to answer questions like that. Unitrak is a working computer — not one of your fancy university poem-writing gadgets. Now, if that's all?"
"Wait," said Singing Rock urgently. "Please ask Unitrak one important question. Ask it if it has any data on the Great Old One."
"The Great What?"
"The Great Old One. He's a — kind of a criminal ringleader."
"What division? Fraud, homicide, arson — what?"
Singing Rock thought for a moment, then he said: "Homicide."
"There was a silence. The voice said: "You're spelling 'Great' as in 'Great Grief?'"
"That's correct."
"Okay — hold on, then."
Through the receiver, I could hear distant whirrs and clicks as Singing Rock's question was punched on to cards. Singing Rock smoked and fidgeted, and in the background we could hear the terrible sound of that spooky wind. The floor stirred again, and Singing Rock covered the mouthpiece with his hand and whispered: "I don't think this is going to work. It won't be long now, and the Great Old One will be let through the gateway."
I hissed: "Is there anything else we can do? Any other way of stopping him?"
Singing Rock said: "There must be another way. After all, the ancient wonder-workers were able to seal the Great Old One in his own domain. But even if I knew what it was, I don't expect I'd be capable of doing it."