Mammoth

Matt took one of the spheres of the odd osmium, shiny as mercury, and slipped it into a little metal rack, then snapped it into place. He stood back and regarded it.

"There we are," he said. "The Howard Christian Time Machine, Mark One."

Howard looked surprised.

"You mean it's finished?"

"It's assembled. What comes next is anybody's guess."

"I'm paying you to guess." Matt sighed. "Yes, you are. But I don't have the foggiest idea what to do at this point. I can manipulate it...." He flipped the assembly of marbles onto its side and slid a row of them to the left, then pushed another row back. Several other slides, and it was back together, ten by twelve by twenty, but the marbles were in a slightly different arrangement.

Howard clapped him on the shoulder. "You'll figure it out."

"Well, I intend to spend the next year trying, anyway."

"Maybe you should just bash it. That usually works." He thumped the case with his fist. Nothing happened. He shrugged, turned, and started back to his car.

"Oh, by the way...," Matt said. Howard stopped and turned back toward him. "If you're going to take some of the marbles with you, it would be a lot easier on us if you'd let us know which ones you're taking. I mean, so we can restock."

Howard stared at him for a long moment.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

"Oh, it's not a problem, I mean, not a bad one. And you can do what you want, I know that, you already own all the marbles... so to speak." Matt laughed, but it sounded a little hollow, even to him. What was the problem here?

Silence from Howard.

"Didn't you just put a couple of marbles in your pocket?" Matt asked.

Howard had learned an important lesson at the age of eight: Never admit anything. His father had sent him into a supermarket with instructions to select a good steak and put it under his winter parka. "If you get caught," his father had said, "don't say anything. Don't answer any questions, and above all, don't admit anything. Never admit anything:'

Howard did get caught, and when they found his father in another part of the store and brought his errant child to him, Christian Senior had scolded the boy, threatened to give him a good whipping when they got home, even threatened to tan his hide right there until one of the cops advised him not to. Howard had cried and cried and cried.

They laughed about it when they got back to the ramshackle trailer with no wheels that Howard's father called home. Christian Senior praised the boy for his acting. "Never saw it done so good," the old man chuckled. Howard was glad to hear what he had done was acting; he'd thought he was scared to death. Howard got better at it, until one day he was too old to pull it off, and his dad sent him back to live with his mom, who hardly noticed.

"How many times have you had Susan Morgan in here?"

Matt was speechless.

"It doesn't matter," Howard said. "Once is enough to invalidate your contract and make you liable for everything I've paid you, plus damages."

"I'm sorry, I thought that since she's right here and..."

Howard smiled and relaxed. He had him. Once they apologize, they are lost. Matt had caved in at once. But what did he expect from a little wimp who had spent his entire career in a university, free to research just about anything he wanted, a man who had had his entire top-rank education handed to him while Howard labored and borrowed to put himself through a state university system, first in computer science, then in business.

Howard had never liked Matt very much. No surprise; he hardly liked anybody. But from that moment, he hated him.

"It's all right," he said. "I'm not going to do anything." But I could, always remember that, Matt. "Still, you'll have to be more security conscious from now on. And, of course, you must stop bringing Ms. Morgan into the lab. It might even be best if you stopped seeing her."

"We're not—"

"I know, just friends. Don't imagine there is much about these projects I don't know. I could show you pictures of you lunching at the tar pits."

Matt had assumed he was usually on camera while at work. That he might be spied on during his private hours had not occurred to him.

Howard smiled again.

"Yes, I knew when you first brought her in here."

"I thought you didn't mind."

"If you had left it there, I might have ignored it. But you continue to discuss your theories with her. Why not print out a copy of all your work here and give it to her?" Howard smiled again. "As it happens, it's not going to be a problem. We're moving the mammoth operation to a ranch near Paso Robles. I think the elephants will be happier, and I know Susan will. She's never stopped complaining about the L.A. traffic."

He turned on his heel and left. "WHERE is Paso Robles, anyway?" Susan asked that night.

They were in the large, airy Venice apartment Howard had rented for Susan during her work in southern California. It was the first time Matt had been there, though he had dreamed of visiting under different circumstances. Now he was in a black depression.

"If you don't want to move, you could threaten to quit," he suggested.

"I can't threaten him with anything. In fact, I'm hoping he won't fire me. I'd be easy enough to replace. Not like you."

Matt snorted. "If only Howard knew how little of the special talents he hired me for have come in handy so far. Any competent engineer could have done what I've done. In fact, my engineering team has been responsible for what progress we've made so far."

"Yeah, but that's all been preparation, right? Step one. Now you've got the new machines assembled, you can really get to work... right?"

"That's the theory. I only wish I knew what step two is." He hesitated, but was helpless to stop himself. "You could quit."

"I mean to see this through to the end," she said, raising her voice.

"Of course you do. I didn't mean it, I... well, yes, I meant it, but I can see now it wouldn't work. I mean, you're dedicated to your work, and all...."

"Matt, I like you," she said, and touched him lightly on the cheek. "I wish I could go on seeing you. But understand this. Unless Howard cans me, I intend to be there when that mammoth is born."

"How about weekends?" he asked. "I could fly up on weekends."

"Sure, you could do that." She smiled. So maybe it wasn't the end of the world. His cell phone rang.

"Yeah?" He listened for a moment. "I'll be right there." He hung up, and looked at Susan. "That was Ramon, the night guard," he said. "There's been a break-in at the laboratory."

FROM "LITTLE FUZZY, A CHILD OF THE ICE AGE"

In little Fuzzy's world, there were not many creatures that went around on two legs. There were birds. There was the giant ground sloth, which sometimes lumbered around on two legs. And there was a troublesome species that went around on two legs all the time. They looked very much like us. They were humans. But who were these people? Were they Indians? Well, they had their own name for themselves, but we don't know what it was, since they didn't have a written language. They were the ancestors of the tribes who would later live in the area and call themselves names like Chumash, Gabrieleno, Serrano, Luiseno, and Cahuilla. They had crossed over a land bridge that used to exist during the Ice Ages between the places we would later call Siberia and Alaska. Scientists call this land bridge Beringia.

One day the herd was munching its way through a big field full of tender green grass and a few scattered, twisted oak trees when suddenly the ground collapsed beneath the feet of Big Mama's younger sister!

Younger Sister trumpeted her alarm, and the rest of the herd came ru

At the same time small, almost hairless creatures began dropping from the trees. They had been hiding in the branches, upwind from the trap they had dug and covered with branches and grass, so the herd would not smell them! They wore the skins of dead animals. They walked on their hind legs, like birds. And they were shouting, making an awful racket, and throwing sticks and rocks!