Mammoth

"So ask them, when you leave here, ask them if I told one single lie just now. Will you do that, Howard? Examine what I said, see for yourself that it's all the truth, and ask yourself... what could I possibly be hiding?"

Howard studied Matt's face for a while, then glanced over his shoulder at the one-way mirror, and smiled wryly at the unseen observers.

"How about this," he said. "I can set up the lab again. No problem. You know we have tapes of everything you did, we have all the data you stored on our outside servers. You can get right to work on building another time machine."

Matt clucked his tongue and shook his head sadly, until a stab of pain reminded him that wasn't such a great idea.

"Howard, Howard, you've been accusing me of not telling all the truth, and now look at you. That lab is already set up, has been since a few days after the incident, and whoever was your number two choice to build your time machine is hard at work duplicating it with all that data you're talking about. Since I voluntarily gave these government people all the data in my files, they're doing it, too."

"Of course he is. But now you can take over."

"How's he doing?"

"Getting nowhere. Oh, he's built twenty more machines, and we can't turn on a single one of them."

"Have you tried whacking them?"

"What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said. My machines didn't work, either, until that nut started hitting one of them with a hammer."

"You can't be serious."

"I'm dead serious. The answer, if there is one, may be just that crazy. It might be that this was all a one-time event, impossible to duplicate. Hitting that box may have shifted something temporally, randomly, in a way that couldn't be duplicated in a billion years."

"Do you think so?"

"I don't know! It's one of the things I've been thinking about, when I'm able to think of anything at all. Clearly something odd happened, and it wasn't my doing. I think you're all barking up the wrong tree here, thinking that if you just pressure me enough I'll be able to give you the secret. I don't know the secret! I don't know how many more ways to say that. But, one more time... I may be able

to find it. If you leave me alone."

"Would you go to my lab to work on it if they let you out?"

"Of course I'd go. I'd do almost anything to get out of here." He looked again at the mirrored window. "Pay attention in there! Test this statement for truth! I'd go, I'd spend day after day tinkering with your useless boxes. But it would be a total waste of my time and your time. What I need to find out won't be found by playing with a fistful of high-tech marbles with a lot of government monkeys looking over my shoulder. I have to look elsewhere."

Howard shrugged, and spread his hands.

"Where?"

"Esalen was a good start."

"You want to go back to Esalen?" "No. I want to be let loose. I want to explore new avenues. I want to find new tools. Because the answer, if there is one, will not be found in your lab."

"It'll be found up here. If that thug hasn't damaged it too much."

THE fifth face Matt saw in his cell was a woman who might have been a doctor. She wore no credentials and gave no name or title, but she carried the tools of the trade: stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, reflex hammer, one of those little flashlights with a lens for looking into eyes, ears, nose. She did a routine exam, carefully checking his pupils and telling him he didn't have a concussion. She checked his nose and examined the bruising on his abdomen.

Two things struck him while she worked. One was that it took a relatively short time without them for a prisoner to become almost astonished by the very idea of a female. He was acutely aware of the smell of her, the look of her, the feel of her skin when she took his pulse. He fell head over heels in love, though she was not really that attractive, and not even very nice.

The other was not so charitable. What kind of doctor would work in a place like this? Had she had occasion to treat injuries far more debilitating than his? Had there been bodies to dispose of?

She left. Three more meals were delivered. Then Howard returned, possibly twenty-four hours later, with a cardboard box under one arm.

"I've got good news," he said with a big grin.

"For me, or you?"

"Both of us, I hope. You're outta here." He dropped the box on the table and Matt joined him.

"They ruined some of your stuff," Howard said, taking out the wallet which Argyle had torn apart in front of him. "Your computers seem to be intact. I didn't access anything in them, but I turned them on."

"You have all the data anyway," Matt said, and Howard didn't deny it. "That's fine with me. If somebody else finds the answers in there, so be it. I'd welcome the chance to stop thinking about it." He pawed through the remains of his things. "Where's the marble?"

"Marble? Oh, right. They wanted to keep that. I told them it belonged to you." Howard smiled, and reached into his pocket. He came up with the marble encased in its little wire cage. He held it out to Matt, and Matt knew that if he hadn't mentioned it, Howard would have kept it forever. "Keeping it as a souvenir?"

"Sort of," Matt said, taking it and turning it against the light. It was a superb little agate, red in color, with a swirling imperfection in the center that refracted brilliantly. "It's all that's left of the glorious experiment." "That, and the time machine," Howard reminded him, hopefully.

"Catch?"

"What are the conditions? I can't believe I'm simply being cut loose. I expect this will be more

like parole."

Howard looked uncomfortable.

"You're probably right. They haven't told me anything about that, but I suspect they'll be keeping

an eye on you."

"So that's it, right? I just walk out of here? No releases to sign? No bills to pay for the room and board? No mighty oaths of secrecy to swear?"

"How can they ask for a release when you haven't even been here? As for secrecy, if you start talking about this you will be punished severely; it will make what that monster did to you today seem

mild."

"Killed?"

"I honestly don't know, and very much do not want to know. My opinion? I doubt it. But they

could make you sorry you're alive." "I already am."

MATT was thirsty, and he didn't want any more wine. He realized he'd done more talking in the last few hours than he'd done in the last few... months? Years, even? He stopped, and there was a long silence in the room.

"Most of this is new to me," said Andrea de la Terre.

"I kept meaning to tell you," Howard said, uneasily. "I never could seem to find the right time."

Andrea looked at him skeptically.

"Or how to go about it," she suggested.

"Honey, everything he just said is the truth."

She thought about that. "Okay. But what he said is that you told him you had nothing to do with

his kidnapping and imprisonment. I can believe that's the truth. What I need to hear now is you telling me that you didn't have anything to do with it."

Howard looked hurt. "You don't believe me?" "Howard, I don't know yet, because you have chosen not to tell me anything about it. I want you

to tell me now."

"I had nothing to do with it," Howard said.

Andrea looked at him for a very long moment, then nodded and patted his hand.

"I believe you." She turned to Matt. "Do you?"

"Yes. I still do." He was going to add that it didn't really matter, it was a long time ago, let bygones be bygones, but decided she didn't need to hear any doubt in his voice. He could give Howard that much help. Watching the expression of relief on Howard's face, Matt realized the man really was deeply in love with his movie star girlfriend, just like the tabloid headlines said. For a moment he thought Howard was going to kiss her, but he turned instead to Matt.