On the third day Younger Sister sat down and wouldn't get up again, though her relatives tried to help her to her feet. A few hours later she fell onto her side. She lay there in the baking noonday sun as the herd gathered around her, still trying to help her get up. But Younger Sister was too tired.
That evening she stopped breathing.
The herd lingered around her until the sun went down, and into the night. They caressed and smelled her with their trunks. They touched the sharp stick that was still in her side, and smelled the drying blood. They chased away the flies that had gathered around her, but the flies kept coming back.
In the morning they moved on.
As the herd got to the top of a hill Fuzzy stopped and looked back.
The two-legs were coming down from the hill, waving their sharp sticks and throwing rocks and shouting and chattering, driving away the vultures and dire wolves that had already gathered around Younger Sister's body.
They waved burning sticks at the two saber-toothed cats and poked at them with the sharp sticks, and the big cats backed away, screeching angrily.
Then they started to work on Younger Sister.
Fuzzy turned away and followed his mother into the next valley, where there was lots of green grass and leaves and fruit to eat.
15
WHEN Howard Christian arrived at the warehouse—in a red 1950 Crosley Super Sport because it had been closest to hand when the emergency call came in—there were two Santa Monica police cruisers on the scene in addition to three Rapid Response Blazers from Robinson Security. One of the Blazers had a crumpled front fender. Not far away, at the intersection nearest to the warehouse, was a van lying on its side.
He parked next to the blue Ford he knew belonged to Matt Wright. He knew because he had bought it and presented it to Matt, one more perk of the job. He hurried over to the Robinson man with the most braid on his uniform, who was standing with a police sergeant and two men in handcuffs. Warburton and two other bodyguards, seriously outdistanced by the Crosley, parked their bulletproof SUV nearby, got out, and scanned the area nervously, fearing a trap of some sort.
That first unit had been driven by Agent Dawson, an ex-cop who, when he witnessed a dark van leaving the scene at a high rate of acceleration, didn't hesitate to pull up behind it and nudge it on the left side just as the driver was screeching around a corner. The van had lifted up on two wheels, hung there a moment, and crashed onto its side. Dawson had removed the driver at gunpoint as the second Robinson car arrived and apprehended the other two suspects inside the building.
"You say there were three suspects?" Howard asked, looking around.
"Third one was injured in a fall," Kraylow said. "We've got him on the way to the hospital right now."
He examined the remaining suspects. Suspects? Hell, no need to think like a cop. They were guilty until they proved their innocence, simple as that. The first one stood there defiantly in his manacles. He had a bloody nose and an old burn scar on one side of his face. But Python was actually feeling anything but defiant. He was thinking about his fingerprints and DNA getting into the system at long last, and about where he might have left those samples of himself in the past.
Calm had returned, belatedly, to the Martyr. He stood in his customary position, feet together, eyes to the heavens, but now in shackles. He was prepared to do time. He was prepared to suffer anything, and intended at all costs not to tell any of these people of the bomb inside, even if it swept him away with everyone else. Perhaps the arch blasphemer, Howard Christian, would be inside when the bomb went off.
HOWARD entered the building and saw Matt Wright and Susan Morgan coming through the connecting door from the elephant compound. As he walked, he kicked some of the scattered marbles and they clattered across the floor. He looked around at the damage, and he knew he had screwed up. And he knew why.
Not too long after making his first fortune, he had watched an old documentary about Michael Jackson on late-night television. At one point Jackson had gone on a shopping spree, in a shop that sold very ugly antiques. The dude had strolled along, pointing to things he wanted. When the bill was totaled, it came to six million dollars.
Howard had bolted from the bed and thrown up before he reached the toilet.
Why? Not long before seeing the program Howard had spent a million dollars for a car, and in fact would within a month or two spend seven million dollars on another car, and never have a nervous moment about it, much less a full-blown panic attack.
What he could not do was pay $2.65 per gallon for gasoline when he could get it a few miles away for $2.63. He would break out in a sweat, his hands would start to tremble. He knew it was stupid, and for that reason he never fueled his own cars anymore, he never bought consumer items of any sort. He had staff that did that, and they never told him the prices. But every once in a while he made a decision on the basis of this ravenous miserliness, something he should have known to be a false economy, such as deciding to go with only one guard at night at the time machine project site, when Robinson had strongly recommended two so one could always remain in the shack just outside the door.
He looked over the chaos again, and knew this was the very picture of false economy.
"The elephants are all okay," Susan was saying. Elephants? God, he'd forgotten all about them. He wondered if Susan had any inkling of just how far onto the back burner he had shoved the cloning project in favor of this incomprehensible mess trying to become a time machine. "Looks like they never got into that part of the building."
"That's good," Howard said.
"They came here because they think cloning is evil," Matt said, with a small smile. "What do you figure they made of all this?" Howard didn't reply. Matt sighed. "The damage isn't as bad as it looks. Give me another week, we can probably be right back where we were."
"Keep at it, then. I'll have all the labor you need out here in the morning to get this cleaned up and sorted out."
"It won't take much. I've got one unit assembled, that one over there, and it wasn't opened. As for the rest... might as well wait until the first unit fails before we start assembling the beta version." He stooped over and picked up a clear crystalline sphere from the floor. He tossed it to Howard, who caught it in one hand. "As for the rest, it's mostly just sorting."
Howard's eyes met Matt's for a moment. Both of them knew the incident of the purloined marble would never be mentioned between them again, and that it would affect their relationship forever.
"Do what you have to do," Howard said, turning away. "Call me when you're ready to switch it on."
They watched him leave, slamming the door behind him. Susan looked around.
"All that work...," she said. "I'm so sorry, Matt."
"It's not a big deal. Lucky those idiots didn't let your herd loose. Imagine the mess that would have made. I'm going over to look at the alpha gadget. Looks like somebody whacked it with something."
He went to the table where the alpha unit lay, went around it, and regarded it from the front for the first time.
One of the little lights was on. It was the red one.
"What does that mean?" Susan asked.
"That's what I'd like to know."
He ran his hands carefully over the case, which was cool and smooth to the touch, and now sported three dimples that looked familiar. If he connected the dots with a pen they would form a tall right triangle. As far as he could tell, the three dents were identical to the dents on the original unit recovered with the mammoth and the caveman, now safely stored away in some subterranean vault beneath the Resurrection Tower.