"Americans, right? What's it stand for?"
"The No Name Spook Agency. That's all you need to know about them, because there's absolutely nothing you can do about your detainment here, or the treatment you've received. Have you been physically abused before today?"
"No. Well, they never turn off the lights, and they drugged me."
"I'm not surprised. Again, nothing to be done about it. It took me another two weeks to find out
where you were."
Matt raised an eyebrow, and regretted it. It hurt.
"New Jersey," Howard said.
"They kidnapped me in California."
"It's taken me until now to get in to see you. Matt, believe me when I tell you that I've been
working on nothing but the mammoths, and your situation, and my situation, from the moment this happened."
"Your situation?"
"You think I'm immune? It's possible that the only reason I'm not in your situation is that I didn't run afterward."
"Right," Matt said. "That, and forty billion dollars."
"Probably thirty-nine now, after my expenses since the mammoths showed up." Matt realized it was an attempt at humor, but he didn't find it amusing, and after a moment neither did Howard. He hung his head briefly.
"You're right, of course. My questioning was done with my lawyer at my side. But don't think it was pleasant. My wealth shielded me from all this"—he waved his hand at the room, glanced once more at the pool of vomit and blood—"but make no mistake about it, the government wants the time machine, and they intend to have it. I've convinced them that I don't have it. Hell, I don't have my warehouse, my frozen mammoth, my caveman, or any of the things you were working on. But Matt, I told the government everything. I told the truth, and they tell me they can't prove you ever told them a lie. But we both know you're hiding something. And I'm not sure I can get you out of here unless you tell them."
"Howard... I'm still not sure there is a 'them.' It might be you, keeping me here."
Howard looked Matt straight in the eyes.
"Maybe I deserve that. I can see how you might think it, anyway. There's no way I can disprove it, because the people who do have you are never going to reveal themselves to you, they're not going to come in here and say, 'Howard Christian has had nothing to do with this; in fact, he's been using every ounce of influence he has to stop this travesty.' All I can do is tell you it's not me, it's not my people."
Matt sighed. "Let me go through it all once more. I don't have the time machine. I don't know where it is. I have told you the last place I saw it, but I don't know where it went after that. I might be able to find it if I was out of here, but I'm not even sure of that.
"There is only one hope here. If I am allowed to leave this place, if they cut me loose and don't bother me, I might be able to figure out how it works. Or how it worked, anyway. I am on the track of something... but Howard, it is so crazy, it is so ephemeral, that it goes away every time I look at it. I haven't even tried to explain this to the questioners, whatever their names are, because I can't explain it to myself. I need time to think. I need time to explore new avenues. The answer will not be where we expect to find it, I know that much. This requires a new way of thinking, and I don't know if my brain, if any human brain, is equipped to think about it. It needs new tools. Mathematics isn't enough. Science isn't enough. And... that's about all I can tell you." Matt spread his hands, and looked toward the one-way mirror.
"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.