John Varley - Millennium

The tunnel wasn't even there, really. I could see the trees of the orchard right through it.

There were odd shapes that I didn't like to look at, so I focused on the bright lights.

The lights started to take on the shape of humans. Then the perspective went all crazy and a high wind began to blow. Papers were swirling around us, and everything in the room got shiny, like it had been in my hotel room when I opened the door. I looked at my hand; it was shiny, but not cold. I looked back at the tunnel. One moment the lights were a hundred miles away, and the next they were in our laps, only to flicker into the distance again.

Then it was over. Louise was standing in the ruins of Arnold's windows. She was wearing the black commando outfit she'd had on that night in the hangar. Standing beside her was something else. I didn't know what to make of it at first. It was humanoid, it had a face and two arms and two legs. Parts of it looked like the robot from Star Wars, and parts looked more like Gumby, that little clay cartoon figure. It moved fluidly and didn't seem to have any seams. But it was big, and built like a weightlifter.

There was no doubt in my mind. This wasn't a human being in a funny suit. This was an alien creature, or a robot, or something I'd never seen before.

Arnold Mayer got his voice back first.

"I presume you are Louise Ball," he said.

"Baltimore, actually," she said, coming into the room. "From a long line of Marylander-

Columbians." She reached a chair a few feet from the one I'd been sitting in, tilted it to dump the pile of books and papers onto the floor, and sat.. "My companion is Sherman."

"Pleased to meet you, Doctor Mayer, Mister Smith," Sherman said. He continued to stand near the ruined glass wall.

"He's a mechanical man," Louise went on. "A robot, if you wish. He's at least as smart as either of you, and he's a hundred times as strong and a thousand times as fast. I named him after a tank used in the First Atomic War."

"Is that a threat?" Mayer asked.

"Take it however you want. You've got something I want-"

"Are you really from Maryland?" I asked.

She looked at me, and I thought I saw some sympathy there. At least I hoped I did. She'd come into my life and left it in ruins. It would have been nice if she'd felt some remorse for it.

"My forebears are. You're probably one of my great-granduncles or something, fifteen thousand times removed. But at this point the race hasn't started to differentiate into distinct ... " She looked away, and rubbed her forehead.

"This isn't relevant," she went on, and turned back to Mayer. "You have something I want. Something I have to have. I intend to get it."

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

"You're lying. Sherman, where is it?"

"I don't know, Louise," the robot said, in a voice deeper and more threatening than it had used in its earlier friendly greeting. "I'm not getting a reading."

"Well, probe the room."

If he did "probe the room," he did it quickly. Without a pause, he pointed to the mantelpiece covered with picture frames.

"There is a safe hidden behind the central picture," he said.

Louise stood, pointed her finger at the picture. It swung away on hinges. She made some complicated motions, and I saw the dial spin back and forth, then the door swung open.

"How did you do that?" I asked.

"Magic," she said. She went to the safe and started throwing its contents onto the floor.

Mayer took a step in her direction; Sherman made a throat-clearing noise and wagged a warning finger. It was enough for Mayer; it probably would have been enough for me, too.

That bastard was huge.

Gold coins and stock certificates were soon scattered around Louise's feet. She came up with an old army Colt .45 and tossed it to Sherman, who shredded it. What I mean is, he threw the ammo clip about a mile into the dark, and rubbed the gun between his hands until it fell in a shower of metal chips. I felt a drop of sweat trickle down my back.

"It's not here," she said, retuming to her chair but not sitting down. "Shall we start tearing this place apart brick by brick?"

"If you must," Mayer said. I had to hand it to him; the old guy didn't seem afraid. He stood his ground.

"It's in his desk," Sherman said, and Mayer's face fell. More magic, I guess. There was no doubt in Sherman's voice.

"The desk is locked," Mayer said. "I don't have the key."

"We don't have time for games, Doctor," Louise said.

"Sherman, open it."

Sherman went around the desk.

"Excuse me," he said to Mayer, and gently moved him out of the way. Then he looked at the computer terminal. He seemed undecided about something. Then he shrugged.

"Pardon me," he told the terminal, and picked it up and set it gently on the floor. I thought I caught Louise about to laugh; amn if I didn't almost laugh myself. I'm glad I didn't. It probably would have sounded hysterical when Sherman opened the desk. He took hold of the top edge and peeled it like a cardboard box. The top three drawers lay exposed, and in the middle one was something that looked awfully familiar.

"You've got it!" I shouted. "You had it in your desk all this time, and you made me go through the damn story over and over-"

Words failed me. I forgot about Louise in her commando duds, forgot about Sherman the android tank, forgot about everything but the stunner Louise had stolen from me that night, and which she was now lifting from Mayer's desk drawer.

"Don't be silly, Bill," she said. "This is another one. It isn't even burned. Take a look."

And she tossed it to me.

I looked at it. She was right. This one was intact. I turned it over in my hands, noted the position of the trigger and of a little switch on the side. It occurred to me that I was holding a powerful weapon.

I looked up at Louise, and a stunner materialized in her hand, Kointed at my forehead. One moment it was in a holster on her hip and the next it was in her hand.

"You wouldn't shoot me, would you, Louise?"

She gave me an odd look, then an odd smile, and the weapon was back in its holster. I'd heard a whirring sound that time, but I still didn't see how it was done.

"You're right," she said, and turned away. "Sherman, if he tries anything funny, shoot to disable."

"Right."

So much for undying love. And I was no fool; I put the stunner on the remains of Mayer's desk and went back toward my chair. Louise was already sitting, but I was too agitated to do anything but stand.

Louise had her elbows on the chair arms, and was massaging her forehead with the tips of her fingers. She looked very tired. She spoke without looking up.

"Sherman, there's something wrong with that stunner. Will you take a look?"

The robot picked it up, turned it over in his hands, then did something that made it split into two halves. There wasn't anything inside. It was just a plastic shell.

"I thought it felt light," she said, when he showed it to her. She looked at Mayer. "Doctor Mayer, I want to know -- "

"I prefer not to be called Doctor," Mayer said.

"Doctor Mayer," Louise said, pointedly, "this stunner belongs to me. One of my people lost it. I'd like to know where you got it: "Where did you lose it?"

"I'm asking the questions here."

"And maybe I'm not answering them."

Louise sighed. "Why don't we dispense with the melodramatic talk, Doctor?"

"That cuts both ways," Mayer said. I looked at him again. He was calm on the outside, but now I saw he was smouldering underneath. I guess I would have been, too, if somebody'd just ripped my desk apart. On the other hand, there was Sherman, and I thought Mayer was making a very dangerous stand "I lost the stunner about a week ago," Louise said. "In 1955."