John Varley - Mammoth

"I did that last week. A computer recognition program would pick that out pretty quick, even from high up, don't you think? I was going to paint over it but then I thought it might be better to leave it that way until I was through the security gate." "Good thinking. Now they may be looking for it. Did you bring the paint?"

Over the Interstate Bridge traffic eased up, and they headed north. Just south of Tacoma traffic backed up again. They crept along, nervously watching the sky.

THEY missed the ferry they wanted in Tacoma, at Point Defiance, which put them an hour behind where they had hoped to be. It was a short hop to Vashon Island, at Tahlequah.

Vashon Island was pretty, still partly rural. They weren't able to make up any time; in fact they missed another ferry. Every minute sitting still in the parking lot was agony, but eventually they were waved aboard and undercover again.

This was a larger ferry and they were on the lower deck. They stayed close to the trailer in case Fuzzy started to bellow—which he hardly ever did, but he was in strange surroundings and, besides, Susan didn't want to get more than about fifty feet from him. Through a wide opening on the starboard side they could see planes on approach to Sea-Tac Airport from the north, then the city of Seattle itself. These waters were teeming with boats, many of them other ferries crisscrossing Puget Sound. They pulled into the terminal at Kingston, far behind schedule, knowing they would not get to the last departure of the ferry they wanted. When they drove past the terminal, they could not even see the departing ferry. It was long gone.

Susan had a backup plan, but she was discouraged. They pulled into a big RV park where Susan had booked a space a week earlier under another name. Matt found their space, was relieved to see it was a pull-through, and they parked as the sun was going down. There were trees around them, but not the complete cover they would have liked. Neither of them was sure if the satellites could spot them through trees, anyway.

But there was nothing for it. They would have to spend the night, and hope the search was, by now, focused far away to the north and east.

THEY made a meal from cans and ate it in silence. They hadn't bothered to hook up anything, not even the electricity, but the refrigerator and stove used propane. There was no reason not to turn on all the lights and have a party—Susan had stocked some beer. But the instincts of the hunted left them huddling beneath a single light over the kitchen table. Susan sat facing the back, where Fuzzy stood, maybe ten feet behind Matt's back. Every once in a while she got up to pet him or feed him a treat. He seemed tired of this whole bye-bye business by now.

"He's restless," she said as she sat back down opposite Matt. "He missed his daily run. Hell, he's probably even missing doing his show." "He's a creature of habit," Matt said. "He'll get used to new habits. You did the right thing."

"I hope you can stay awake a little longer. There are some things I have to tell you."

She looked up, more alert.

"The rest of your story?"

He smiled.

"Yeah. The good parts... well, the better parts. Anything would have felt good after getting out of that cell. And some things you need to know."

"Why don't we get to that part first? We'll have plenty of time to catch up on the rest, even if we have to do it by mail from our separate prisons."

"I need to build up to it. I'll keep it as short as possible. I'm pretty sleepy, too."

FOR most of the first year after his release, Matt hadn't been able to do much but dodge reporters and continue his researches with his computer on the Internet.

He tried a few times to elude them, managed to shake them off once in a while, got into the habit of withdrawing money from his bank accounts when he had the chance and never using his credit cards, but they always found him again. It wasn't hard to do in this day and age. Few people had the skills to stay hidden for long, and Matt finally admitted it wasn't worth the effort. He decided to wait them out. He had plenty of money, his needs were modest. He stayed at inexpensive hotels and moved every few nights, just to inconvenience the media. Time travel was a very big story, he was one of only two people known to have done it, and the world wanted to know all about it.

At first there were actual satellite trucks that followed him around as he drove from city to city. Those gradually dwindled to a few pool vehicles with cameras recording him every time he got out of his car or left his hotel. One shot or another of him showed up on most newscasts for almost a month. If he sneezed, it would likely get on the air. A stumble was apt to cause a flash newsbreak.

He tried to go to Europe, which was a mistake. A good percentage of his fellow passengers were reporters, and they weren't shy about crowding around and asking questions. When he got off the plane in London he was facing a whole new set of reporters, even more aggressive than the ones at home. You would have thought he was a rock star or the president of the United States. He walked straight to the airline counter and bought a ticket back to America.

Gradually, as he continued his silence—he learned early that even saying "no comment" only encouraged them—the crowds lessened. It helped that Susan was giving accounts of their adventure—always on tape, never live, and always carefully controlled by Howard's spin doctors. The story she told was the truth, in the sense that she didn't lie about anything, but there was much she did not or would not tell.

"It must have been awful."

"Not as bad as what you went through. I watched them hounding you. I did more interviews than I wanted to so maybe it would take some of the pressure off you."

Matt smiled. "You know, I thought it might be something like that. Thanks."

"I have no idea if it did any good." She looked down at the table. "I have a confession to make." She looked up again. "It was during that first year, after wondering where you were while they had you locked up, and then seeing what they were doing to you... it was then that I realized that I loved you."

Matt said nothing. She took his hand.

"I liked you a lot when we were working together. I liked making love to you, it made me less afraid of what was happening to us. But I was always a little afraid of you."

Matt was genuinely shocked.

"How could you be afraid of me? I didn't think you were afraid of anything."

"Oh, there's plenty of things that scare me. I just try not to show it. You were just so... so damn smart. You were so much smarter than me I just couldn't keep up with you. When you started talking about quantum physics and like that, I felt like such a dope."

"Last time I checked, they weren't graduating any dopes from veterinary school. Seems to me you need the same skills as somebody who becomes a doctor, only your patients can't even tell you what's bothering them."

"Wrong word, maybe. I know I'm smart, but it's... relative, like Dr. Einstein said. I felt like a dope." She smiled briefly. "I'd never met a supergenius."

Matt grimaced. "I've had that trouble all my life. I try not to talk shop, explain what it is I'm researching, but with you, we were both working, and you wanted to know. I probably shouldn't have, but as a conversationalist, I am a dope."

"I'm not blaming you, Matt. I wanted to know what you were doing. And you're a good explainer. But you'd lose me."

"Like you say, it's all relative. I happen to have a mind that's quick with numbers. And you know what? There are people with an IQ of 60, people who can't even tie their shoes, who can do anything with numbers I can do." "Is what you've got to tell me more about the time machine? More quantum theory and chaos theory and stuff like that?"