"And you were supposed to psychoanalyze me," I said. "Have you listened to yourself? You're no more unique than a Model-T. A savior with a serial number."

"Big Computer, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt."

That time I wished I had an ashtray; nevertheless, I didn't throw my cigarette at him; it was only half-smoked, and it's a sin to waste good tobacco.

"I didn't ask for the time capsule, Louise," he said, "any more than you asked for yours.

You play the cards as they are dealt. I must do likewise."

I smoked in silence for a while, trying my best to read something in that travesty he was using for a face. And I swear, after a while he began to seem almost human. I began to feel sorry for him. If even half of what he was saying was true, he'd been given a much heavier load than I had.

"Can you prove any of this?" I asked.

"Easily. Though I don't guarantee to prove it all. You'll remain too dubious for that. I can tell you what was in your time capsule."

And he did, word for word. I let him go right through it, even the part about the kid, and the business about not fucking him unless I wanted to.

"Will I ... "

"That's one of the things I can't tell you."

"But you know."

"Yes. l know."

I studied him some more. It would be pointless to mention the mazes of probabilities, lies, and deceptions my mind navigated while I watched him, because in the end I arrived right back where I started.

"The Big Computer could have told you what was in my time capsule."

"You think it would do that? With strict instructions from the Council not to?"

"I know it could do it, so it's possible it did do it."

"Wonderful," Sherman said, and he really seemed pleased. "Your suspicious mind will serve you well in the coming days, just as it has in the past.

"Meaning it won't do me any good, but it'll keep me on my toes."

"Exactly." He leaned forward, and regarded me with a reasonable approximation of an earnest expression. "Louise, I don't ask you to like the situation. I don't like it myself."

"You? Or the Big Computer?"

"Sometimes it's pointless to speak of a distinction. But I do have feelings. I don't have to like what I have to do, and at the same time, I know it is my only course. There are bad times ahead. We are headed for a disaster that is inevitable, impossible to avoid. And yet, at the same time, there is a way out. We can't reach it until the whole sorry spectacle has been performed, but in the end, I will deliver humanity to the promised land."

"Humanity. That's a nice broad term. I've been working all my life to save humanity." l stubbed out my cigarette. "But what about me?" I wasn't sure I really wanted to hear that, but I had to ask it.

"For you, Louise, there are some bad times ahead. l can't be more specific. Ultimately, there is a happy ending."

"For me?" I was incredulous. The last thing I anticipated was a happy ending.

"Happier than you have ever expected. Is that enough?"

For a long-time, rock-ribbed, true-blue pessimist, I guess it was. At least I found myself feeling unaccountably better, though I never for a moment thought that my own ending would be any better than bittersweet. But the nice thing about being a pessimist is that bittersweet is an improvement.

"Okay," I said. "But you got your biblical allusions wrong. You said you were going to lead us to the promised land. Jesus didn't do that."

Sherman looked surprised as an infallible Pope holding a losing ticket at the racetrack. It pleased the perverse side of me; I mean, maybe his history of the future hadn't contained that line of dialogue.

"Call me Moses," he said.

So it was Window B. That decision got made the way so many are made in our rather informal organization: by consensus.

There was a nation in the twentieth century that styled itself the People's Republic of China. It was a dictatorship of the proletariat -- a phrase which struck me as the worst of both worlds and decisions were made through processes like criticism/self criticism, dialectic analysis, and similar buzzwords. In theory, the answer that emerged expressed the will of the masses. In fact, the Politically Correct answer always turned out to be the Chairman's answer, whatever that happened to be at the moment.

Early in my career with the Gate Project I noticed that, informal or not, things got done in a certain manner. I made a study of it. Putting that together with my data-dumped knowledge of the PRC in the twentieth century, I learned a few things about how to arrive at a consensus: you kick ass until everybody decides to do things the way you want to do them.

Some asses were kicked. I never had to tell anyone that I had absolutely ruled out a trip back to Window C. It just happened that, when all the dust had settled, the obvious course was to go back to Window B.

I'll admit that it helped when Sherman made no objection to B. And I could see that might be a problem down the road if this trip didn't work out and we were left with only one alternative, but as we say in the Time Travel Business, tomorrow can take care of itself.

Monday, December 12, Oakland International Airport.

I had been to this day before, from eight to nine in the morning, but for me it had been almost two days ago. I had to bear in mind that for Bill Smith it had been only five hours. He was likely to recognize me if he had any memory for faces. I was assuming he would, as my face and body are quite memorable.

The Gate dropped me at a little-used location inside the terminal building. I had argued about that some, wondering if they had really recalibrated the Gate as finely as they claimed.

But in the end I let Lawrence have his way, since he was the expert At some point you have to rely on expert opinion. I didn't figure this was an important enough point to force for a "consensus."

He turned out to be right. I was within six inches of the spot he had been aiming for. And the Gate had arrived quietly, as Lawrence had guaranteed. I looked around quickly to be sure I hadn't been observed, and headed down the hallway toward the room the National Transportation Safety Board had been given for their private meetings.

It took me through the main part of the terminal, which was jammed. It would get worse in the coming days. We were in the middle of a festival known as Christmas, which seemed to take up the whole month of December. There was a big tree decorated with lights, and various other decorations hung around the buildings. Christmas was a time for spending money, traveling, and getting drunk. It had originally been a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, but by the 1980s that had been largely forgotten, replaced by a new totem in a red suit and a false beard.

Everyone around me looked quite grim, in keeping with the season. The grimmest of all were gathered around a booth that sold flight insurance. There could be few people in the terminal who were not thinking about the recent mid-air collision. Many had decided to buy an insurance policy -- which actually insured nothing, and was in fact a bet made with a large company concerning your survival. To win the bet, you had to die. Maybe that would make more sense to me if I expected to have descendants.

It wasn't hard getting to the meeting. I had to go through several doors marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

, and at one point I had to deal with a guard posted to keep out the press and other busybodies. But I was liberally armed with identification, I was wearing the right clothes, and I knew all the right names to drop. We had researched the investigation thoroughly, and knew who pulled enough weight to break the rules. So I simply flashed an I.D. badge and about eighteen perfect teeth at the guard and told him Mister Smith was waiting to see me, and I was in.