The Neanderthal Parallax, Book One - Hominids

by Robert J. Sawyer

  But if the robot could bring back something—anything! A manufactured object, perhaps, or ...

  [396] Different parts of the chamber were selectively revealed as people moved about, briefly opening up views of what was behind them. It was a barrel-shaped cavern, maybe fifteen times as tall as a person, and hewn directly out of the rock.

  “They certainly are a varied lot, aren’t they?” Jasmel said. “There seem to be several different skin tones—and look at that female, there! She has orange hair—just like an orangutan!”

  “One of them is running away,” said Dern, pointing.

  “So he is,” said Adikor. “I wonder where he’s going?”

  “Ponter! Ponter!”

  Ponter Boddit looked up. He was sitting at a table in the dining hall at Laurentian, with two people from the university’s physics department, who were helping him over lunch to work out an itinerary for a tour of physical-science installations worldwide including CERN, the Vatican Observatory, Fermilab, and Japan’s Super-Kamiokande, the world’s other major neutrino detector, which had recently been damaged in an accident of it’s own. A hundred or so summer students were staring at the Neanderthal from a short distance away, in obvious fascination.

  “Ponter!” Mary Vaughan shouted again, her voice ragged. She almost collapsed against the table as she came up to it. “Come quickly!”

  Ponter started to get up. So did the two physicists. “What is it?” asked one of them.

  Mary ignored the man. “Run!” she gasped at Ponter. “Run!”

  [397] Ponter began to run. Mary grabbed his hand and began running as well. She was still panting for breath; she’d already run all the way from the genetics lab, over in the Science One building, where she’d received the call from SNO.

  “What is happening?” asked Ponter.

  “A portal!” she said. “A device—some sort of robot or something—has come through. And the portal’s still open!”

  “Where?” said Ponter.

  “Down in the neutrino observatory.” She moved her hand to the center of her chest, which was heaving up and down. Ponter, Mary knew, could easily outpace her. Still running, she fumbled open her small purse and fished out her car keys, offering them to him.

  Ponter shook his head slightly. For a second, Mary thought he was saying, Not without you. But it was surely more basic than that: Ponter Boddit had never driven a car in his life. They continued to run, Mary trying to keep up with him, but his stride was longer, and he’d only just started running, and—

  He looked at her, and it was obvious that he also sensed the dilemma: there was no point in beating Mary to the parking lot, since there was nothing he could do there until she arrived.

  He stopped running, and she did, too, looking at him with concern.

  “May I?” said Ponter.

  Mary had no idea what he meant, but she nodded. He reached out with his massive arms and scooped her up from the ground. Mary draped her arms around his thick [398] neck, and Ponter began to run, his legs pounding like pistons against the tiled floor. Mary could feel his muscles surging as he barreled along. Students and faculty stopped and stared at the spectacle.

  They came to the bowling alley, and Ponter put all his strength into running, surging forward, the sound of his massive footfalls thundering in the glass-walled corridor. Farther and farther, past the kiosks, past the Tim Hortons, and—

  A student was coming through a door from outside. His mouth went wide, but he held the glass door open for Ponter and Mary as they surged into the daylight.

  Mary’s perspective was to the rear, and she saw divots flying up in Ponter’s wake. She squeezed tighter, holding on. Ponter knew her car well enough; he’d have no trouble spotting the red Neon in the tiny lot—one of the advantages of a small university. He continued to run, and Mary heard and felt the change of terrain as he bounded off the grass onto the asphalt of the parking lot.

  After a dozen meters, he slowed and swung Mary to the ground. She was dizzy from the wild ride, but managed to quickly cover the short remaining distance to her car, her electronic key out, the doors clicking open.

  Mary scrambled into the driver’s seat, and Ponter got into the passenger’s seat. She put the key into the ignition, and flattened the accelerator to the floor, and off they shot down the road, leaving Laurentian behind. Soon they were out of Sudbury, heading for the Creighton Mine. Mary usually didn’t speed—not that there was much opportunity to in Toronto’s gridlock—but she was doing 120 km/h along the country roads.

  [399] Finally, they came to the mine site, racing past the big Inco sign, through the security gate, and careening down the winding roads to the large building that housed the lift leading down to the mine, Mary skidded the car to a halt, sending a spray of gravel into the air, and Ponter and she both hurried out.

  Now, though, there was no further need for Ponter to wait for Mary—and time was still of the essence. Who knew how long the portal would stay open; indeed, who knew if it even still was open? Ponter looked at her, then surged forward and grabbed her in a hug. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for everything.”

  Mary squeezed him back hard—hard for her, as hard as she could, but presumably nothing like what a Neanderthal woman could have done.

  And then she released him.

  And he ran off toward the elevator building.

  Chapter Forty-four

  Adikor, Jasmel, and Dern continued to stare at the monitor, at the scene taking place a few armspans—and an infinity—away.

  “They’re so fragile-looking,” said Jasmel, frowning. “Their arms are like sticks.”

  “Not that one,” said Dern, pointing. “She must be pregnant.”

  Adikor squinted at the screen. “That’s not a woman,” he said. “It’s a man.”

  “With a belly like that?” said Dern, incredulously. “And I thought I was fat! Just how much do these Gliksins eat?”

  Adikor shrugged. He didn’t want to spend time talking; he just wanted to look, to try to soak it all in. Another form of humanity! And a technologically advanced one, at that. It was incredible. He’d love to compare notes with them on physics, on biology, and—

  Biology.

  Yes, that’s what he needed! The robot had been touched by several Gliksins now. Surely some of their cells had rubbed off onto its frame; surely some of their DNA could be recovered from it. That would be proof that Adjudicator Sard would have to accept! Gliksin DNA: proof [402] that the world shown on the screen was real. But—

  There was no guarantee that the portal would stay open much longer, or that it could ever be reopened again. But at least he would be exonerated, and Dab and Kelon would be spared mutilation.

  “Reel the robot back in,” Adikor said.

  Dern looked at him. “What? Why?”

  “There’s probably some Gliksin DNA on it now. We don’t want to lose that if the portal closes.”

  Dern nodded. Adikor watched him walk across the room, take hold of the fiber-optic cable, and give it a gentle tug. Adikor turned back to the square monitor. The Gliksin nearest the robot—a brown-skinned specimen, probably a male—looked startled as the robot jerked upward.

  Dern gave another tug. The brown Gliksin was looking back over his shoulder now, presumably at another person. He shouted something, then he nodded as somebody shouted back at him. He then grabbed onto the bottom of the robot’s rising frame, now dangling most of the man’s height off the ground.

  Another male Gliksin ran into the field of view. This one was shorter, with lighter skin—as light as Adikor’s own—but his eyes were ... strange: dark, and half-hidden under unusual lids.

  The brown Gliksin looked at the newcomer. The newcomer was shaking his head vigorously—but not at the brown one. No, he was looking directly up into the robot’s glass lens, and making a wild motion with his arms, holding both hands flat out, palms down, and swiping them back and forth in front of his chest. And he kept shouting [403] a single syllable
over and over again: “Wayt! Wayt! Wayt!”

  Of course, thought Adikor, they, too, were anxious to have an artifact to prove what they’d seen; doubtless they didn’t want to give up the robot. He turned his head and shouted out to Dern. “Keep hoisting!”

  Mary Vaughan finally caught up with Ponter at the far end of the elevator building, past the area where miners changed into their work clothes. Ponter was standing on the ramp leading down to the lift entrance—but the metal grating over the lift shaft was closed; the cage could have been anywhere, even down at the lowest drift, 7,400 feet below. Still, Ponter had evidently persuaded the operator to bring it up now—but it could be several minutes before it reached the surface.

  Neither Ponter nor Mary had any authority here, and the mine’s safety rules were posted everywhere; Inco had an enviable record for accident prevention. Ponter had already put on safety boots and a hardhat. Mary walked away from the ramp and put on a hardhat and boots, as well, selected from a vast rack of such supplies. She then moved back to stand next to Ponter, who was tapping his left foot in impatience.

  At last the lift cage arrived, and the door was hoisted. There was no one inside. Ponter and Mary entered, the operator here at the top sounded the buzzer five times—express descent with no stops—and the cab lurched into motion.

  Now that they were going down, there was no way to communicate with the SNO control room—or anyone [404] else, except the lift operator, and he could only be signaled with a buzzer. Mary had said little to Ponter on the hair-raising drive over, partly because she’d been trying to concentrate on keeping the vehicle under control, and party because her heart had been racing at least as fast as her car’s engine.

  But now—

  Now she had an extended time with nothing to do while the elevator dropped a mile and a quarter straight down. Ponter would probably run off as soon as the cage reached the 6,800-foot level, and she couldn’t blame him. Slowing so she could keep up would delay him by crucial minutes as he covered the three-quarters of a mile to the SNO cavity.

  Mary watched as level after level flashed by. It was, after all, a fascinating spectacle that she’d never seen before, but ...

  But this might well be her final chance to talk to Ponter. On the one hand, the trip down seemed to be taking an enormous amount of time. On the other, hours, days—or maybe even years—wouldn’t be enough to say all the things Mary wanted to say.

  She didn’t know where to begin, but she was sure she’d never forgive herself if she didn’t tell him now, didn’t make him understand. It wasn’t as if he were disappearing into prehistoric time, after all; he’d be going sideways, not backwards. Tomorrow would be tomorrow for him, too, and the tenth anniversary of the day they’d met would be simultaneous on both versions of Earth—although he’d probably note it on the hundredth month, or some such date. Still, Mary had no doubt that he would reflect and [405] wonder and feel sad, trying to piece together his emotions, and hers—trying to understand what had transpired, and, just as importantly, what had failed to transpire between them.

  “Ponter,” she said. The word was soft, and the clattering of the lift was loud. Perhaps he didn’t hear. He was looking out the cage door, absently watching the dark rock speeding by as they plummeted farther and farther.

  “Ponter,” Mary said again, more loudly.

  He turned to her, and his eyebrow rolled up. Mary smiled. She’d found his quizzical expression so disconcerting when she’d first seen it, but now she was used to it. The differences between them were so much less than the similarities.

  But, still, all along, all this time, there had been a gulf between them—a gulf caused not by his being a member of a different species, but rather by the simple fact of his sex. And more than that. It wasn’t just that he was male, but that he was so overwhelmingly male: muscled like Arnold Schwarzenegger; hairy all over; bearded; powerful, rough, and clumsy all at the same time.

  “Ponter,” she said, uttering his name for a third time now. “There’s—there’s something I have to tell you.” She paused. Part of her thought it would be better not to give voice to this, to leave it, as she had so many other things, unspoken, unsaid. And, of course, there was a chance that by the time they reached the SNO chamber—still many minutes away, by lift and by foot—that whatever portal had magically appeared between his world and hers would be closed, and she would continue to see Ponter day in and day out, but with her having laid bare her soul, that [406] ethereal essence that she believed they both had and that he was sure neither of them possessed.

  “Yes?” said Ponter.

  “You’d assumed,” said Mary, “and I’d assumed, that whatever fluke of physics had deposited you here was irreproducible—that you were stranded here forever.”

  He nodded slightly, his large face moving up and down in the semidarkness.

  “We thought there was no way you could get back to Jasmel and Megameg,” said Mary. “No way to get back to Adikor. And though I know your heart belonged to him, to them, and always would, I also knew that you were resigning yourself to making a life in this world, on this Earth.”

  Ponter nodded again, but his eyes shifted away from her. Perhaps he saw where this was going; perhaps he felt nothing more needed to be said.

  But it had to be said. She had to make him understand—make him understand that it wasn’t him. It was her.

  No, no, no. That was wrong. It wasn’t her, either. It was that faceless, evil man, that monster, that demon. That’s who had come between them.

  “Just before we met,” said Mary, “on the day you arrived here in Sudbury, I was ...”

  She stopped. Her heart was pounding; she could feel it—but all she could hear was the clattering rumble of the lift.

  The elevator passed the 1,200-foot level. She could see a miner out in the drift, waiting for a ride up, his harsh headlight beam lancing into the cage, no doubt briefly playing across her face and Ponter’s, a stranger intruding from outside.

  [407] Ponter said nothing; he just waited quietly for her to go on. And, at last, she did; “That night,” Mary said, “I was ...”

  She’d intended to say the word baldly, to pronounce it dispassionately, but she couldn’t even give it voice. “I was ... hurt,” she said.

  Ponter tilted his head, puzzled. “An injury? I am sorry.”

  “No. I mean I was hurt—by a man.” She took a deep breath. “I was attacked, at York, on the campus, after dark”—pointless details delaying the word she knew she’d have to say. She dropped her gaze to the lift’s mud-covered metal floor. “I was raped.”

  Hak bleeped—the Companion had the sense to do so at a great volume so that the sound could be heard over the noise of the elevator. Mary tried again. “I was assaulted. Sexually assaulted.”

  She heard Ponter suck in air—even over the rumble of the lift, she heard his gasp. Mary lifted her head and sought out his golden eyes in the semidarkness. Her gaze flickered back and forth, left and right, from one of his eyes to the other, looking for his reaction, trying to gauge his thoughts.

  “I am very sorry,” said Ponter, gently.

  Mary assumed he—or Hak—meant “sorry” in the sense of sympathy, not contrition, but she said, because it was all that occurred to her to say, “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “No,” said Ponter. It was now his turn to be at a loss for words. Finally, he said, “Were you hurt—physically, I mean?”

  “Roughed up a little. Nothing major. But ...”

  “Yes,” said Ponter. “But.” He paused. “Do you know who did it?”

  [408] Mary shook her head.

  “Surely the authorities have reviewed your alibi archive and—” He looked away, back at the rock wall flashing by. “Sorry.” He paused again. “So—so he will get away with this?” Ponter was speaking loudly, despite the delicacy of the matter, in order for Hak to pick up his voice over the racket around them. Mary could hear the fury, the outrage, in his words.

  She exha
led and nodded slowly, sadly. “Probably.” She paused. “I—we didn’t talk about this, you and I. Maybe I’m presuming too much. In this world, rape is considered a horrible crime, a terrible crime. I don’t know—”

  “It is the same on my world,” said Ponter. “A few animals do it—orangutans, for instance—but we are people, not animals. Of course, with the alibi archives, few are fool enough to attempt such an act, but when it is done, it is dealt with harshly.”

  There was silence between them for a few moments. Ponter had his right arm half raised, as if he’d thought to reach out and touch her, to try to console her, but he looked down and, with an expression of surprise on his face, as if he were seeing a stranger’s limb, he lowered it.

  But then Mary found herself reaching out and touching his thick forearm herself, gently, tentatively. And then her hand slid down the length of his arm and found his fingers, and his hand came up again, and her delicate digits intertwined with his massive ones.

  “I wanted you to understand,” said Mary. “We grew very close while you were here. We talked about anything and everything. And, well, as I said, you thought you were never going home; you thought you would have to make a new [409] life here.” She paused. “You never pushed, you never took advantage. By the end, I think, you were the only man on this entire planet that I was getting comfortable being alone with, but ...”

  Ponter closed his sausagelike fingers gently.

  “It was too soon,” said Mary. “Don’t you see? I—I know you like me, and ...” She paused. The corners of her eyes were stinging. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It hasn’t happened often in my life, but there have been times when men were interested in me, but, well—”

  “But when that man,” Ponter said slowly, “is not like other men ...”