Mary reached out with her left hand. “Ponter, you are my man-mate, even if we haven’t yet undergone the bonding ceremony. I know you would never deceive me.”
Ponter said nothing.
Mary shook her head. “I didn’t expect to have to face this issue. I mean, eye color and hair color, sure. But atheist or believer? Who’d have thought that that would be a genetic choice?”
Ponter squeezed Mary’s hand. “This issue is far more significant to you than it is to me. I understand that much, at least. We will do whatever you wish.”
Mary took another deep breath. She could talk it over with Father Caldicott, she supposed—but, geez, a Roman Catholic priest wouldn’t approve of any part of this process. “I’m not blind, you know,” said Mary. “I’ve seen how peaceful this world of yours is, at least most of the time. And I’ve seen how…” She trailed off, thought for a moment, then shrugged, finding no better word than the one that had first occurred to her “…how spiritual your people are. And I keep thinking about all the things you’ve said, Ponter—back at Reuben’s place, when we watched that Roman Catholic Mass together on TV, and at the Vietnam veterans’ wall, and…” She shrugged again. “I have been listening, but…”
“But you’re not convinced,” said Ponter gently. “I don’t blame you. After all, I am no sociologist. My musings about the”—he, too, paused, clearly aware that this was a most delicate topic right now, but then he went on, also, apparently, unable to find a better word—“evil that religion has caused in your world are just that: musings, philosophical ramblings. I can’t prove my case; I doubt anyone could.”
Mary closed her eyes. She wanted to pray, to ask for guidance. But none had ever come in the past; there was no reason to think this time would be different. “Maybe,” she said at last, “we should simply leave it up to fate; let the genes fall where they may.”
Vissan’s voice was soft. “If this involved any other part of the body, I might agree with you, Mare. But we’re talking about a component of the brain that is demonstrably different between the two species of humanity. To simply throw together one allele from a Gliksin and another from a Barast, then just hope for the best hardly seems prudent.”
Mary frowned, but Vissan was right. If they were going to go ahead with having a hybrid child, a decision had to be made, one way or the other.
Ponter let go of Mary’s hand, but then started stroking its back. “It’s not,” he said, “as if we are choosing whether or not our daughter will have a soul. At most, we’re choosing whether or not she will believe she has a soul.”
“You do not have to decide this today,” said Vissan. “My intent, as I said, is only to walk you through the process of using the codon writer. You won’t want to produce the diploid chromosome set until it is time for it to be implanted in you, anyway, Mare.” She folded her hands. “But when that time comes, you will have to make this choice.”
Chapter Twenty-five
“So, yes, indeed, now is the time to take longer strides. But it’s not just time for a great new American enterprise. Rather, it’s time, if I may echo another speech, for black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics—and Hindus and Muslims and Buddhists, and men and women of all faiths, and men and women of none—for individuals from every one of our 191 united nat ions, for members of every race and religion that make up our unique, varied brand of humanity—to go forward together, in peace and harmony, with mutual respect and friendship, continuing the journey we Homo sapiens had briefly interrupted…”
“I think,” said Vissan, “that the two of you have some things to discuss. Perhaps I will take Mega, and we will go look at the stars.” Mega had roused from her nap. “Would you like that, Mega?”
“Sure!” said Mega.
Vissan got up from her chair, found her fur coat, wrapped Mega in a couple of oversized shirts, and they headed for the door.
Mary felt a cold wind on her face as the door swung open. She watched Vissan and Mega leave, the wooden door closing behind them.
“Mare…” said Ponter.
“No, no, let me think,” said Mary. “Just let me think for a few minutes.”
Ponter shrugged amiably, headed over to Vissan’s stone fireplace, and set about making a fire.
Mary got up off the vacuum box, and took Vissan’s vacated seat, resting her chin on her hand.
Herchin…
A Homo sapiens trait.
But a trivial one, completely unimportant.
Mary sighed. Except for the question of living arrangements, she didn’t care if they had a boy or a girl.
And she certainly didn’t care where their child parted her hair. Or what color her eyes were. Or whether she was muscled like a Neanderthal. Or what sort of sense of smell she had.
As long as she’s healthy…
That had been the mantra of parents for millennia.
Except in Veronica’s lab, Mary had never had a full-blown religious experience, but nonetheless she really did believe in God. Even now, knowing that her predisposition to such belief was hardwired into her brain, she still really did believe.
Did she want to deny their daughter the comfort that went with that belief? Did she want to prevent her from ever knowing the religious rapture that had eluded Mary outside of that lab but had apparently touched so many others?
She thought about this world she was in, and rhetoric from the newscasts of her youth welled up in her mind. Words she’d avoided until now.
Godless people.
Communists.
But, damn it all, the Neanderthal system worked. It worked better than the corrupt, morally bankrupt capitalism of her world—the world of Big Tobacco and Enron and WorldCom and all the others that had been exposed since, people driven by nothing but greed, taking obscene amounts for themselves while others ended up without even enough food to eat.
And it worked better than the religious institutions of her world—her own Church sheltering child abusers for decades, her religion and so many others oppressing women, religious fanatics flying planes into skyscrapers…
Ponter was making progress with the fire. Wisps of smoke were rising from the logs he’d placed atop the stones within the fireplace.
At last, when he’d fanned the flames to vigorous life, Mary got up from the chair and walked over to her man, still crouching by the hearth.
He looked up at her, and although the light from the fire threw his browridge and massive nose into sharp relief, he still looked loving and gentle. “I will accept whatever choice you make,” he said, rising to his feet.
Mary put her arms around his shoulders. “I—I wish I could think about this for a good long time.”
“There is some time,” said Ponter. “But a finite amount. If our child is to be part of generation 149, she must be conceived on schedule.”
Mary knew her voice sounded petulant. “Maybe she won’t be part of 149. Maybe we’ll have her the following year. Or the year after that.”
Ponter’s tone was soft. “I know that your people give birth every year. If our child will be principally raised in your world, then it does not matter when she is conceived. But if we wish her to be raised in whole or in part in this world, or ever really to have the option of fitting in to this society, then it really must be done on schedule.”
“It,” said Mary, pulling back, looking at Ponter.
Ponter’s eyebrow went up.
“It, ” Mary repeated. “‘It must be done on schedule.’ Hardly sounds romantic.”
Ponter drew her close again. “We face a few…special challenges. But what could be more romantic than the child of people who are in love?”
Mary forced a smile. “You’re right, of course. Sorry.” She paused. “And you’re right that we should do it at the correct time.” Mary’s own birthday was late in the year; she knew what it was like to be even six months younger than some of the other kids on the school playground. She couldn’t imagine how devastating it wou
ld feel to be a year or two younger than everyone else. Yes, their daughter would be raised principally in Mary’s world, but when she was all grown up, she might choose to make her home in the Neanderthal universe—and she would never fit in here if she wasn’t part of a specific generation.
Ponter was quiet for a time. “Are you prepared to decide?”
Mary looked over Ponter’s shoulder, into the flames.
“My brother Bill married a Protestant,” she said at last. “Ho boy, was my mom upset about that! Bill and Dianne—that’s his wife—had to work out which religious traditions they were going to raise their children in. I only heard bits and pieces, and of course only from Bill’s point of view, but it was apparently a big battle. And now you’re asking me if I’m ready to decide whether or not my child should be pre-disposed to believing in God?”
Ponter said nothing; he just held her, and stroked her hair. If Ponter was dying to know what Mary’s decision was going to be, he gave no sign of it—and Mary was grateful to him for that. If he’d seemed anxious, she’d have known that he had a preferred choice, and that would have made it harder for her to sort through her feelings. As to what his preferred choice, if any, might be, still Mary couldn’t say. Her first thought was that he’d want his child to be like him, devoid of the…
She hated the term, but it had already percolated into the popular press, even before the bridge to the Neanderthal world had opened.
…devoid of the “God organ.”
Then again, Ponter was bright enough to know, despite everything they’d done here today, that you couldn’t order up a person the way you ordered a pizza: “Give me a number two, hold the onions.” Everything blended, making the whole. Perhaps he wanted his new daughter to have his mother’s faith? Indeed, perhaps this was the test he’d been waiting for of the personality sculptor’s hypothesis? Would his feelings toward a daughter who believed in an afterlife be different than his feelings toward Jasmel and Mega?
Mary would never ask him about it, not after the decision had been made. Once the appropriate genes were coded into the chromosomes of their child, there would be no point having regrets or reopening an old debate.
There was a scene in Star Trek V —the one William Shatner directed, the one in which Spock’s half brother Sybok went off on a search for God—that portrayed Spock’s own birth, in a cave, of all places, his human mother Amanda attended by a Vulcan midwife. When the infant Spock was presented to Sarek, his Vulcan father, Sarek said only two words, each filled with infinite disappointment: “So human… ”
Mary shook her head at the memory. What the hell had Sarek expected to see? Why did he set out to have a hybrid child, and then act disappointed that it had characteristics of its mother’s species? Mary and Ponter were truly seeking the best of both worlds—and that meant including things.
“It’s not a defect,” said Mary, at last, not bothering to define “it.” “It’s not something wrong with the Gliksin brain. Being able to believe in God—if we want to, if we so choose—is part of who my people are.” She took Ponter’s hand. “I know what religion has caused—what organized religion has caused. And I even am starting to agree with you about the harm the mere belief in an afterlife has done in my world, too. So much of our inhumanity does seem related to believing that all injustices will eventually be righted in an existence yet to come. But, nonetheless, I want my daughter—our daughter—to at least potentially believe in those things.”
“Mare…” began Ponter.
She pulled away from him. “No. No, let me finish. Your people sterilize criminals, and say it’s just to maintain the health of the gene pool. But it’s more than that, isn’t it, at least when the criminals are male? You don’t just sterilize them by, for instance, performing a vasectomy. No, you castrate them—you remove that part of their anatomy that is responsible not just for aggression, but also for sexual desire, too.”
Ponter looked quite uncomfortable, Mary thought, but, then again, she supposed no man liked thinking about castration. She pressed on. “I stand here as one who has been raped, who has been a victim of the very worst that testosterone makes possible. But I also stand here as someone who has known all the joy of sex with a passionate male lover. Perhaps, maybe, in some circumstances, removing the testosterone-producing glands is appropriate. And perhaps even in some cases removing the God organ would be appropriate, too. But not at the beginning, not at the outset.”
Mary again looked at Ponter. “My Church has this notion of original sin: that all people are born tainted, carrying guilt and evil because of the actions of their ancestors. But I reject that. Veronica Shannon talked to us about behaviorism, Ponter—about the idea that you can inculcate any behavior, any response, into a human being. The mechanism—intermittent reinforcement versus consistent reinforcement—may differ slightly between Gliksins and Barasts, but the underlying concept is the same. Anew child, a new life, is nothing but potentials to be developed one way or another—and I want our child, our daughter, to have all the potentials she can and, through your love and mine as her parents, to become the best possible human being she can be.”
Ponter nodded. “Whatever you want is fine by me.”
“This,” said Mary. “This is what I want. A child who can believe in God.”
Chapter Twenty-six
“And so I stand here today to usher in the next phase. It is time, my friends, for at least some of us to move on, to leave our version of Earth and take the next giant leap…”
Mary, Ponter, and Mega spent the night at Vissan’s place, sleeping on the floor. The next day, with the codon writer wrapped in furs so that no one would notice it, the three of them had a travel cube come and take them to Kraldak Center, and from there they flew by helicopter to Saldak Center…just in time for the end of Two becoming One.
Ponter met up with Adikor, and the two of them boarded a hover-bus heading back out to male territory. Ponter, Mary knew, had another trip coming up tomorrow. That’s when he would accompany the contingent from the United Nations, including Jock Krieger, down to Donakat Island.
Mary’s heart was aching, and she was already counting the days until Two would become One again—not that she expected to still be living on this world at that point; she would have to return to the Synergy Group before then. But of course she’d return here for the holiday.
Mary felt extraordinarily jealous of Adikor. It was unfair, she knew, but the whole thing had left her feeling like the Other Woman, as if Ponter had snuck away for a rendezvous with an illicit lover, only to have to return to his real family.
Mary began the long, slow walk back to the house she shared with Bandra, carrying the fur-wrapped codon writer. Many other women were milling around, but none seemed sad. Those who were talking among themselves were laughing; those walking alone mostly had smiles on their broad faces—not smiles of greeting, but secret, personal smiles, smiles of remembering.
Mary felt like an idiot. What the hell was she doing here, in this world, with these people? Yes, she’d enjoyed her time with Ponter. The lovemaking had been just as fabulous as it always was, the conversation just as fascinating, and the trip with Ponter and Mega to meet Vissan had been wonderful in all sorts of ways. But it was another twenty-five days until she and Ponter could be together again!
A cloud of passenger pigeons temporarily blocked the sun. They were a migratory bird, Mary knew, shuttling between two homes, one in the north and the other in the south. Mary let out a long sigh and continued to walk. She knew why the female Neanderthals she was passing could smile. It wasn’t as though they were going back to a lonely existence. Rather, they were returning to their female lovers, to their children if they had any, to their families.
Mary lifted the collar of her mammoth-hair coat; a cold breeze had come up. She hated winter in Toronto—and suspected she’d hate it here even more. Toronto was so big, with so much industry, so many people, and so many cars, that it modified the local environment. North of
the city—and south of the city, in Western New York—everything got hammered by snow. But in Toronto, there were only a few snowfalls each year, and usually no major ones before Christmas. Of course, she wasn’t in what corresponded to Toronto; Saldak was 400 kilometers farther north, where Sudbury was in Mary’s world, and Sudbury did get tons of snow. Saldak must get even more of it.
Mary shuddered, even though it wasn’t that cold yet. As she walked along, she thought about asking her Companion to tell her about winters here, but she suspected Christine would just confirm her worst fears.
At last she came to the distended, squat tree that formed the main structure of the house she shared with Bandra. Its leaves were falling off. Mary entered the house. She was wearing Neanderthal-style pants, with built-in shoes, but she’d instinctively reached down to try to remove her footwear as soon as she’d come through the door. She sighed again, wondering if she’d ever get used to this place.
Mary went into her bedroom, put down the codon writer, and came back into the living room. She could hear the sound of running water. Bandra must already be home, her man-mate perhaps having gone back to the Rim aboard an earlier hover-bus. The sound of the water must have masked the noise made by Mary entering, and since the door to the bathroom was closed—a nod to sanitation, not privacy, Mary knew—doubtless Bandra couldn’t smell Mary yet.
Mary went to the kitchen and got herself some fruit juice. She’d heard that the Neanderthals who worked in the south harvesting fruit shaved off all their head and body hair to help them better survive the warm temperatures. She tried to envision what Ponter would look like without hair. Mary had seen bodybuilders on TV, and for some reason they all had hairless chests and backs. Either they shaved them, or else the steroids they took had that effect. Anyway, she decided Ponter looked just fine the way he was.
Mary had expected Bandra to emerge from the bathroom by now, but she hadn’t—and Mary really needed to pee. By sheer necessity, she’d forced herself to overcome her privacy concerns about sharing one washroom. She walked over to the closed door and pushed it open with the flat of her hand.
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