Hybrids np-3

by Robert J. Sawyer

  Mary took a deep breath, then let it out slowly.

  She folded her hands in her lap, the left still showing the pale indentation on the third finger where her wedding ring had once been.

  And Mary Vaughan thought and thought and thought.

  And at last she unfolded her hands.

  And then, of course, she did the only thing she could do.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  “And although someday we may also travel to Dargal—for that is what the Neanderthals named the red planet of their universe, the crimson beacon that beams down upon the continents of Durkanu, Podlar, Ranilass, Evsoy, Galasoy, and Nalkanu—we will leave that version of Mars as we find it. Truly, like so much in this new era we are now entering, we will have our cake and eat it, too…”

  Mary Vaughan sat bolt upright in her bed at Bristol Harbour Village, suddenly awake.

  When does—what do you call it?—‘Two becoming One’? When does that happen next? That’s what Jock had asked yesterday. Mary had been too upset about Lonwis’s deteriorating condition and Ponter’s impending departure to really think about it then, but it hit her now, forcing her awake: why Jock should care.

  While Two were One would be the perfect time to release his virus. It would be far easier to infect at least the local population in Saldak when everyone of both sexes was together in the Center—and, of course, there was more intercity traffic during Two being One than at any other time of the month; the virus would be spread rapidly.

  The four-day holiday would begin the day after tomorrow. That meant Jock wouldn’t act until then—meaning Mary had to act before then.

  She looked up at the ceiling to see what time it was—but she was here, not there, and there was nothing on her ceiling. She turned to the digital clock on the night table, the red digits glowing: 5:04A.M. Mary fumbled to turn on the table lamp, then picked up her phone and called Louise Benoît’s home number in Rochester.

  “Allô? ” said a sleepy voice after six rings.

  “Louise, it’s Mary. Look—Two become One the day after tomorrow. I’m sure that’s when Jock is going to release his virus.”

  Louise was clearly struggling to consciousness. “Two becoming…”

  “Yes, yes! Two becoming One. It’s the only time on the Neanderthal world when there’s high population density in their cities, and a lot of intercity traffic. We have to do something.”

  “D’accord, ” said Louise, her voice raw. “Mais quoi? ”

  “What you said we should do: go to the media, blow the whistle. But, look, it’ll be safer for both of us if we’re back in Canada before we do that. I’ll be out of here in half an hour, meaning I can pick you up by 6:30A.M. We’ll drive up to Toronto.”

  “Bon, ” said Louise. “I’ll be ready.”

  Mary clicked off and headed for the bathroom, starting the shower running. Now, if she only knew how to blow the whistle. Of course, she’d been interviewed on TV and radio plenty of times now, and—

  She thought of a nice female producer she’d met at CBC Newsworld in 1996, back when the only Neanderthals known were fossils, back when Mary had isolated a DNA sample from the Neanderthal type specimen at the Rheinisches Landesmuseum. CBC on-air personalities probably didn’t have listed phone numbers, but there was no particular reason why a producer wouldn’t. Mary headed back into the bedroom, scooped up the telephone handset, dialed 1-416-555-1212, Toronto directory assistance, and got the number she needed.

  A minute later she had another groggy woman on the phone. “H-hello?”

  “Kerry?” said Mary. “Kerry Johnston?”

  She could almost hear the woman rubbing her eyes. “Yes. Who’s this?”

  “This is Mary Vaughan. Remember me? The geneticist from York—the expert on Neanderthal DNA?”

  A small part of Mary was disappointed that neither Louise nor Kerry had offered up the cliché, “Do you have any idea what time it is?” Instead, Kerry seemed now to be instantly awake. “Yes, I remember you,” she said.

  “I’ve got a huge story for you.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “No, it’s nothing I can tell you about by phone. I’m down in Rochester, New York, right now, but I’ll be in Toronto in about five hours. I need you to put me live on Newsworld when I get there…”

  Mary and Louise were driving along the Queenston-Lewiston bridge over the Niagara River. Exactly in the middle of the bridge three flags snapped salutes in the breeze, marking the border: first the Stars and Stripes, then the robin’s-egg-blue UN flag, and finally the Maple Leaf. “Nice to be back home,” said Louise as they passed them.

  As she always did, Mary felt herself relax a bit now that they had returned to her home and native land. Indeed, an old joke came to mind: Canada could have had British culture, French cuisine, and American know-how…but instead ended up with American culture, British cuisine, and French know-how.

  Still, it was nice to be back.

  Once off the bridge, they were confronted by a row of customs booths. Three of the four that were open had small lineups of cars in front of them; the fourth had a longer queue of trucks. Mary joined the middle car line and waited for the vehicles ahead of them to be dealt with, tapping the steering wheel impatiently with the flat of her left hand.

  At last, it was their turn. Mary pulled up to the booth and rolled down her window. She expected to hear a Canadian customs official’s usual greeting: “Citizenship?” But instead, to her astonishment, the female officer said, “Ms. Vaughan, right?”

  Mary’s heart jumped. She nodded.

  “Pull over up ahead, please.”

  “Is there—is there something wrong?” asked Mary.

  “Just do as I say,” she said to Mary, then picked up a telephone handset.

  Mary felt her palms go moist on the steering wheel as she drove slowly ahead.

  “How’d they know it was you?” asked Louise.

  Mary shook her head. “License plate?”

  “Should we make a run for it?” asked Louise.

  “My name’s Mary, not Thelma. But, Christ, if—”

  A balding customs agent, paunch flopping over his belt, was coming out of the long, low inspection building. He waved for Mary to pull into one of the angled parking spots in front of it. She’d only ever stopped here before to use the public washroom—and then only when desperate; it was rather squalid.

  “Ms. Vaughan? Ms. Mary Vaughan?” said the agent.

  “Yes?”

  “We’ve been waiting for you. My assistant is putting a call through right now.”

  Mary blinked. “For me?”

  “Yes—and it’s an emergency. Come along!”

  Mary got out of the car, and so did Louise. They went into the customs building, and the fat man brought them around behind the counter. He picked up a phone, hit a line key. “I have Ms. Vaughan,” he said into the handset, then he passed it to Mary.

  “This is Mary Vaughan,” she said.

  “Mary!” exclaimed a Jamaican-accented voice.

  “Reuben!” She looked over and saw Louise smile broadly. “What’s up?”

  “God, woman, you need to get a cell phone,” said Reuben. “Look, I know you and Louise are heading to Toronto, but I think you’d better get up here to Sudbury—and fast.”

  “Why?”

  “Your Jock Krieger has gone through the portal.”

  Mary’s heart jumped. “What? But how’d he get up there so quickly?”

  “He must have flown, and that’s what you should do, too. It’d take six hours to drive up here from where you are. But I’ve got The Nickel Pickle waiting for you in St. Catherines.” The Nickel Pickle was Inco’s corporate Learjet, painted dark green on its sides. “I only found out he’d gone over by accident,” continued Reuben. “Saw his name on the mine-site visitors’ log when I was signing somebody else in.”

  “Why didn’t anybody stop him?” asked Mary.

  “Why should they have? I checked with the Canadian F
orces guys down at the neutrino observatory; they said he had a U.S. diplomatic passport, so they ushered him right through to the other side. Anyway, look, I’ve faxed a map to the customs station, showing how to get to the airfield…”

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  “And it is a new era we are entering. The Cenozoic—the era of recent life—is indeed all but over. The Novozoic—the era of new life—is about to begin…”

  “Medical emergency!” snapped Reuben Montego. His shaved black head glistened in the harsh lights of the giant building. “We’re going straight down to the 6800-foot level.”

  The elevator technician nodded. “Right you are, Doc.”

  Mary knew that the cage had been waiting here on the surface in response to a call Reuben had made from his office. The three of them hurried inside, and the technician, who would stay up top, pulled down the heavy cage door. He then gave five blasts on the buzzer—express descent with no stops. The elevator began its drop down a shaft five times as deep as each of the World Trade Center towers had been tall—until, of course, some male Homo sapiens had destroyed them…

  On the way in, Mary, Louise, and Reuben had grabbed hardhats and mining coats from the racks in the changing area. They struggled to get them on as the elevator made its noisy descent.

  “What sort of police force do they have on the other side?” asked Reuben in his deep, Jamaican-accented voice.

  “Hardly any,” said Mary, half shouting to be heard above the racket. And it should stay that way, she thought: a world free of crime and violence.

  “So it’s up to us?” said Reuben.

  “I’m afraid so,” said Mary.

  “What about taking some of the Canadian Forces guys with us?” asked Louise.

  “We still don’t know who’s behind this,” said Mary. “It could be Jock acting alone—or it could go all the way to the DND and the Pentagon.”

  Louise looked at Reuben, and Mary saw him draw her close. If they were half as scared as Mary felt, she couldn’t blame them for wanting to hold each other. Mary moved over to the far side of the mud-covered lift and made a show of watching the levels go by, so that Reuben and Louise could have a few minutes to themselves.

  “My English vocabulary is clearly still wanting,” said Christine’s voice through Mary’s cochlear implants. “What does juh-tahm mean?”

  Mary hadn’t made out a thing; evidently the Companion’s microphones were more discerning. She whispered so that the others wouldn’t be able to hear her. “That’s not English, it’s French: ‘Je t’aime.’ It means ‘I love you.’ Louise told me Reuben always switches to French to say that.”

  “Ah,” said Christine. They continued down, until the lift finally shuddered to a halt. Reuben hoisted the door, revealing the mining drift, heading off into the distance.

  “What time did he go through?” demanded Mary, once they’d finally reached the staging area to the portal, built on a platform in the barrel-shaped six-story-tall Sudbury Neutrino Observatory chamber.

  A Canadian Forces man looked up, eyebrows lifted. “Who?”

  “Jock Krieger,” said Mary. “From the Synergy Group.”

  The man—blond, light-skinned—consulted a clipboard. “We had a John Kevin Krieger go through about three hours ago.”

  “That’s him,” said Mary. “Did he have anything with him?”

  “Forgive me, Dr. Vaughan,” began the officer, “but I really don’t think I’m supposed to divulge—”

  Reuben moved forward and showed him an ID card. “I’m Dr. Montego, the mine-site physician here, and this is a medical emergency. Krieger may be highly infectious.”

  “I should call my superior,” said the soldier.

  “Do that,” snapped Reuben. “But first tell us what he was carrying.”

  The man frowned, thinking. “One of those overnight bags that rolls on wheels.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes, a metal box, about the size of a shoebox.”

  Reuben looked at Mary. “Damn,” she said.

  “Was the box put through decontamination?” asked Louise. “Of course,” said the soldier, his tone defensive. “Nothing goes through without being decontaminated.”

  “Good,” said Mary. “Let us through.”

  “Can I see your identification?”

  Mary and Louise slapped their passports down. “All right?” said Mary. “Now, let us through.”

  “What about him?” said the soldier, pointing at Reuben.

  “Damn it, man, I just showed you my Inco card,” said Reuben. “I don’t have my passport with me.”

  “I’m not supposed to—”

  “For Pete’s sake!” said Mary. “This is an emergency!”

  The soldier nodded. “All right,” he said at last. “All right, go ahead.”

  Mary ran on, leading the way to the Derkers tube. As soon as she got to its mouth, she continued on through, and—

  Blue fire.

  Static electricity.

  Another world.

  Mary could hear two sets of footfalls behind her, so she didn’t look back to see if Louise and Reuben were following as she hurried out of the tube. A burly male Neanderthal technician looked up, astonished. Probably no one had ever come running out of the portal before.

  The Neanderthal was one Mary knew on sight. He clearly recognized her, too, but, to Mary’s astonishment, he was making a beeline to tackle Reuben, who was just behind Mary.

  Mary suddenly realized what was going on: the Neanderthal thought Louise and Reuben were chasing Mary, not following her. “No!” shouted Mary. “No, they’re with me! Let them pass!”

  Her own shouting meant that Christine had to wait until she’d finished her exclamation before translating the words, lest her external speaker—capable of a healthy volume, but nowhere near as loud as a shouting human—be drowned out. Mary listened to the Neanderthal words that came from her forearm: “Rak! Ta sooparb nolant, rak! Derpant helk! ”

  By about halfway through the translation, the Neanderthal technician tried to abort his run, but he slipped on the polished granite computing-chamber floor and went sliding into Reuben, sending the M.D. flying. Louise tumbled over the Neanderthal, somersaulting onto her back.

  Mary reached down and helped Louise up. Reuben was getting to his feet, too.

  “Lupal! ” called the Neanderthal. Sorry!

  Mary headed up the half flight of stairs into the control room, passing another startled Neanderthal, then continued on toward the drift that connected the quantum-computing facility to the rest of the nickel mine.

  “Wait!” shouted the second Neanderthal. “You have to go through decontamination!”

  “There’s no time,” Mary shouted back. “This is an emergency, and—”

  But Reuben interrupted her. “No, Mary, he’s right. Remember how sick Ponter got when he first came to our side? We’re trying to prevent a plague, not start one.”

  Mary swore. “All right,” she said. She looked at Reuben and Louise, the black Jamaican-Canadian with the shaved head and the pale Québecois with the long brunette hair. They’d doubtless seen each other naked many times, but neither had seen Mary that way. “Strip down,” she said decisively. “Everything off, including watches and jewelry.”

  Louise and Reuben were used to decontamination procedures from working at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, which had been kept in clean-room conditions until Ponter’s original arrival destroyed the detector. Still, they each hesitated for a moment. Mary started undoing her blouse. “Come on,” she said. “There’s no time to waste.”

  Reuben and Louise began removing their clothing.

  “Just leave your clothes here,” said Mary as she tossed her panties into a round hamper. “We can pick up Neanderthal clothing in the next room.”

  Mary, now totally nude, entered the cylindrical decontamination chamber. It had been designed to comfortably hold one adult Neanderthal, but at Mary’s insistence, all three of them piled into it,
in order to save time. Mary was too nervous to be embarrassed as Louise’s backside pressed against her own, or as Reuben, who had ended up facing toward Mary, was pressed face first against her breasts.

  Mary pulled out a control bud. The floor started slowly rotating, and lasers began firing. Mary was used to the procedure by now, but she could hear Louise gasp as the formidable-looking beam emitters hummed to life.

  “It’s okay,” said Mary, trying to ignore the part of her brain that was calculating exactly what portions of Reuben were pressed up against her. “It’s perfectly safe. The lasers know which proteins should be in a human body—including those in intestinal bacteria, and so on—and they pass right through them. But they break down foreign proteins, killing any pathogens.”

  Mary could feel Louise squirm slightly, but she sounded fascinated. “What kind of lasers can do that?”

  “Quantum-cascade lasers,” said Mary, parroting something she’d heard Ponter say. “In the trillion-cycles-per-beat range.”

  “Tunable terahertz lasers!” exclaimed Louise. “Yes, of course. Something like that could selectively interact with large molecules. How long does the process take?”

  “About three minutes,” said Mary.

  “Say, Mary,” said Reuben. “You should have someone look at that mole on your left shoulder…”

  “What?” said Mary. “Jesus, Reuben, this isn’t the time—” But she cut herself off, realizing he was doing exactly what Louise had just been doing: retreating into a technical mind-set, trying to keep professional. After all, Reuben was buck naked with two women, one of whom was his lover and the other his lover’s friend. The last thing he—or Mary—needed right now was for him to be composing a letter to Penthouse in his head. “I’ll see a dermatologist,” she said, softening her tone. She shrugged as much as the tight confines would allow. “Damned ozone layer…”

  Mary rotated her head slightly. “Louise, there should be a square light above the door in front of you. Do you see it?”

  “Yes. Oh, it’s green! Good.” She shifted slightly, as if making to exit.