Hominids

by Robert J. Sawyer

  Watched as Ponter lifted his head just in time…

  Watched as his fist connected with Ponter’s jaw…

  Watched as Ponter’s jaw snapped sideways…

  Watched as Ponter staggered backward, blood spurting from his mouth…

  Watched as Ponter spit out teeth.

  Bolbay froze the image again. Yes, to his credit, the expression now on the young Adikor’s face was one of shock and great remorse. Yes, he was bending over to help Ponter up. Yes, he clearly regretted what he’d done, which of course had been…

  …had been coming within a hair’s-breadth of killing Ponter Boddit, staving in the front of his skull with a punch backed by all of Adikor’s strength.

  Megameg was crying now. Jasmel had shifted in her chair, moving away from Adikor. Adjudicator Sard was shaking her head slowly back and forth in disbelief. And Bolbay—

  Bolbay was standing, arms crossed in front of her chest.

  “So, Adikor,” said Bolbay, “should I play the whole thing back with the sound on, or would you like to save us all some time and tell us what you and Ponter were fighting about?”

  Adikor felt nauseous. “This isn’t fair,” he said softly. “This isn’t fair. I’ve undergone treatments to help me control my temper—adjustments to neurotransmitter levels; my personality sculptor will confirm that. I’d never hit anyone before in my life, and I never have since.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” said Bolbay. “What were you fighting about?”

  Adikor was silent, slowly shaking his head back and forth.

  “Well, Scholar Huld?” demanded the adjudicator.

  “It was trivial,” said Adikor, looking down at the moss-covered floor now. “It was…” He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “It was a philosophical point, related to quantum physics. There have been many interpretations of quantum phenomena, but Ponter was clinging to what he knew full well was an incorrect model. I—I know now he was just goading me, but…”

  “But it proved too much for you,” said Bolbay. “You let a simple discussion of science—science!—get out of hand, and you got so angry that you lashed out in a way that might have cost Ponter his life had you hit him just a fraction of a handspan higher.”

  “This isn’t fair,” Adikor repeated, looking now at the adjudicator. “Ponter forgave me. He never brought a public accusation; without a victim’s accusation, by definition no crime has been committed.” His tone was pleading now. “That’s the law.”

  “We saw this morning in the Council chamber just how well Adikor Huld controls his temper these days,” said Bolbay. “And you’ve now seen that he tried once before to kill Ponter Boddit. He failed that time, but I believe there’s every reason to think he recently succeeded, down in the quantum-computing facility deep beneath the Earth.” Bolbay paused, then looked at Sard. “I think,” she said, her voice smug, “we’ve established the facts sufficiently to merit you sending this matter on to a full tribunal.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Mary went to the front window of Reuben’s house and looked outside. Even though it was after 6:00 P.M., there would still be light for another couple of hours at this time of year, and—

  Good God! The producer for Discovery Channel wasn’t the only one who had figured out where they were. Two TV vans with microwave antennas on their roofs, and three cars decorated with radio-station logos were outside as well, plus a beat-up Honda with one fender a different color than the rest of the car; it presumably belonged to a print journalist. Once the wire-service piece had gone out about her authenticating Ponter’s DNA, apparently everyone had started taking this seemingly impossible story seriously.

  Reuben finally got off the phone. Mary turned to look at him.

  “I’m not really set up for guests,” said the doctor, “but…”

  “What?” said Louise, surprised.

  But Mary had already figured it out. “We’re not going anywhere, are we?” she said.

  Reuben shook his head. “The LCDC has ordered a quarantine on this building. Nobody goes in or out.”

  “For how long?” said Louise, her brown eyes wide.

  “That’s up to the government,” replied Reuben. “Several days, at least.”

  “Days!” exclaimed Louise. “But…but…”

  Reuben spread his hands. “I’m sorry, but there’s no telling what’s floating around in Ponter’s bloodstream.”

  “What was it that wiped out the Aztecs?” asked Mary.

  “Smallpox, mostly,” said Reuben.

  “But smallpox…” said Louise. “If he had that, shouldn’t he have lesions on his face?”

  “Those come two days after the onset of fever,” said Reuben.

  “But, anyway,” said Louise, “smallpox has been eradicated.”

  “In this universe, yes,” said Mary. “And so we don’t vaccinate for it anymore. But it’s possible—”

  Louise nodded, getting it. “It’s possible it hasn’t been wiped out in his universe.”

  “Exactly,” said Reuben. “And, even if it has been, there could be countless pathogens that have evolved in his world to which we have no immunity.”

  Louise took a deep breath, presumably trying to stay calm. “But I feel fine,” she said.

  “So do I,” said Reuben. “Mary?”

  “Fine, yes.”

  Reuben shook his head. “We can’t take any chances, though. They’ve got samples of Ponter’s blood over at St. Joseph’s; the woman I’m dealing with at the LCDC says she’ll speak to their head of pathology and run smears for everything they can think of.”

  “Do we have enough food?” asked Louise.

  “No,” said Reuben. “But they’ll bring us more, and—”

  Ding-dong!

  “Oh, Kee-ryst!” said Reuben.

  “There’s somebody at the door!” declared Louise, looking out the front window.

  “A reporter,” said Mary, seeing the man.

  Reuben ran upstairs. For half a second, Mary thought he was going to get a shotgun, but then she heard him shouting, presumably through a window he’d opened up there. “Go away! This house is quarantined!”

  Mary saw the reporter step back a few paces and tip his head up, looking at Reuben. “I’d like to ask you a few questions, Dr. Montego,” he called.

  “Go away!” Reuben shouted back. “The Neanderthal is sick, and this place has been quarantined by the order of Health Canada.” Mary became aware of more vehicles arriving on the country road, and red-and-yellow lights starting to sweep across the scene.

  “Come on, Doctor,” the reporter replied. “Just a few questions.”

  “I’m serious,” Reuben called. “We are containing an infectious disease here.”

  “I understand Professor Vaughan is in there, as well,” shouted the reporter. “Can she comment on the Neanderthal’s DNA?”

  “Go away! For God’s sake, man, go away!”

  “Professor Vaughan, are you in there? Stan Tinbergen, Sudbury Star. I’d like—”

  “Mon dieu!” exclaimed Louise, pointing out toward the street. “That man has a rifle!”

  Mary looked where Louise was pointing. There was indeed someone there, aiming a long gun right at the house from maybe thirty meters away. A second later, a man standing next to him raised a megaphone to his mouth. “This is the RCMP,” said the man’s amplified, reverberating voice. “Move away from the house.”

  Tinbergen turned around. “This is private property,” he shouted back. “No one has committed a crime, and—”

  “MOVE AWAY,” bellowed the Mountie, who was clad in plain clothes, although Mary saw that his white car was indeed marked with the letters RCMP and the French equivalent, GRC.

  “If Dr. Montego or Professor Vaughan will just answer a few questions,” said Tinbergen, “I’ll—”

  “Last warning!” said the Mountie through the bullhorn. “My partner will try only to wound you, but…”

  Tinbergen obviousl
y wanted his story. “I’ve got a right to ask questions!”

  “Five seconds,” thundered the RCMP officer’s voice.

  Tinbergen stood his ground.

  “Four!”

  “The public has a right to know!” the reporter shouted.

  “Three!”

  Tinbergen turned around again, apparently determined to get in at least one question. “Dr. Montego,” he shouted, looking up, “does this disease pose any risk to the public?”

  “Two!”

  “I’ll answer all your questions,” Reuben shouted back. “But not like this. Move away!”

  “ONE!”

  Tinbergen swiveled around, holding his hands up at midchest height. “All right already!” He began walking slowly away from the house.

  No sooner had the reporter reached the far end of the driveway than the telephone rang inside Reuben’s house. Mary moved across the living room and picked up the teal one-piece, but Reuben must have already answered on an extension upstairs. “Dr. Montego,” she heard a man’s voice say, “this is Inspector Matthews, RCMP.”

  Normally, Mary would have put down the phone, but she was dying of curiosity.

  “Hello, Inspector,” said Reuben’s voice.

  “Doctor, we’ve been asked by Health Canada to render any assistance you might require.” The man’s voice sounded thin; Mary presumed he was calling from a cellular phone. She craned her neck to see out the front window; the man who’d been using the bullhorn earlier was indeed now standing next to his white car and talking into a cell phone. “How many people are inside your house?”

  “Four,” said Reuben. “Myself, the Neanderthal, and two women: Professor Mary Vaughan from York University, and Louise Benoît, a physics postdoctoral student associated with the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory.”

  “I understand one of them is sick,” said Matthews.

  “Yes, the Neanderthal. He’s running a high fever.”

  “Let me give you my cell-phone number,” said the Mountie. He read off a string of digits.

  “Got it,” said Reuben.

  “I’m going to be out here until my relief arrives at 2300,” said Matthews. “The relief will be on the same phone; call if you need anything.”

  “I need antibiotics for Ponter. Penicillin, erythromycin—a slew of others.”

  “Do you have e-mail access in there?” asked Matthews.

  “Yes.”

  “Do up the list. Send it to Robert Matthews—two T’s—at rcmp-grc.gc.ca. Got that?”

  “Yes,” said Reuben. “I’ll need those as soon as humanly possible.”

  “We’ll get them here tonight, if they are things a regular pharmacy or St. Joseph’s will have on hand.”

  “We’re going to need more food, too,” said Reuben.

  “We’ll get you whatever you want. E-mail me a list of food, toiletries, clothes, whatever you need.”

  “Great,” said Reuben. “And I should collect blood samples from all of us, and have you get them over to St. Joseph’s and other labs.”

  “Fine,” said Matthews.

  They agreed to call each other immediately if there were any changes in circumstances, and Reuben clicked off. Mary heard him coming down the stairs.

  “Well?” said Louise—giving away that Mary had been listening, Mary thought, by looking in equal turns at her and at Reuben.

  Reuben summarized the call, then: “I’m sorry about this; I really am.”

  “What about the others?” said Mary. “The other people who were exposed to Ponter?”

  Reuben nodded. “I’ll get Inspector Matthews to have the RCMP round them up; they’ll probably quarantine them at St. Joseph’s rather than here.” He went into the kitchen and returned with a pad and a stubby pencil that looked like they were normally used for recording shopping lists. “All right, who else was exposed to Ponter?”

  “A grad student who was working with me,” said Louise. “Paul Kiriyama.”

  “Dr. Mah, of course,” said Mary, “and—my God—she’s already on her way back to Ottawa. We better stop her from meeting with the Prime Minister tonight!”

  “There were also a bunch of people from St. Joseph’s,” said Reuben. “Ambulance attendants, Dr. Singh, a radiologist, nurses…”

  They continued to draw up the list.

  Ponter was still lying on Reuben’s champagne-colored carpet through all this. He seemed to be unconscious now; Mary could see his massive chest rising and falling. His sloped brow was still slick with sweat, and his eyes were moving beneath their lids, subterranean animals at the bottoms of burrows.

  “All right,” said Reuben. “I think that’s everyone.” He looked at Mary, then at Louise, then at the ailing Ponter. “I’ve got to write up a list of drugs I need to treat Ponter. If we’re lucky…”

  Mary nodded, and looked at Ponter, too. If we’re lucky, she thought, none of us are going to die.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  DAY FOUR

  MONDAY, AUGUST 5

  148/118/27

  * * *

  NEWS SEARCH

  Keyword(s): Neanderthal

  “Did Ponter Boddit gain legal entry into Canada? That question continues to bother immigration experts at home and abroad. Our guest tonight is Professor Simon Cohen, who teaches citizenship law at McGill University in Montreal…”

  Top Ten reasons why we know that Ponter Boddit must be a real Neanderthal…

  Number ten: When he met his first human female, he hit her with a club and dragged her away by her hair.

  Number nine: Mistaken in dim light for Leonid Brezhnev.

  Number eight: When Arnold Schwarzenegger dropped by for a visit, Boddit said, “Who’s the scrawny kid?”

  Number seven: Watches nothing but Fox.

  Number six: McDonald’s sign now says, “Billions and billions of Homo sapiens served—plus one Neanderthal.”

  Number five: Called Tom Arnold “a hunk.”

  Number four: When shown rare rock specimen at the Smithsonian, chipped it into a perfect spearhead.

  Number three: Wears Fossil watch and drinks Really, Really, Really Old Milwaukee.

  Number two: Now collecting royalties on fire.

  And the number one reason we know that Ponter Boddit must be a Neanderthal? Hairy cheeks—all four of them.

  John Pearce, director of international acquisitions for Random House Canada, has offered Ponter Boddit the largest advance in Canadian publishing history for world rights to his authorized biography, reports the trade journal Quill & Quire…

  The Pentagon is rumored to be interested in speaking with Ponter Boddit. The military implications of the way in which he supposedly arrived here have caught the attention of at least one five-star general…

  Now, thought Adikor Huld, as he took his seat on the stool in the Council chamber, we’ll see if I’ve made the biggest mistake of my life.

  “Who speaks on behalf of the accused?” asked Adjudicator Sard.

  Nobody moved. Adikor’s heart jumped. Had Jasmel Ket decided to forsake him? After all, who could blame her? She’d seen yesterday with her own eyes that once—granted, a long time ago—Adikor had apparently tried to kill her father.

  The room was quiet, although one of the spectators, presumably making the same assumption Bolbay had earlier, let out a short, derisive laugh: no one was going to speak on behalf of Adikor.

  But then, at last, Jasmel did rise to her feet. “I do,” she said. “I speak for Adikor Huld.”

  There were gasps from many in the audience.

  Daklar Bolbay, who was sitting on the sidelines, rose as well, her face agog. “Adjudicator, this isn’t right. The girl is one of the accusers.”

  Adjudicator Sard tipped her wrinkled head forward, looking out at Jasmel from under her browridge. “Is this true?”

  “No,” said Jasmel. “Daklar Bolbay was my mother’s woman-mate; she was appointed my tabant when my mother died. But I have now seen 250 moons, and I claim the rights of majority.�
��

  “You’re a 147?” asked Sard.

  “Yes, Adjudicator.”

  Sard turned to Bolbay, who was still standing. “All 147s gained personal responsibility two months ago. Unless you are contending that your ward is mentally incompetent, your guardianship of her ended automatically. Is she, in fact, mentally incompetent?”

  Bolbay was seething. She opened her mouth, clearly to make a remark, but thought better of it. She looked down and said, “No, Adjudicator.”

  “All right, then,” said Sard. “Take your seat, Daklar Bolbay.”

  “Thank you, Adjudicator,” said Jasmel. “Now, if I may—”

  “Just a moment, 147,” said Sard. “It would have been polite to tell your tabant that you were going to oppose her case.”

  Adikor understood why Jasmel had remained silent. Had she forewarned Bolbay, Bolbay would have done everything she could to dissuade her. But Jasmel had her father’s charm. “You speak wisely, Adjudicator. I shall keep your advice behind my browridge.”

  Sard nodded, satisfied, and motioned for Jasmel to proceed.

  Jasmel walked into the center of the chamber. “Adjudicator Sard, you’ve heard much innuendo from Daklar Bolbay. Innuendo, and baseless attacks on Adikor Huld’s character. But she hardly knows the man. Adikor was my father’s man-mate; granted, I saw Adikor only briefly whenever Two became One—he has his own son, young Dab there, here in this chamber, and his woman, Lurt, seated next to Dab. But, still, we met frequently—much more frequently than Daklar and he did.”

  She moved next to Adikor and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I stand here, the daughter of the man Adikor is accused of killing, and say to you that I do not think he did it.” She paused, looked briefly down at Adikor, then met Adjudicator Sard’s gaze from across the room.

  “You saw the alibi recording,” prodded Bolbay, still straddling her saddle-seat at the side of the room, in the first row of spectators. Sard shushed her.

  “Yes,” said Jasmel. “Yes, I did. I knew that my father had a damaged jaw. It pained him occasionally, especially on cold mornings. I hadn’t known who had caused the damage—he never said. But he did say that it was long ago, that the person who had done it was extremely contrite, and that he’d forgiven the individual.” She paused. “My father was good at gauging character. He would not have partnered with Adikor had he thought there was the slightest possibility that Adikor would repeat his actions.” She looked at Adikor, then back at the Adjudicator. “Yes, my father is missing. But I don’t think he was murdered. If he is dead, it was because of an accident. And if he is not—”