Bolbay was on her feet. “Ponter!”
“Your eagerness to avenge me is laudable, dear Daklar,” he said, “but, as you can see, it was premature.”
“Where have you been?” Bolbay demanded. Adikor thought she looked more angry than relieved.
“Where have I been?” repeated Ponter, looking out at the silver suits in the audience. “I must say I’m flattered that the trifling matter of the possible murder of an undistinguished physicist has attracted so many Exhibitionists. And, with them all here and with a hundred other Companions sending signals to the archive pavilion, I will be glad to explain.” He surveyed the faces—broad, flat faces; faces with proper-sized noses, not those pinched things the Gliksins had; hairy male faces and less-hairy female ones; faces with prominent browridges and streamlined jaws; handsome faces, beautiful faces, the faces of his people, his friends, his species. “But first,” he said, “let me just say that there’s no place like home.”
Chapter Forty-seven
SIX DAYS LATER
FRIDAY, AUGUST 16
148/119/09
Adikor and Ponter arrived at the home of Dern, the robotics engineer. Dern ushered them inside, then turned off his Voyeur—he was a fellow Lulasm fan, Ponter saw.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen!” said Dern, “it’s good to see you.” He pointed at the now-black square of the Voyeur. “Did you look in on Lulasm’s visit to the Economics Academy this morning?”
Ponter shook his head; so did Adikor.
“Your friend Sard has stepped down from being an adjudicator. Apparently, her colleagues thought she looked somewhat less than impartial, given the way your trial turned out.”
“Somewhat?” said Adikor, astonished. “There’s an understatement.”
“In any event,” said Dern, “the Grays decided she’d make a more meaningful contribution by teaching advanced mediation to 146s.”
“It probably won’t catch any Exhibitionist’s eye,” said Ponter, “but Daklar Bolbay is getting help now, too. Therapy for grief management, anger management, and so on.”
Adikor smiled. “I introduced her to my old personality sculptor, and he’s gotten her hooked up with the right people.”
“That’s good,” said Dern. “Are you going to demand a public apology from her?”
Adikor shook his head. “I have Ponter back,” he said simply. “There’s nothing else I need.”
Dern smiled and told one of his many household robots to fetch beverages. “I thank you both for coming over,” he said, lying down on a long couch, ankles crossed, fingers interlaced behind his head, his round belly rising up and down as he breathed.
Ponter and Adikor straddled saddle-seats. “You said you had something important to talk about,” said Ponter, prodding gently.
“I do,” said Dern, lolling his head so that he could look at them. “I think we need to find a way to make the gateway between the two versions of Earth stay open permanently.”
“It seemed to stay open as long as there was a physical object passing through the gateway,” said Ponter.
“Well, yes, on short time scales,” said Adikor. “We really don’t know if it can be maintained indefinitely.”
“If it can,” said Ponter, “the possibilities are staggering. Tourism. Trade. Cultural and scientific exchange.”
“Exactly,” said Dern. “Have a look at this.” He swung his feet to the floor and placed an object on the polished wooden table. It was a hollow tube, made of wire mesh, a little longer than his longest finger and no thicker than the diameter of his shortest one. “This is a Derkers tube,” he said. He used the ends of two fingers to pull on the mouth of the tube, and the tube’s opening expanded and expanded, its mesh with an elastic membrane stretched across it growing larger and larger, until it was as wide as Dern’s handspan.
He handed the tube to Ponter. “Try to crush it,” Dern said.
Ponter wrapped one hand around it as far as it would go, and brought in his other hand and encircled more of the tube. He then squeezed, lightly at first, and then with all his strength. The tube did not collapse.
“That’s just a little one,” said Dern, “but we’ve got them here at the mine that expand to three armspans in diameter. We use them to secure tunnels when a cave-in seems likely. Can’t afford to lose those mining robots, after all.”
“How does it work?” asked Ponter.
“The mesh is actually a series of articulated metal segments, each with ratcheting ends. Once you open it up, the only way to collapse it is to actually go in with tools and undo the locking mechanisms on each piece.”
“So you’re suggesting,” said Ponter, “that we should reopen the gateway to the other universe, and then shove one of these—what did you call it? A ‘Derkers tube’? Shove one of these Derkers tubes through the opening, and expand it to its full diameter?”
“That’s right,” said Dern. “Then people could just walk through from this universe to that one.”
“They’d have to build a platform and stairs on the other side, leading up to the tube,” said Ponter.
“Easily enough done, I’m sure,” said Dern.
“What happens if the gate doesn’t stay open indefinitely?” asked Adikor.
“I wouldn’t suggest anyone linger in the tunnel,” said Dern, “but presumably if the gate did shut down, it would simply sever the tunnel, cutting it into two parts. Either that, or it would draw the tunnel fully into one side or the other.”
“There are issues to be concerned about,” said Ponter. “I got very sick when I was over there; germs exist on the other side to which we have no immunity.”
Adikor nodded. “We’d have to exercise caution. We certainly wouldn’t want pathogens moving freely from their universe into ours, and travelers headed there would presumably require a series of immunizations.”
“It could be worked out, I’m sure,” said Dern. “Although I don’t know exactly what the procedures should be.”
There was silence between them for a time. Finally, Ponter spoke. “Who makes the decision?” he asked. “Who decides if we should establish permanent contact—or even reestablish temporary contact—with the other world?”
“I’m sure there are no procedures in place,” said Adikor. “I doubt anyone has even considered the possibility of a bridge to another Earth.”
“If it weren’t for the danger of germs traveling here,” said Ponter, “I’d say we should just go ahead and open up the gateway, but…”
They were all silent, until Adikor spoke. “Are they—are they good people, Ponter? Should we be in contact with them?”
“They are different,” said Ponter, “in many, many ways. But they showed a lot of kindness toward me; I was treated very well.” He paused, then nodded. “Yes, I do think we should be in contact with them.”
“All right, then,” said Adikor. “I suppose the first step is to make a presentation to the High Gray Council. We should get to work on that.”
Ponter had thought a lot about what Mare had said to him in the elevator on the way down to the neutrino observatory. Yes, he had indeed been interested; she had read him correctly. Even across species boundaries, even across timelines, some things were clear.
Ponter’s heart was pounding. It seemed he was going to get to see her again.
Who knew what would come of it?
Well, there was only one way to find out. “Yes,” said Ponter Boddit, smiling. “Let’s get to work.”
Usually, one had to wait until September for Toronto to be so heart-stoppingly beautiful, with the sky’s complexion clear and flawless, the temperature perfect, and the wind a gentle caress—the kind of profound pleasantness that reminded Mary of just why it was that she believed in God.
But September was still two weeks away, and, of course, when Labour Day, that final, abrupt punctuation mark at the end of summer, came around, Mary would have to go back to work, back to her old life of teaching genetics, and having no one special, and eating too m
uch. For now, though, for right now, with the wonderful weather, Toronto seemed like heaven.
While in Northern Ontario, Mary had lost a few of the extra pounds she normally carried around, but she knew they would return. Every diet she’d ever been on reminded her of Crisco oil: it all came back, except for maybe one tablespoon.
Of course, she hadn’t been on a concerted diet. She simply hadn’t been eating as much as usual. Part of it had been excitement during the time she’d spent in Sudbury, the time she’d spent with Ponter, over all the incredible things that had come and gone.
And part of it—the part that wasn’t over, that could never be over—was the aftermath of the rape.
Mary had agreed to come in to York today, a Monday, for a departmental meeting, and so, for the first time since that horrible night—had it really been just seventeen days?—Mary had to walk by the spot on the campus where the attack had taken place, the concrete wall that the rapist, his head sheathed in a black balaclava, had slammed her body against.
But, of course, it wasn’t because of the wall that she’d been raped. It was because of him—that monster—and the sick society that had produced him. As she passed by, she ran her fingers across the wall, taking care not to chip her red-painted nails—and, as she did so, a crazy thought occurred to her. She remembered another wall from long ago, one she and Colm had carved their initials into.
It was a ridiculous thing for a thirty-eight-year-old woman to contemplate, but maybe she should carve MV+PB here on this wall—although to do it right, she supposed, she should really carve MV plus the symbols in Ponter Boddit’s language that represented his name.
Either way, she’d then smile every time she saw the wall, instead of being disgusted by it. To be sure, it would be a rueful smile, for she knew she’d likely never see him again. But, still, a memory of…love, yes: a memory of love lost was infinitely preferable to one of what had happened here.
Mary Vaughan continued on past the wall, forward, into the future.
Appendix
A GUIDE TO NEANDERTHAL TIMEKEEPING
Earth has three natural timekeeping units: the day (the time it takes the Earth to revolve once on its axis), the month (the time it takes the moon to orbit the Earth), and the year (the time it takes the Earth to orbit the sun).
Because of our agricultural economy, which is based on seasonal sowing and harvesting, we emphasize the year—and corrupt the true lengths of all three units to make them into simple multiples or fractions of each other.
The actual sidereal year (one orbit around the sun, relative to the fixed stars) is 365 days 6 hours 9 minutes 9.54 seconds, but we reckon common years as 365 whole days and leap years as 366 whole days.
The true synodic month (a complete cycle of lunar phases) is 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes 3 seconds, but we have “months” ranging from 28 to 31 whole days long.
And the true sidereal day (a complete revolution of the Earth, measured relative to the fixed stars) is 23 hours 56 minutes 4.09 seconds, but we round that up to 24 hours.
Further, many of our religions obfuscated the calendar to reserve power to the clergy (the secret of how to calculate the date of Easter, for instance, was originally closely guarded).
But with a nonagricultural society and no religion, the Neanderthals have no reason to make timekeeping complex. Because of its importance to their reproductive biology, they never corrupt the length of the synodic month (the time between successive full moons). Of course, anyone can keep track of this time unit just by looking up at the night sky, so this is far more egalitarian than our system.
The smallest common unit of Neanderthal timekeeping is the beat, originally defined as the duration of one at-rest heartbeat, but now formally defined as 1/100,000 of a sidereal day.
The rest of Neanderthal timekeeping is mostly based on decimal multiples of the base units. Here are the standard units, in ascending order of duration, and their approximate equivalents in our units:
Neanderthal unit
Equivalent
beat
0.86 seconds
hundredbeat
86 seconds
daytenth
2.39 hours
day
1 sidereal day
month (all of identical length)
29 days 12 hours 44 minutes
tenmonth
295.32 days
year
1 sidereal year
hundredmonth
8.085 sidereal years
generation
10 years (1 decade)
thousandmonth
80.853 years
(Very roughly, one can think of a beat as a second, a hundredbeat as a minute, a tenmonth as a year, a hundredmonth as a decade, and a thousandmonth as a century.)
The Month
The Neanderthals divide the month both into its obvious quarters (new moon, waxing half-moon, full moon, waning half-moon), and into specific groupings based on menstrual cycles:
Day
Event
1
new moon
1–5
peak menstruation
8
waxing half-moon (first quarter)
10–17
pregnancy possible
15
full moon
15
peak ovulation
22
waning half-moon (last quarter)
25–29
“Last Five”
Generations
Generations are born every ten years. The year is used as the basis for generational calculation because births are timed to always occur in the spring; infant-mortality rates are reduced by giving the child eight months before having to face its first winter.
Calendar dates are designated by three numbers: the generation number, the month within that generation, and the day within that month: 148/118/28 is the 28th day (when the moon is a mere sliver, and about to disappear) of the 118th month (the middle of the ninth year) of the 148th generation since the founding of the modern Neanderthal calendar (which happened in the year we call A.D. 523).
Generation
Year
Begun
(A.D.)
Current Age
Members
(years)
Members
148
1993
9
Megameg Bek, Dab
147
1983
19
Jasmel Ket
146
1973
29
145
1963
39
Ponter, Adikor, Daklar Bolbay
144
1953
49
143
1943
59
Dabdalb (keeper of alibis)
142
1933
69
Sard (adjudicator)
141
1923
79
The Companion Era began when Lonwis Trob introduced the implants near the end of generation 140, in the year we call A.D. 1922.
Further Reading
In addition to speaking directly with the experts on Neanderthals mentioned in the Acknowledgments, I also consulted hundreds of books, magazine and journal articles, and web sites. For those who might be interested in following up on ideas explored in this novel, I offer this list of some of the books I found particularly stimulating:
General Paleoanthropology
Klein, Richard G. The Human Career: Human Biological and Cultural Origins, 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
Lieberman, Philip. Eve Spoke: Human Language and Human Evolution. New York: W. W. Norton, 1998.
Potts, Rick. Humanity’s Descent: The Consequences of Ecological Instability. New York: Avon, 1996.
Tattersall, Ian. Becoming Human: Evolution and Human Uniqueness. New York: A Harvest Book (Harcourt Brace), 1999.
Tattersall, Ian, and Jeffrey Schwartz. Extinct Humans.
Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2000.
Tattersall, Ian. The Fossil Trail: How We Know What We Think We Know about Human Evolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Wolpoff, Milford H. Paleoanthropology, 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1999.
Wolpoff, Milford, and Rachel Caspari. Race and Human Evolution. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1997.
Neanderthals
Jordan, Paul. Neanderthal: Neanderthal Man and the Story of Human Origins. Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 1999.
Mellars, Paul. The Neanderthal Legacy: An Archaeological Perspective from Western Europe. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1996.
Palmer, Douglas. Neanderthal. London: Channel 4 Books (Macmillan), 2000.
Shreeve, James. The Neandertal Enigma: Solving the Mystery of Modern Human Origins. New York: William Morrow, 1995.
Stringer, Christopher, and Clive Gamble. In Search of the Neanderthals: Solving the Puzzle of Human Origins. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1993.
Tattersall, Ian. The Last Neanderthal: The Rise, Success, and Mysterious Extinction of Our Closest Human Relatives. New York: Macmillan, 1995.
Trinkaus, Erik, and Pat Shipman. The Neandertals: Changing the Image of Mankind. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.
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