Louise Benoît shook her head. “I don’t like thinking of a terrorist, or an assassin, or whatever the hell he was, as one of ‘our guys.’”
“Neither do I,” said Jock. “But that’s what it amounts to. The game is Gliksin versus Neanderthal; us versus them. And somebody has to make the next move.”
“We could apologize,” said Kevin Bilodeau, leaning back in the chair he’d taken. “Bend over backward telling them how sorry we are.”
“I say we wait and see what they do,” said Lilly.
“And what if what they do is slam the door?” said Jock, wheeling to face her. “What if they pull the goddamned plug on their quantum computer?” He turned to Louise. “How close are you to replicating their technology?”
Louise made a pffft! sound. “Are you kidding? I’ve barely begun.”
“We can’t let them close the portal,” said Kevin.
“What are you suggesting?” sneered one of the sociologists, a heavyset white man of fifty. “That we send over troops to prevent them from shutting down the portal?”
“Maybe we should do that,” said Jock.
“You can’t be serious!” said Louise.
“Have you got a better idea?” snapped Jock.
“They’re not idiots, you know,” said Louise. “I’m sure they’ve rigged some sort of fail-safe at their end to prevent us from doing precisely that.”
“Maybe,” said Jock. “Maybe not.”
“It would be a diplomatic nightmare to seize the portal,” said Rasmussen, a rough-hewn type whose field was geopolitics; he’d been trying to work out what core political units the Neanderthals might have, given that the geography of their world was the same as that of this one. “The Suez Crisis all over again.”
“Damn it,” said Krieger, kicking over a wastebasket. “God damn it.” He shook his head. “The whole point of game theory is to work out the best realistic outcome for both sides in a conflict. But this isn’t like nuclear brinksmanship—it’s like schoolyard basketball. Unless we do something, the Neanderthals can take the ball and go home, putting an end to everything!”
Tukana Prat had flown Air Canada from JFK to Toronto’s Pearson, and then from there via Air Ontario up to Sudbury, accompanied the whole way by Hélène Gagné. A car was waiting for them at the Sudbury Airport, and it whisked them to the Creighton Mine. The ambassador rode down the elevator, went along the SNO drift to the neutrino-observatory chamber, and headed back through the Derkers tube, across to the other side—to her side.
And now she was meeting in the Alibi Archive Pavilion with High Gray councilor Bedros, who, because the portal was in his region, was looking after all matters related to contact with the Gliksins.
The images Tukana’s Companion implant—with its enhanced memory capacity—had recorded on the other side had now been uploaded to her alibi archive, and she and Bedros had watched the whole sorry mess unfold in the holo-bubble floating in front of them.
“There’s really no question about what we should do,” said Bedros. “As soon as he is well enough to leave the Gliksin hospital, we must recall Ponter Boddit. And then we should sever the link with the Gliksin world.”
“I—I don’t know if that’s necessarily the correct response,” said Tukana. “Ponter will be all right, apparently. It is a Gliksin who is dead.”
“Only because he missed,” said Bedros.
“Yes, but—”
“No buts, Ambassador. I’m going to recommend to the Council that we permanently shut the portal as soon as we can get Scholar Boddit back.”
“Please,” said Tukana. “There is an opportunity here that is too valuable to pass up.”
“They have never had a purging of their gene pool,” snapped Bedros. “The most abhorrent, dangerous traits still run rampant throughout their population.”
“I understand that, but nonetheless…”
“And they carry weapons! Not for hunting, but for killing each other. And how many days did it take before such weapons were turned against members of our kind?” Bedros shook his head. “Ponter Boddit told us what happened to our kind on their world—remember, he learned that on his previous trip. They—the Gliksins—exterminated us. Now, think about that, Ambassador Prat. Think about it! Physically, the Gliksins are puny. Weakling stick figures! And yet they managed to wipe us out there, despite our greater strength and our bigger brains. How could they possibly have accomplished that?”
“I have no idea. Besides, Ponter only said that was one theory about what had happened to us in their world.”
“They wiped us out through treachery,” continued Bedros, as if Tukana hadn’t spoken. “Through deceit. Through unimaginable violence. Swarms of them, armed with rocks and spears, must have poured into our valleys, overwhelming us with sheer numbers, until the blood of our kind soaked the ground and every last one of us was dead. That’s their history. That’s their way. It would be madness for us to leave a portal open between our two worlds.”
“The portal is deep within the rocks, and can accommodate only one or two people traveling through it at a time. I really don’t think we have to worry about—”
“I can hear our ancestors saying the same things, half a million months ago. ‘Oh, look! Another kind of humanity! Well, I’m sure we have nothing to worry about. After all, the entrances to our valleys are narrow.’”
“We don’t know for sure that that’s what happened,” said Tukana.
“Why take the risk?” asked Bedros. “Why risk it, for even one more day?”
Tukana Prat shut off the holo-bubble and paced slowly back and forth. “I learned something difficult in that other world,” she said softly. “I learned that, by their standards, I am not much of a diplomat. I speak too succinctly and too plainly. And yes, I will plainly say that there are many unpleasant things about these people. You are right when you call them violent. And the damage they have done to their environment is beyond calculation. But they have greatness in them, too. Ponter is right when he says they will go to the stars.”
“Good riddance to them,” said Bedros.
“Don’t say that. I saw works of art in their world that were astonishingly beautiful. They are different from us, and there are things by character and temperament that they can do that we cannot—wondrous things.”
“But one of them tried to kill you!”
“One, yes. Out of six billion.” Tukana was silent for a moment. “Do you know what the biggest difference between them and us is?”
Bedros looked like he was about to make a sarcastic remark, but thought better of it. “Tell me,” he said.
“They believe there is a purpose to all this.” Tukana spread her arms, encompassing everything around her. “They believe there is a meaning to life.”
“Because they have deluded themselves into thinking the universe has a guiding intelligence.”
“In part, yes. But it goes deeper than that. Even their atheists—the ones among them who don’t believe in their God—search for meaning, for explanations. We exist—but they live. They seek.”
“We seek, too. We engage in science.”
“But we do it out of practicality. We want a better tool, so we study until we can make one. But they preoccupy themselves with what they themselves call big questions: Why are we here? What is all this for? ”
“Those are meaningless questions.”
“Are they?”
“Of course they are!”
“Perhaps you’re right,” said Tukana Prat. “But perhaps not. Perhaps they are getting close to answering them, close to a new enlightenment.”
“And then they’ll stop trying to kill each other? Then they’ll stop raping their environment?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. There is goodness in them.”
“There is death in them. The only way we will survive contact with them is if they kill themselves off before they manage to kill us.”
Tukana closed her eyes. “I know you mean well, Councilor Bedr
os, and—”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“I’m not. I understand you have the best interests of our people at heart. But so do I. And my perspective is that of a diplomat.”
“An incompetent diplomat,” snapped Bedros. “Even the Gliksins think so!”
“I—”
“Or do you always kill the natives?”
“Look, Councilor, I am as upset about that as you are, but—”
“Enough!” shouted Bedros. “Enough! We never should have let Boddit push us into doing this in the first place. It’s time for older and wiser heads to prevail.”
Chapter Nineteen
Mary stepped quietly into Ponter’s hospital room. The surgeons had had no trouble removing the bullet—postcranial Neanderthal anatomy was close to that of Homo sapiens, after all, and Hak had apparently conversed with them throughout the entire procedure. Ponter had lost enough blood that a transfusion would normally have been in order, but it had seemed best to avoid that until much more was known about Neanderthal hematology. A saline drip was hooked up to Ponter’s arm, and Hak had frequent dialogues with the physicians about Ponter’s condition.
Ponter had been unconscious most of the time since the surgery. Indeed, during it, he’d been given an injection to put him to sleep, using a chemical from his medical belt, as instructed by Hak.
Mary watched Ponter’s broad chest rise and fall. She thought back to the first time she’d seen him, which had also been in a hospital room. Then, she’d looked at him with astonishment. She hadn’t believed a modern Neanderthal was possible.
Now, though, she didn’t look at him as a bizarre specimen, as a freak, as an impossibility. Now, she looked at him with love. And her heart was breaking.
Suddenly, Ponter’s eyes opened. “Mare,” he said, softly.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Mary said, crossing over to the bed.
“I was already awake,” said Ponter. “Hak had been playing some music for me. And then I smelled you.”
“How are you?” asked Mary, drawing a metal-framed chair up next to the bed.
Ponter pulled back his sheet. His hairy chest was naked, but a large pad of gauze, stained russet with dried blood, was held to his shoulder with white medical tape.
“I am to live,” he said.
“I am so sorry this happened to you,” said Mary.
“How is Tukana?” asked Ponter.
Mary raised her eyebrows, surprised that Ponter had not been informed. “She chased the man who shot you.”
A wan smile touched Ponter’s broad mouth. “I suspect he is in worse shape than she, then.”
“I’ll say,” said Mary softly. “Ponter, she killed him.”
Ponter said nothing for a moment. “We rarely take justice into our own hands.”
“I listened to them arguing about that on TV while you were in surgery,” Mary said. “Most are of the opinion that it was self-defense.”
“How did she kill him?”
Mary shrugged a bit, acknowledging there was no nice way to say this. “She smashed his head into the pavement, and it…it burst open.”
Ponter was quiet for a time. “Oh,” he said at last. “What will happen to her?”
Mary frowned. She’d once read a courtroom drama that The Globe and Mail had raved about in which an extraterrestrial was put on trial in L.A., charged with murdering a human. But there was one key difference here…
“We exempt recognized foreign ambassadors from most laws; it’s called ‘diplomatic immunity,’ and Tukana has it, since she was appearing at the UN under the umbrella of being a Canadian diplomat.”
“What do you mean?”
Mary frowned, looking for an example. “In 2001, Andrei Kneyazev, a Russian diplomat in Canada, got drunk and ran into two pedestrians with his car. He faced no charges in Canada because he was the representative of a recognized foreign government, even though one of the people he hit died. That’s diplomatic immunity.”
Ponter’s deep-set eyes were wide.
“And, in any event, hundreds of people apparently saw this guy shoot you, and shoot at Tukana, before she…um, reacted …the way she did. As I say, it will probably be considered selfdefense.”
“Nonetheless,” said Ponter, softly, “Tukana is a person of good character. It will weigh heavily on her mind.” A beat. “Are you sure there is no danger now to her?” He tilted his head. “After what happened to Adikor when I disappeared, I guess I am a bit wary of legal systems.”
“Ponter, she’s already gone back home—to your world. She said she needed to speak to…what do you call it? The Gray Council.”
“The High Gray Council,” said Ponter, “if you are referring to the world government.” A beat. “What about the dead man?”
Mary frowned. “His name was Cole—Rufus Cole. They’re still trying to figure out who he was, and exactly what he had against you and Tukana.”
“What are the options?”
Mary was momentarily confused. “Sorry?”
“The options,” repeated Ponter. “The possible reasons he might have had for trying to kill us.”
Mary lifted her shoulders slightly. “He could have been a religious fanatic: someone opposed to your atheistic stance, or even to your very existence, since it contradicts the biblical account of creation.”
Ponter’s eyes went wide. “Killing me would not have erased the fact that I had existed.”
“Granted. But, well—I’m just guessing here—Cole might have thought you an instrument of Satan—”
Mary cringed as she heard the bleep.
“The Devil. The Evil One. God’s opponent.”
Ponter was agog. “God has an opponent?”
“Yes—well, I mean, that’s what the Bible says. But except for Fundamentalists—those who take every word of the Bible as literally true—most people don’t really believe in Satan anymore.”
“Why not?” asked Ponter.
“Well, I guess because it’s a ridiculous belief. You know, only a fool could take the concept seriously.”
Ponter opened his mouth to say something, apparently thought better of it, and closed his mouth again.
“Anyway,” said Mary, speaking quickly; she really didn’t want to get mired in this. “He might also have been an agent of a foreign government or terrorist group. Or…”
Ponter raised his eyebrow, inviting her to go on.
Mary shrugged again. “Or he might just have been crazy.”
“You let crazy people possess weapons?” asked Ponter.
Mary’s natural Canadian thought was that they were the only ones who wanted them, but she kept that to herself. “That’s actually the best thing to hope for,” she said. “If he was crazy, acting alone, then there’s no special reason to worry about something like this happening again. But if he’s part of some terrorist group…”
Ponter looked down—and, of course, his gaze fell on his bandaged chest. “I had hoped that it would be safe for my daughters to visit this world.”
“I would so much like to meet them,” said Mary.
“What would have happened to this—this Rufus Cole…” Ponter frowned. “Imagine that! A Gliksin name I can say without difficulty, and it belonged to someone who wanted me dead! In any event, what would have happened to this Rufus Cole had he not been killed?”
“A trial,” said Mary. “If he had been found guilty, he would probably have gone to jail.”
Hak bleeped again.
“Umm, a secure institution, where criminals are kept separate from the general population.”
“You say, ‘if he had been found guilty.’ He did shoot me.”
“Yes, but…well, if he were crazy, that would be a defense. He might be found not guilty by reason of insanity.”
Ponter lifted his eyebrow again. “Would it not make more sense to determine if someone is insane before you let them have the gun, rather than after they have used it?”
Mary nodded. “I couldn’t ag
ree with you more. But, nonetheless, there it is.”
“What if…if I had been killed? Or Tukana had? What would have happened to this man then?”
“Here? In the States? He might have been executed.”
The inevitable bleep.
“Put to death. Killed, as punishment for his crime, and as a deterrent to others who might contemplate the same thing.”
Ponter moved his head left and right, his blond-brown hair making a whooshing sound against his pillow. “I would not have wanted that,” he said. “No one deserves a premature death, not even one who would wish it on others.”
“Come on, Ponter,” said Mary, surprising herself with the sharpness of her tone. “Can you really be that…that Christlike? The bloody guy tried to kill you. Are you really worried about what would have happened to him?”
Ponter was quiet for a time. He didn’t say, although Mary knew he could have, that someone had tried to kill him once before; during his first visit, he’d told Mary that his jaw had been shattered in his youth by a furious blow. Rather, he simply lifted his eyebrow and said, “It is moot, in any event. This Rufus Cole is no more.”
But Mary wasn’t ready to let it pass. “When you were hit, all those—all those months ago—the person who did it had not premeditated it, and he was immediately filled with regret; you told me so yourself. But Rufus Cole had clearly planned in advance to kill you. Surely that makes a difference.”
Ponter shifted slightly on the hospital bed. “I will live,” he said. “Beyond that, nothing after the fact could erase the scar I will bear until my dying day.”
Mary shook her head, but she managed a good-humored tone. “Sometimes you’re just too good to be true, Ponter.”
“I have no response for that,” said Ponter.
Mary smiled. “Which just proves my point.”
“But I do have a question.”
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