Humans np-2

by Robert J. Sawyer

  A moment later, the door opened, and there was another female Neanderthal. “Healthy day,” said the woman, or, at least, that’s how Mary’s unit translated the sounds she made.

  “Hello,” said Mary. “Uh, just a sec…” There was plenty of light spilling out through the open door. Mary glanced down at the compass needle, and felt her eyebrows lifting in astonishment. The colored end of the needle—metallic blue, as opposed to the naked silver of the other end—was pointing toward Polaris, just as it would have on Mary’s side of the portal. Despite what Jock had said, it seemed this version of Earth hadn’t yet undergone a magnetic-field reversal.

  Mary spent a pleasant night at Lurt’s home, meeting Adikor’s young son Dab, and the rest of Lurt’s family. The only truly awkward moment came when she needed to use the bathroom. Lurt showed her the chamber, but Mary was absolutely flummoxed by the unit in front of her. After staring dumbly at it for most of a minute, she reemerged from the chamber, and called Lurt over.

  “I’m sorry,” Mary said, “but…well, it’s nothing like a toilet in my world. I don’t have any idea how to…”

  Lurt laughed. “I am sorry!” she said. “Here. You place your feet in these stirrups, and you grab these overhead rings like this…”

  Mary realized she’d have to completely remove her pants to make it work, but there was a hook on the wall that seemed designed to hold them. It actually was quite comfortable, although she yelped in surprise when a moist sponge like thing came in of its own accord to clean her when she was done.

  Mary did notice that there was no reading matter in the bathroom. Her own, back home in Toronto, had the latest copies of The Atlantic Monthly, Canadian Geographic, Utne Reader, Country Music, and World of Crosswords on the toilet tank. But, even with great plumbing, she supposed that Neanderthals, because of their acute senses of smell, would never dally in the bathroom.

  Mary slept that night on a pile of cushions arranged on the floor. At first, she found it uncomfortable: she was used to a more uniformly flat surface, but Lurt showed her how to arrange the pillows just so, providing neck and back support, separating her knees, and so on. Despite all the strangeness, Mary fell rapidly to sleep, absolutely exhausted.

  The next morning, Mary went with Lurt to her work place, which, unlike most of the buildings in the Center, was made entirely of stone—to contain fire or explosion should some experiment go wrong, Lurt explained.

  It seemed that Lurt worked with six other female chemists, and Mary was already falling into the habit of classifying them into generations, although instead of calling them 146s, 145s, 144s, 143s, and 142s, as Ponter did, referring to the number of decades since the dawn of the modern era, Mary thought of them as women who were pushing thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, and seventy years old, respectively. And although Neanderthal women didn’t age quite the same way as Homo sapiens females did—something about the way the browridge pulled on the skin of the forehead seemed to prevent pronounced wrinkling there—Mary had no trouble telling who belonged to which group. Indeed, with generations born in discrete bunches at ten-year intervals, the idea of trying to be coy about one’s age doubtless never even occurred to a female Neanderthal.

  Still, it didn’t take long for Mary to stop thinking of the people at Lurt’s lab as Neanderthals and to start thinking of them as just women. Yes, their appearance was startling—women who looked like linebackers, women with hairy faces—but their mien was decidedly…well, not feminine, Mary thought; that word came loaded with too many expectations. But certainly female: pleasant, cooperative, chatty, collegial instead of competitive, and, all in all, just a whole heck of a lot of fun to be around.

  Of course, Mary was of a generation—hopefully, the last such in her world—in which far fewer women worked in the sciences than men. She’d never been in a department where women were the majority—although it was getting close to that at York—let alone held all the positions. Perhaps in such circumstances, the working environment would be like this on her Earth, too. Mary had grown up in Ontario, which, for historical reasons, had two separate government-funded school boards, one “public”—in the American, not the British, sense—and the other Catholic. Since religious education was only allowed in religious institutions, many Catholic parents had sent their children to the Catholic schools, but Mary’s parents—mostly at her father’s insistence—had opted for the public system. Still, there’d been some talk when she was fourteen about sending her to a Catholic girls’ school. Mary had been struggling back then in math; her father and mother had been told she might do better in an environment without boys. But ultimately her parents had decided to keep her in the public system, since, as her father said, she’d have to deal with men after high school, and so she might as well get used to it. And so Mary’s high school years were spent at East York Collegiate Institute, instead of nearby St. Teresa’s. And although Mary had eventually overcome her mathematical difficulties, despite the co-ed learning, she did sometimes wonder about the benefits of all-girl schools. Certainly, some of the best science students she’d taught at York had come up through such institutions.

  And, indeed, maybe there really was something to be said for extending that notion right into adult life, into the workplace, letting women labor—funny how that word had a double meaning for females, Mary thought—in an environment free of men and their egos.

  Although Neanderthal time keeping quite sensibly divided the day into ten equal parts, starting at the point that was dawn on the vernal equinox, Mary still relied on her Swatch, rather than the cryptic display on her Companion band—after all, although she’d traveled to another universe, she was still in the same time zone.

  Mary was quite used to the rhythm of morning and afternoon coffee breaks, and an hour off for lunch, but the Neanderthal metabolism didn’t let them go that long without eating. There were two long breaks in the workday, one at about 11:00A. M. , and the other at about 3:00P .M ., and at both of them, great quantities of food were consumed, including raw meat—the same laser technique that killed infections inside people made uncooked meat quite safe to eat, and Neanderthal jaws were more than up to the task. But Mary’s stomach wasn’t; she sat with Lurt and her colleagues while they ate, but tried to keep from looking at their food.

  She could have excused herself during the meal breaks, but this was Lurt’s time off, and Mary wanted to talk with her. She was fascinated by what the Neanderthals knew about genetics—and Lurt seemed quite willing to freely share it all.

  Indeed, Mary learned so much in her short time with Lurt, she was beginning to think just about anything was possible—especially if there were no men around.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Mary had been to a dozen or so weddings over the years—several Catholic, one Jewish, one traditional Chinese, and a few civil services. So she thought she knew in vague terms what to expect at Jasmel’s bonding ceremony.

  She was wrong.

  Of course, she knew that the ceremony could not take place in a hall of worship—the Neanderthals had no such thing. Still, she’d expected some sort of official venue. Instead, the event took place out in the countryside.

  Ponter was already there when a travel cube dropped off Mary; they were the first to arrive, and, since no one was around, they indulged in a long hug.

  “Ah,” said Ponter, after they’d separated, “here they come.” It was bright out here. Mary had discovered she’d forgotten her sunglasses back on the other side, and she had to squint to make out the approaching party. It consisted of three women—one in her late thirties, Mary thought, another who was a teenager, and a child of eight. Ponter looked at Mary, then at the approaching women, and back again. Mary tried to read the expression on his face; had he been one of her own kind, she might have thought it was profound discomfort, as if he’d realized that he’d unexpectedly landed in an awkward situation.

  The three females were walking, and they were coming from the east—from the direction of the Cent
er. The oldest and youngest were carrying nothing, but the middle one had a large pack strapped to her back. As they got nearer, the little girl shouted out, “Daddy!” and ran toward Ponter, who scooped her up in a hug.

  The other two were walking more slowly, the older female keeping pace beside the younger one, who seemed to be trudging along, weighed down by the pack.

  Ponter had now released the eight-year-old, and, holding one of the child’s hands, turned and faced Mary. “Mare, this is my daughter, Mega Bek. Mega, this is my friend, Mare.”

  Mega had clearly had eyes only for her father to this point. She looked Mary up and down. “Wow,” she said at last. “You are a Gliksin, right?”

  Mary smiled. “Yes, I am,” she said, letting her strapped-on Companion translate her words into the Neanderthal tongue.

  “Would you come to my school?” asked Mega. “I would like to show you to the other kids!”

  Mary was a bit startled; she’d never thought of herself as a show-and-tell exhibit. “Umm, if I have the time,” she said.

  The other two had now drawn near. “This is my other daughter, Jasmel Ket,” said Ponter, indicating the eighteen-year-old.

  “Hello,” said Mary. She looked at the girl, but had no idea whether she was considered attractive by Neanderthal standards. Still, she did have her father’s arresting golden eyes. “I’m—” she decided not to embarrass the girl by putting forth a name she wouldn’t be able to pronounce. “I’m Mare Vaughan.”

  “Hello, Scholar Vaughan,” said Jasmel, who must have heard of her before; otherwise, she’d have had no idea how to parse Mary’s name. And, indeed, Jasmel’s next comment confirmed that. “You gave my father that bit of metal,” she said.

  Mary was lost for a moment, but then realization dawned. The crucifix. “Yes,” said Mary.

  “I saw you once before,” said Jasmel, “on a monitor when we were rescuing my father, but…” She shook her head in wonder. “Even so, I still did not really believe it.”

  “Well,” said Mary, “here I am.” She paused. “I hope you don’t mind me coming to your bonding ceremony.”

  Whether she really did or not, Jasmel had her father’s courtesy. “No, of course not. I am delighted you are here.”

  Ponter spoke up quickly, perhaps, thought Mary, detecting that his daughter was secretly displeased, and wanting to move along before the topic came into the open. “And this is—was—my daughter’s guardian.” He looked at the thirty-eight-year-old. “I, ah, hadn’t expected you,” he said.

  The Neanderthal woman’s eyebrow moved up her browridge. “Apparently not,” she said, glancing at Mary.

  “Ah,” said Ponter, “yes, well, this is Mare Vaughan—the woman I told you about from the other side. Mare, this is Daklar Bolbay.”

  “My God,” said Mary, and her Companion bleeped, unable to translate the phrase.

  “Yes?” said Daklar, prodding Mary to try again.

  “I—ah, I mean, pleased to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “And I you,” said Daklar evenly.

  Mary forced a smile and looked away.

  “Daklar,” explained Ponter, “was the woman-mate of my woman-mate, Klast, and so she had served as Jasmel’s guardian. He turned pointedly to Daklar. “Until Jasmel reached the age of majority when she reached 225 months in the spring, that is.”

  Mary tried to follow the undercurrents. It seemed that Ponter was saying that since Daklar had no official role in Jasmel’s life anymore, she shouldn’t be here. Well, Mary could certainly understand Ponter’s discomfort. Daklar, after all, had tried to have Adikor castrated.

  But whatever awkwardness Ponter felt was interrupted by the arrival of still more people: a male and a female Neanderthal, each looking to be approaching fifty.

  “These are Tryon’s parents,” said Ponter. “Bal Durban,” he continued, indicating the male, “and Yabla Pol. Bal, Yabla, this is my friend Mare Vaughan.”

  Bal had a booming voice. “No need to introduce her,” he said. “I’ve been watching you on my Voyeur.”

  Mary tried to suppress a shudder. She’d caught sight of the occasional silver outfit, but she’d had no idea that she had been the object of the Exhibitionists’ attention.

  “Look at you!” said Yabla. “All skin and bones! Do they have enough food in your world?”

  In her whole life, no one had ever referred to Mary as “skin and bones.” She rather liked the sound of it. “Yes,” she said, blushing a bit.

  “Well, tonight we feast,” said Yabla. “One meal cannot undo ten months of neglect, but we will make a good start!”

  Mary smiled politely.

  Bal turned to his woman-mate. “What is keeping that boy of yours?” he said.

  “Who knows?” said Yabla, her tone one of gentle teasing. “He clearly got his time sense from you.”

  “Here he comes,” shouted Jasmel, still wearing her heavy pack.

  Mary looked in the direction the girl was pointing. A figure was emerging in the distance, trudging toward them, something large slung across his shoulders. It looked like it would be several minutes before he closed the distance, though. Mary leaned over to Ponter. “What’s your daughter’s intended’s name again?”

  Ponter frowned for a moment, evidently listening to Hak trying to make sense out of the question. “Oh,” he said at last. “Tryon Rugal.”

  “I don’t understand your names,” said Mary. “I mean, ‘Vaughan’ is my family name: both my parents, both my brothers, and my sister all share it.” She shielded her eyes with a hand as she looked out at the approaching boy again.

  Ponter was looking that way, too, but his browridge was all the shielding he needed. “The last name, the one that is used by the outside world, is chosen by the father; the first name, the one that is used by those one knows well, is chosen by the mother. You see the sense of it? Fathers live at the periphery; mothers in the center. My father chose ‘Boddit’ for me, which means ‘wonderfully handsome’ and my mother chose ‘Ponter,’ which means ‘magnificently intelligent.’”

  “You’re kidding,” said Mary.

  Ponter cracked his giant grin. “Yes, I am. Sorry; I just wanted something as impressive as your own ‘mother of God.’ Seriously, ‘Ponter’ means ‘full moon,’ and ‘Boddit’ is the name of a city in Evsoy, known for its great painters.”

  “Ah,” said Mary. “Then—my God!”

  “Well,” said Ponter, still in a kidding mood, “he certainly is not mine.”

  “No, look!” She pointed at Tryon.

  “Yes?” said Ponter.

  “He’s carrying a deer carcass!”

  “You noticed that?” Ponter smiled. “It is his hunting offering to Jasmel. And in her pack, she has her gathering offering for him.”

  Indeed, Jasmel was finally unslinging her pack. Perhaps, thought Mary, it was traditional to wait until the man had seen that the woman had brought the goods herself. As Tryon came closer, Ponter moved toward him and helped him get the deer off his shoulders.

  Mary’s stomach turned. The deer’s hide was bloody, a half dozen wounds piercing its torso. And, as Tryon bent over, she saw that his own back was slick with deer blood.

  “Does someone have to officiate over the ceremony?” asked Mary.

  Ponter looked confused. “No.”

  “We have a judge or a representative of the church do it,” said Mary.

  “Jasmel and Tryon’s pledges to each other will automatically be recorded at the alibi archives,” said Ponter.

  Mary nodded. Of course.

  Now that Tryon was free of the deer, he ran toward his dear. Jasmel accepted him with open arms, and they hugged tightly, and licked each other’s faces, rather passionately. Mary found herself looking away.

  “Come on,” said Tryon’s father, Bal. “It will take tenths to roast that deer. We should get on with it.”

  The two let go of each other. Mary saw that Jasmel’s hands were now stained red from running them up Tryon�
��s back. It disgusted Mary, but Jasmel just laughed when she noticed it.

  And, without further preamble, the ceremony was apparently under way. “All right,” said Jasmel. “Here we go.” She turned to Tryon. “I promise to hold you in my heart twenty-nine days a month, and to hold you in my arms whenever Two become One.”

  Mary looked at Ponter. The muscles of his wide jaw were bunching; he was clearly moved.

  “I promise,” continued Jasmel, “that your health and your happiness will be as important to me as my own.”

  Daklar was clearly moved, too. After all, as Mary understood it, she and Jasmel had lived together all of Jasmel’s life.

  Jasmel spoke again: “If, at any time, you tire of me, I promise to release you without acrimony, and with the best interests of our children as my highest priority.”

  Mary was impressed by that. How much simpler her own life would have been if she and Colm had made a similar pledge. She looked again at Ponter, and—

  Jesus!

  Daklar had moved to stand next to him, and—Mary could scarcely believe it—the two of them were holding hands!

  It was apparently Tryon’s turn to speak now. “I promise,” he said, “to hold you in my heart twenty-nine days a month, and to hold you in my arms whenever Two become One.”

  Two becoming One, thought Mary. Surely that had already happened once here in the time between Ponter’s first returning home and his reappearance on Mary’s Earth. She’d assumed he’d spent that time alone, but…

  “I promise,” said Tryon, “that your happiness and wellbeing will be as important to me as my own.”

  “If you ever tire of me,” he continued, “I promise to release you without pain, and with the best interests of our children as my highest priority.”