Humans

by neetha Napew

  “A week is a cluster of seven days?” asked Ponter, looking at Mary. She nodded. “Yes, then, that is right,” Ponter said. “All the rest of one’s time can be devoted to other activities. From the beginning, we have had much surplus time.”

  “Ponter’s right,” said Henry Running Deer. “Fifteen hours per week is the average work load today for hunter-gatherers on this Earth, too.”

  “Really?” said Angela, setting down her glass.

  Henry nodded. “Agriculture was the first human activity for which rewards were directly proportional to effort. If you worked eighty hours a week plowing fields, your yield was twice as much as if you worked forty. Hunting and gathering isn’t like that: if you hunt full-time, you’ll kill off all the prey in your territory; it’s actually counterproductive to work too hard as a hunter.”

  Dieter returned, placing glasses in front of Mary and Ponter, then sitting back down.

  “But how do you get permanent settlement without agriculture?” asked Angela.

  Henry frowned. “You’ve got it wrong. It’s not agriculture that gives rise to permanent habitation. It’s hunting and gathering.”

  “But-no, no. I remember from school-“

  “And how many Native Americans taught at your school?” asked Henry Running Deer in an icy tone.

  “None, but-“

  Henry looked at Ponter, then back at Mary. “Whites rarely understand this point, but it’s absolutely true. Hunter-gatherers stay put. To live off the land requires knowing it intimately: which plants grow where, where the big animals come to drink, where the birds lay their eggs. It takes a lifetime to really know a territory. To move somewhere else is to throw out all that hard-won knowledge.”

  Mary lifted her eyebrows. “But farmers need to put down roots-umm, so to speak.”

  Henry didn’t acknowledge the pun. “Actually, farmers are itinerant over a period of generations. Hunter-gatherers keep their family sizes small; after all, extra mouths to feed increase the work that an adult has to do. But farmers want big families: each child is another laborer to send out into the fields, and the more kids you have, the less work you have to do yourself.”

  Ponter was listening with interest; his translator bleeped softly now and again, but he seemed to be following along.

  “I guess that makes sense,” Angela said, but her voice sounded dubious.

  “It does,” said Henry. “But as the farmers’ offspring grow up, they have to move on and start their own farms. Ask a farmer where his great-great-grandfather lived, and he’ll name some place far away; ask a hunter-gatherer, and he’ll say ‘right here.’”

  Mary thought about her own parents, living in Calgary; her grandparents in England and Ireland and Wales, and-God, she didn’t have a clue where her great-grandparents had been from, let alone her great-great-grandparents.

  “A territory isn’t something you abandon lightly,” continued Henry. “That’s why hunter-gatherers value the elderly so much.”

  Mary still stung from Ponter thinking her foolish for dyeing her hair. “Tell me about that,” she said.

  Henry took a sip of his beer, then: “Farmers, they value the young, because farming is a business of brute strength. But hunting and gathering are based on knowledge. The more years you can remember back, the more you see the patterns, the more you know the territory.”

  “Wedo value our elders,” said Ponter. “There is no substitute for wisdom.”

  Mary nodded. “We actually knew that about Neanderthals,” she said, “based on the fossil record here. But I didn’t understand why.”

  “I’m anAustralopithecus specialist,” said Angela. “What fossils are you referring to?”

  “Well,” said Mary, “the specimen known asLa-Chapelle-aux-Saints had paralysis and arthritis, and a broken jaw, and most of his teeth were gone. He had obviously been looked after for years; there was no way he could have fended for himself. Indeed, someone probably had to pre-chew his food for him. ButLa Chapelle was forty when he died-ancient by the standards of a people who usually lived only into their twenties. What a storehouse of knowledge he must have had about his tribe’s territory! Decades of experience! Same thing withShanidar I , from Iraq. That poor fellow was also forty or so, and was in even worse shape thanLa Chapelle; blind in his left eye and missing his right arm.”

  Henry whistled a few notes. It took Mary a second, but she did recognize them: the theme fromThe Six Million Dollar Man . She smiled and went on. “He, too, was looked after, not out of some sense of charity, but because a person that old was a fount of hunting knowledge.”

  “That may be,” said Angela, sounding a bit defensive, “but, still, it was farmers who built cities, farmers who had technology. In Europe, in Egypt-places where people farmed-there’ve been cities for thousands of years.”

  Henry Running Deer looked at Ponter, as if appealing for support. Ponter just tipped his head, passing the floor back to the Native American. “You think Europeans had technology-metallurgy and all that-and we Natives didn’t because of some inherent superiority?” asked Henry. “Is that what you think?”

  “No, no,” said poor Angela. “Of course not. But...”

  “Europeans had that sort of technology purely by the luck of the draw. Collectible ores right on the surface; flints for making stone tools. You ever tried chipping granite, which is mostly what we’ve got here? It makes lousy arrowheads.”

  Mary hoped Angela would just let it go, but she didn’t. “It wasn’t just tools that the Europeans had. They also were clever enough to domesticate animals-beasts of burden to work for them. Native Americans never domesticated any of the animals here.”

  “They didn’t domesticate them because theycouldn’t,” said Henry. “There are just fourteen large domesticable herbivores on this entire planet, and only one of those-the reindeer-is naturally found in North America, and it only in the far north. The five major domesticates are all Eurasian in origin: sheep, goats, cattle, horses, and pigs. The other nine are minor players, like camels-geographically isolated. Youcan’t domesticate the North American megafauna-moose or bear or deer or bison or mountain lion. They simply aren’t temperamentally suited to it. Oh, you can perhaps capture them in the wild, but you can’t rear them, and they won’t take riders no matter how hard you try to break them.” Henry’s voice grew cold as he went on. “It wasn’t superior intelligence that led to Europeans having what they did. In fact, you could argue that we Natives here in North America showedmore brains by surviving and thriving in theabsence of metals and domesticable herbivores.”

  “But there were some Indians-I’m sorry, some Natives-who farmed,” said Angela.

  “Sure. But what did they farm? Corn, mostly-because that was what was here. And corn is very low in protein, compared to the cereal grains that all came from Eurasia.”

  Angela looked now at Ponter. “But-but Neanderthals: they originated in Europe, not North America.”

  Henry nodded. “And they had great stone tools: the Mousterian Industry.”

  “But they didn’t domesticate animals, even though you said there were plenty in Europe that could have been. And they didn’t farm.”

  “Hello!” said Henry. “Earth to Angela!No onedomesticated animals when the Neanderthals lived on this Earth. And no one farmed then-not Ponter’s ancestors, and not yours or mine. Farming began in the Fertile Crescent 10,500 years ago. That was long after the Neanderthals had died out-at least, in this time line. Who knows what they would have done had they survived?”

  “I do,” said Ponter, simply.

  Mary laughed.

  “All right,” said Henry. “Then tell us. Your people never developed agriculture, right?”

  “That is right,” said Ponter.

  Henry nodded. “You’re probably better off without farming, anyway. A lot of bad stuff goes along with agriculture.”

  “Like what?” said Mary, being careful, now that Henry had apparently calmed down a bit, to have her voice convey cu
riosity rather than a challenge.

  “Well,” said Henry, “I already alluded to overpopulation. And the effect on the land is obvious: forests are chopped down to make farmland. Plus, of course, there are the diseases that come from domesticated animals.”

  Mary saw that Ponter was nodding. Reuben Montego had explained that to them back in Sudbury.

  Dieter-who turned out to be pretty sharp for an aluminum siding guy-nodded. “And there’s more to it than just physical diseases; there are cultural diseases. Slavery, for instance: that’s a direct product of agriculture’s need for labor.”

  Mary looked at Ponter, feeling uncomfortable. That was the second reference to slavery Ponter had heard here in Washington. Mary knew she had some ‘splaining to d o...

  “That’s right,” said Henry. “Most slaves were plantation workers. And even when you don’t have literal slavery, agriculture gives rise to what amounts to the same thing: share cropping, peonage, and so on. Not to mention the class-based society, feudalism, landowners, and all that; they’re all directly a product of agriculture.”

  Angela shifted in her chair. “But even when it came to hunting, the archeological record showed our ancestors were much better at it than were the Neanderthals,” she said.

  Ponter had looked lost during the discussion of agriculture and feudalism. But he had clearly understood Angela’s last statement. “In what way?” he asked.

  “Well,” said Angela, “we don’t see any evidence of efficiency in your ancestors’ approach to hunting.”

  Ponter frowned. “How do you mean?”

  “Neanderthals only killed animals one at a time.” As soon as the words were out, Angela clearly realized she’d made a mistake.

  Ponter’s eyebrow went up. “How did your ancestors hunt?”

  Angela looked uncomfortable. “Well, um...what we used to do, was, well, we used to drive whole herds of animals off cliffs, killing hundreds at once.”

  Ponter’s golden eyes were wide. “But-but that is so...soprofligate,” he said. “Surely even your large populations could not make use of all that meat. And, besides, it seems cowardly to kill like that.”

  “I-I don’t know that I’d put it that way,” said Angela, reddening. “I mean, we think of it as foolhardy to put yourself at unnecessary risk, so-“

  “You jump out of airplanes,” said Ponter. “You dive off cliffs. You turn punching and hitting into an organized sport. I have seen this all on television.”

  “We don’tall do those things,” said Mary, gently.

  “All right, then,” said Ponter. “But in addition to hazardous sports, I have seen other behaviors that are common. He gestured toward the bar. “Smoking tobacco, drinking alcohol, both of which I am given to understand are dangerous, and”-he nodded at Henry-“both of which, incidentally, are products of agriculture. Surely those activities qualify as ‘unnecessary risks.’ How can you kill animals in such a cowardly fashion, but then take such risks as-oh, oh, wait. I see. I think I see.”

  “What?” said Mary.

  “Yes, what?” asked Henry.

  “Give me a moment,” said Ponter, clearly pursuing an elusive thought. A few seconds later, he nodded, having captured what he was after. “You Gliksins drink alcohol, smoke, and engage in hazardous sports to demonstrate yourresidual capacity . You are saying to those around you, see, here, during flush times, I can run myself down substantially, and still function well, thereby proving to prospective mates that I am not currently operating at the peak of my abilities. Therefore, in lean times, I will obviously have the excess strength and endurance to still be a good provider.”

  “Really?” said Mary. “What a fascinating notion!”

  “I understand it, because my kind does the same thing-but in other ways. When we hunt-“

  Mary got it in a flash. “When hunting,” she said, “youdon’t take the easy way out. You don’t drive animals off cliffs, or throw spears at them from a safe distance-something my ancestors did, but yours did not, at least on this version of Earth. No, here your people engaged in close-quarters attacks on prey animals, fighting them one-on-one, and thrusting spears into them by hand. I guess itis the same thing as smoking and drinking: look, honey, I can bring down supper with my bare hands, so if things get tough, and I have to hunt in safer ways, you can be sure I’ll still bring home the bacon.”

  “Exactly,” said Ponter.

  Mary nodded. “It makes sense.” She gestured at a thin man sitting on the opposite side of the bar. “Erik Trinkaus, there, found that many Neanderthal fossils showed the same sort of upper-body injuries we find in modern rodeo riders, as if they’d been bucked by animals, presumably while in close combat with them.”

  “Oh, yes, indeed,” said Ponter. “I have been thrown by a mammoth now and again, and-“

  “You’ve what?”said Henry.

  “Been thrown by a mammoth...”

  “Amammoth?” repeated Angela, agog.

  Mary grinned. “I can see we’re going to be here a while. Let me get everyone another round...”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  “Excuse me, Ambassador Prat,” said the young male aide, entering the lounge at the United Nations. “A diplomatic pouch has arrived for you from Sudbury.”

  Tukana Prat glanced at the ten esteemed Neanderthals who were variously sitting down, looking out the huge window, or lying on their backs on the floor. She sighed. “I’ve been expecting this,” she said to them in their language, then, letting her Companion translate, she thanked the aide and took the leather pouch with the Canadian coat of arms tooled into it.

  Inside was a memory bead. Tukana opened the faceplate on her Companion and inserted the bead. She told her Companion to play the message through its external speaker, so that everyone in the room could hear.

  “Ambassador Tukana Prat,” said Councilor Bedros’s furious voice, “what you’ve done is inexcusable. I-we-the High Gray Council-insist that you and those you duped into traveling with you return at once. We’re”-he paused, and Tukana thought she could hear him swallow, presumably trying to calm down-“we’re very concerned about the safety of all of them. The contributions they make to our society are inestimable. You, and they, must return to Saldak immediately upon receipt of this message.”

  Lonwis Trob shook his ancient head. “Young whippersnapper.”

  “Well, there’s no way they’re going to close the portal with us on this side,” said Derba Jonk, the stem-cell expert.

  “That much is certain,” said Dor Farrer, the poet, grinning.

  Tukana nodded. “I want to thank you all again for agreeing to come with me here. I assume no one wants to heed Councilor Bedros’s request?”

  “Are you kidding?” said Lonwis Trob, his blue mechanical eyes turning to Tukana. “I haven’t had so much fun in ten months.”

  Tukana smiled. “All right,” she said. “Let’s go over our schedules for tomorrow. Krik, you are to perform in the morning on a video program calledGood Morning America; they’re covering the expenses to have an ice-horn flown down overnight from the portal, and, yes, they understand that it has to be kept frozen. Jalsk, the U.S. track team for something called ‘the Olympics’ is coming to New York to meet you tomorrow; that will take place at the New York University athletics center. Dor, a Gliksin named Ralph Vicinanza, who is what they call a literary agent, wants to take you out for a midday meal. Adjudicator Harbron and Scholar Klimilk, you’re lecturing at the Columbia Law School tomorrow afternoon. Borl, you and a UN official are to appear on something calledThe Late Show with David Letterman, which will be recorded in the afternoon. Lonwis, you and I are scheduled to speak tomorrow night at the Rose Center for Earth and Space. And, of course, there are a slew of meetings we have to attend here at the United Nations.”

  Kobast Gant, the AI expert, smiled. “I bet my old buddy Ponter Boddit is glad we’re here. It must be taking some of the pressure off him; I know how he hates to be the center of attention.”

  Tuka
na nodded. “Yes, I’m sure he can use some rest, after what happened to him...”

  Ponter, Mary, and the ever-present FBI man finally left the hotel bar and headed toward the bank of elevators. They were alone; no one else was waiting for a ride, and the night clerk at the front desk, dozens of meters away, was seated, quietly reading a copy ofUSA Today while munching on one of the free Granny Smith apples the hotel provided.

  “It’s past the end of my shift, ma’am,” said Carlos. “Agent Burstein is on duty on your floor, and he’ll keep an eye on you up there.”

  “Thank you, Carlos,” said Mary.

  He nodded, and spoke into a small communications device. “Foxy Lady and Beef cake are on their way up.” Mary smiled. When told they were to be assigned code names by the FBI-which wasso cool-she’d asked if she could choose them. Carlos turned his attention back to Mary and Ponter. “Good night, ma’am. Good night, sir.” But of course he didn’t leave the hotel; he just stepped a discreet distance away and waited until the elevator arrived.

  Mary suddenly felt a bit flush, although she knew it was actually less warm here than it had been in the bar. And, no, it wasn’t that she was nervous about the fact that she’d be alone with Ponter in the elevator. A strange man-yes, that would probably creep her out for the rest of her life. But Ponter? No. Never.

  Still, Marydid feel warm. She found her eyes searching for anything other than Ponter’s golden brown irises. She looked at the LEDs indicating what floors the five elevators were on; she looked at the framed notice above the call button advertising the hotel’s Sunday brunch; she looked at the emergency notice for firefighters.

  One of the elevators arrived, and its doors opened with an interesting drumroll sound. Ponter made a gallant after you gesture with his arm, and Mary entered the lift, waving goodbye to Carlos, who nodded solemnly. Ponter followed her in and looked at the control panel. He was fine at reading numerals-the Neanderthals might never have developed an alphabet, but they did have a decimal counting system, including a place holder sign for zero. He reached over and tapped the square labeled 12, and smiled as it illuminated.