Humans

by neetha Napew

  There’d also been talk about replacing Inco’s old open-cage elevator with a more luxurious, modern one-but that presupposed it would only be used for runs to and from the portal. In fact, the Creighton Mine was an active nickel-harvesting operation, and although Inco had been the soul of cooperation, they still had to move hundreds of miners up and down that shaft each day.

  Indeed, unlike the last time, when Mary and Ponter had had the entire car to themselves, they were sharing this ride with six miners, heading down to the fifty-two-hundred-foot level. The group was evenly mixed between those who were politely looking at the muddy metal floor-there was no inside level indicator to watch studiously as one did in an office-building lift-and those who were staring quite openly at Ponter.

  The elevator thundered down its rough-hewn shaft, passing the forty-six-hundred-foot level-painted signs outside revealed the location. Having been mined out, that level was now used as an arboretum to grow trees for reforestation projects around Sudbury.

  The elevator then shuddered to a stop on the level the miners wanted, and the door rattled up, letting them disembark. Mary watched them depart: men she would have previously thought of as robust specimens, but who had looked positively feeble next to Ponter.

  Ponter operated the bell that signaled the lift operator up on the surface, letting him know the miners were clear. The cab rumbled into motion again. It really was too noisy to talk, anyway-the conversation they’d had the last time had been mostly shouted, for all its delicate content.

  Finally, the cab arrived at the sixty-eight-hundred-foot level. The temperature here was a constant, stifling forty-one degrees Celsius, and the air pressure was thirty percent above that on the surface.

  At least here, the transportation situation had been improved. Instead of having to walk the twelve hundred meters horizontally to the SNO facility, a rather nifty all-terrain vehicle-a kind of dune buggy thing, with a sticker of the SNO logo on its front-was waiting for them. Two more such vehicles were stationed down here now, although the others must have been somewhere else.

  Ponter gestured for Mary to take the driver’s seat. Mary suppressed a grin; the big guy knew a lot of things, but how to drive wasn’t one of them. He got in next to her. Mary took a minute to familiarize herself with the dashboard, and read the various warnings and instructions that had been affixed to it. It didn’t really look any more difficult than a golf cart. She turned the key-it was attached to the dashboard with a chain, so that no one could accidentally walk off with it-and they set off down the tunnel, avoiding the railway tracks used for the ore cars. It normally took twenty minutes to walk to the SNO facility from the elevator station; the cart got them there in four.

  Ironically, now that it was being used for travel to another world, the SNO facility wasn’t being kept in clean-room conditions anymore. A visit to the shower stalls had been mandatory, and although they were still available for those who felt too grimy after the trip down from the surface, Ponter and Mary just walked right past them. And both doors were propped open to the vacuum chamber that used to suck dirt off of visitors to SNO. Ponter shouldered through, and Mary followed behind him.

  They walked past all the Rube Goldberg plumbing contraptions that had once serviced the heavy-water tank, and made their way through the control room-which, as always now, had two armed Canadian Forces guards on hand.

  “Hello, Envoy Boddit,” said one of the guards, rising from the chair he’d been sitting in.

  “Hello,” said Ponter, speaking for himself; he had acquired a couple of hundred words of English by now, which he could use-assuming he could pronounce them-without Hak’s intervention.

  “And you’re Professor Vaughan, aren’t you?” asked the soldier-doubtless, his rank was somehow indicated on his uniform, but Mary had no idea how to read it.

  “That’s right,” Mary said.

  “I’ve seen you on TV,” said the soldier. “First time through for you, isn’t it, ma’am?”

  Mary nodded.

  “Well, I’m sure you’ve been briefed on the procedure. I need to see your passport, and we have to take a DNA sample.”

  Mary did indeed have a passport. She’d first gotten one when she went to Germany to extract DNA from the Neanderthal type specimen at theRheinisches Landesmuseum, and she’d renewed it since-why did Canadian passports last for only five years, instead of the ten that American passports did? She fished the passport out of her purse and presented it to the man. Ironically, she looked older in the photo than she did in life; it had been taken before she started dyeing her hair to cover the gray.

  She then opened her mouth, and let the soldier run a Q-Tip along the inside of her right cheek-the guy’s technique was a little rough, thought Mary; you didn’t have to swipe that hard to get cells to slough off.

  “All right, ma’am,” said the soldier. “Have a safe trip.”

  Mary let Ponter lead the way out onto the metal deck that formed a roof over the ten-story-tall barrel-shaped cavern that used to house the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory. Instead of having to descend through a hatch just a meter on a side, as she’d done the last time she was here, a large opening had been carved into the decking, and an elevator had been installed-Ponter remarked that it was new since his latest arrival. The elevator had acrylic see-through walls; they’d been made especially for this site by Polycast, the company that had manufactured the acrylic panels of which the now-dismantled heavy-water containment sphere had been composed.

  The elevator was the first of many modifications planned for this chamber. If the portal really did stay open for years, the chamber would be filled in with ten stories of facilities, including customs offices, hospital rooms, and even a few hotel suites. Currently, though, the elevator had only two stops: the chamber’s rocky floor, and, three stories above that, the staging area that had been built up around the portal. Ponter and Mary got off at the staging area, a wide wooden platform with yet another couple of soldiers stationed on it. Along one side of the platform were the flags of the United Nations and the three countries that had jointly funded SNO: Canada, the United States, and Great Britain.

  And, in front of her, was-

  It indeed seemed to have acquired the popular name of “the portal,” but because of the Derkers tube protruding through it, it looked more like a tunnel. Mary’s heart was pounding; she couldsee through it-see the Neanderthal world, and-

  My God,thought Mary.My God.

  A brawny figure had passed by the far end of the tunnel, someone working on the other side.

  Another Neanderthal.

  Mary had seen much of Ponter and some of Tukana. Still, she had trouble really accepting that there weremillions of other Neanderthals, but...

  But there was another one, down the tunnel.

  She took a deep breath, and, since Ponter was gallantly indicating she should go first, Mary Vaughan, citizen of one Earth, started walking down the cylindrical bridge that led to another Earth.

  A flat insert had been crafted for the bottom of the Derkers tube, making a smooth walkway. Mary could see the blue ring surrounding the tube, visible through its translucent white walls: the actual portal, the opening, the discontinuity.

  She reached the threshold of that discontinuity, and stopped. Yes, Ponter had gone through in both directions now, and, yes, a number ofHomo sapiens had preceded her in crossing over, but...

  Mary broke into a sweat, and not just because of the subterranean heat.

  Ponter’s hand landed on her shoulder. For one horrible second, Mary thought he was going to push her through.

  But of course he didn’t. “Take your time,” he whispered, in English. “Go when you are comfortable.”

  Mary nodded. She took a deep breath and stepped forward.

  It felt like a ring of ants crawling over her body from front to back as she stepped across the threshold. She’d started with a slow step, but quickly hopped forward to put an end to the unsettling sensation.

  And
there she was-centimeters, and tens of thousands of years of divergence, from the world she knew.

  She continued down to the end of the tunnel, Ponter’s footfalls heavy behind her. And then she stepped out, into what she knew must be the quantum-computing chamber. Unlike the SNO cavity, which had been co-opted from its original purpose, Ponter’s quantum computer was still fully operational; indeed, Mary was given to understand that without it, the portal would slam shut.

  Four Neanderthals stood in front of her, all male. One was wearing a garish silver outfit; the others were wearing sleeveless shirts and the same strange pants with boots attached that Ponter had arrived in. All of them, like Ponter, had their light-colored hair parted precisely in the center; all were hugely muscled, with short limbs; all had undulating browridges; all had massive, potato-like noses.

  Ponter’s voice came from behind her, speaking in the Neanderthal language. Mary swung around in surprise. She heard Ponter whisper that language all the time, with Hak translating the words into English at a much-louder volume, but, till now, she’d never heard Ponter speak loudly and clearly in his native tongue. Whatever he’d said must have been a joke of some kind, as all four of the Neanderthals emitted deep, barking laughs.

  Mary stepped away from the mouth of the tunnel, letting Ponter pass. And then-

  She’d heard Ponter talk frequently about Adikor, of course, and had understood intellectually that Ponter had a male lover, but...

  But, despite her liberal leanings, despite all her mental preparations, despite the gay men she knew back on her Earth, she felt her stomach clench as Ponter embraced the Neanderthal who must be Adikor. They hugged long and hard, and Ponter’s broad face pressed against Adikor’s hairy cheek.

  Mary realized in an instant what she was feeling, but, God, it had been decades since she’d experienced that particular emotion, and it shamed her. She wasn’t repulsed by the display of same-sex affection; not at all-hell, you couldn’t flip channels on Toronto TV on a Friday night without running into some gay porn. No, she was...

  Itwas shameful, and she knew she’d have to get over it fast if she was ever to have a long-term relationship with Ponter.

  She was jealous.

  Ponter let Adikor go, then he held up his left arm, facing its inside toward Adikor. Adikor raised his arm in a matching gesture, and Mary saw symbols flash across the displays on each man’s Companion implant; Ponter was presumably receiving his accumulated messages from Adikor, to whom they had been forwarded in his absence.

  They lowered their arms at the same time, but Ponter only brought his halfway down, and he pivoted his forearm at the elbow to indicate Mary.”Prisap tah Mare Vonnnn daballita sohl,” he said, but, since he wasn’t addressing her, Hak provided no translation.

  Adikor stepped forward, smiling. He had a kind face, broader than Ponter’s-indeed, as broad as a dinner plate. And his round deep-set eyes were an astonishing teal color. The overall effect was a Flintstones version of the Pillsbury Doughboy.

  Ponter’s voice dropped to a whisper, and Hak’s voice provided a normal-volume translation. “Mare, this is my man-mate, Scholar Adikor Huld.”

  “Hollow,” said Adikor. Mary was baffled for a moment, then realized that Adikor was trying to say “hello,” but hadn’t quite gotten the vowel sounds right. Still, she was impressed, and touched, that he’d tried to learn some English.

  “Hello,” said Mary. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  Adikor tipped his head, presumably listening to a translation through his own Companion’s cochlear implants, and then, in a startlingly normal response, he smiled, and, in his accented English, said, “All good, I hope.”

  Mary couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh, yes,” she said.

  “And this,” said Hak’s voice, speaking for Ponter, “is an Exhibitionist.”

  Mary was taken aback. Ponter was referring to the guy dressed all in silver. She wasn’t quite sure what she’d do if this strange Neanderthal whipped it out in front of her. “Umm, pleased to meet you,” she said.

  The stranger didn’t have the trick down of whispering his own words while his Companion translated loudly. Mary had to struggle to separate the Neanderthal noise from the English. “I have learned,” she picked out, “that in your world, I might be called a reporter. I go to interesting places, and let people tune into what my Companion is broadcasting.”

  “All Exhibitionists wear silver,” said Ponter, “and nobody else does. If you see someone dressed this way, be warned that many thousands of people are watching you.”

  “Ah-hah!” said Mary. “An Exhibitionist. Yes, I remember you telling me about them now.”

  Ponter introduced the two other Neanderthals, as well. One was an enforcer, apparently something akin to a cop, and the other was a portly Neanderthal roboticist named Dern.

  For half a second, the feminist in Mary was outraged that no women were present in the quantum-computing facility, but of course there would be no women anywhere around here; the mine, she knew, was located beyond Saldak Rim.

  Ponter led Mary through the grid of cylinders clamped to the floor, up a short flight of stairs, through a door, and out into the control room. Mary was chilled; the Neanderthals didn’t like heat, and it would naturally have been just as hot this far below the surface here as it had been in Mary’s world. They clearly air-conditioned the rest of the facility; indeed, Mary looked down and was embarrassed to see her nipples pushing out against her top. “How do you keep it cool down here?” she asked.

  “Superconductivity heat pumps,” said Ponter. “They work like an established scientific fact.”

  Mary looked around the control room. She was surprised at howstrange the consoles looked. She hadn’t ever thought about the fact that human industrial designers had arbitrarily decided what instrumentation should look like, that their “high-tech” designs were only one possible way to go. Instead of the burnished metal and black and gray colors of so much human equipment, these consoles were mostly a coral pink, had no sharp corners, and seemed to have little control doo-dads that pulled out rather than pushed in. There were no LEDs, no dials, and no toggle switches. Instead, indicators seemed to be reflective, rather than illuminated, and text displays were in dark blue symbols on a soft gray background; she would have thought them preprinted labels, but the strings of characters being shown kept changing.

  Ponter moved her quickly through the small room, and they came to the decontamination facility. Before she knew what was happening, Ponter had undone the shoulder clasps on his shirt and pulled it off. A second later, he was removing his pants. He stuffed his clothes into a cylindrical hamper and walked into the chamber, which had a circular floor. Ponter stood still and the floor slowly turned, presenting first his broad back-and all that was below it-and then his broad chest-and all that was belowthat -to her. She could see laser emitters on one side of the chamber, and pinpoints of laser light hitting the opposite side, passing through Ponter’s body as if it were not even there, but, so she understood, zapping foreign biomolecules as they did so.

  It took several minutes, and several rotations, for the process to be completed. Mary tried to keep her eyes from dropping down. Ponter was utterly unselfconscious. The previous times she’d seen him naked had been in dim light, but here-

  Here he was illuminated with all the intensity of a hardcore porno film. His body was mostly covered with fine blond hair, his abdominal muscles were firm, his pectorals almost made him look buxom, and...

  And she looked away; she knew she shouldn’t be staring.

  Finally, Ponter was done. He stepped out of the chamber, and gestured for Mary to take her turn.

  And suddenly Mary’s heart jumped. She’d been briefed about the decontamination procedure, but...

  But it had never occurred to her that Ponter would be watching her as she went through it. Of course, she could simply tell him that that made her uncomfortable, but...

  Mary took a deep breath. When in Rome...
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  She undid her blouse, and put it in the same hamper Ponter had used. She removed her black shoes, and, after a confirming nod from Ponter, put those in the hamper as well. She then removed her pants, and-

  And there she was, in cream-colored bra and white panties.

  If the lasers could zap bacteria and viruses right through her skin, they should be able to do that through her underwear, too, but...

  But her underwear, and all her clothes, her purse, and her luggage, were to be sonically cleaned and exposed to high intensity ultraviolet. The lasers were good at getting microbes; they weren’t nearly powerful enough to get the much larger mites and ticks that could be lurking in the folds of fabric. Everything, Ponter said, would be delivered to them later, after a thorough cleaning.

  Mary reached up and unclasped her bra. She remembered back in college when she could pass the pencil test, but those days were long behind her. He breasts flopped down. Mary instinctively crossed her arms over her chest, but she had to lower them to take off her panties. She wasn’t quite sure whether it was more ladylike to face forward or backward as she peeled them off; either way displayed a lot of flesh in unflattering geometry. At last, she turned around, and quickly pulled them down, straightening up as fast as she could.

  Ponter was still looking on, smiling encouragingly. If the harsher light here made her any less attractive to him than the dim light in the hotel room, he gave no sign.

  Mary put her panties into the hamper and stepped into the chamber, which began its humiliating rotation. Yes, she had looked at Ponter, but her gaze had been admiring-he was, after all, very well muscled, and, not to put too fine a point on it, quite nicely hung, too.

  But she was a woman on a collision course with forty, with twenty pounds of fat she didn’t need, with pubic hair that made abundantly plain the fact that she dyed the hair on her head. How in God’s name could Ponter possibly be admiring all that soft whiteness he was seeing?