Hybrids

Chapter Twenty

“Guess what!” said Ponter to Mega. “Today, we’re going to take a trip! We’re going to fly in a helicopter!”

Mega was all smiles. “Mare told me! Yay!”

There was much intercity travel throughout Two becoming One; a helicopter routinely flew from Saldak Center to Kraldak Center those days, and Ponter, Mary, and Mega headed toward where it was waiting. Ponter had brought a leather bag with him. Mary offered to carry it for him, since he was carrying Mega on his shoulders.

The helicopter was reddish brown, with a cylindrical hull; it made Mary think of a giant can of Dr Pepper. The interior cabin was surprisingly roomy, and Mary and Ponter had wide, padded seats facing each other. Mega, meanwhile, had the seat next to Ponter, and was having the time of her life looking out the windows as the ground dropped away.

The cabin had excellent soundproofing; Mary had only rarely been in helicopters before, and it had always given her a headache. “I’ve got a present for you,” said Ponter to Mega. He opened his leather bag and dug out a complex wooden toy.

Mega squealed with delight. “Thank you, Daddy!”

“And I didn’t forget you,” he said, smiling at Mary. He reached into the bag again and pulled out a copy of The Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper.

“Where’d you get that?” asked Mary, her eyes wide.

“At the quantum-computing facility. I had one of the Gliksins pass it over from the other side.”

Mary was astonished—and pleased. She had hardly thought about the world she’d been born in, but it would be good to get caught up—and she had been missing Dilbert. She unfolded the paper. According to page one, there had been a train derailment near Vancouver; India and Pakistan were hurtling threats at each other again; and the Federal Minister of Finance had handed down a new budget in Parliament.

She turned the page, the paper making a loud rustling sound as she did so, and—

“Oh, my God!” said Mary.

“What’s wrong?” asked Ponter.

Mary was glad she was already sitting down. “The Pope is dead,” she said softly—indeed, he obviously had been for a few days, or he’d still be on page one.

“Who?”

“The leader of my belief system. He’s dead.”

“I’m sorry,” said Ponter. “What will happen now? Is this a crisis?”

Mary shook her head. “Well, no…not specifically. As I said, the current Pope was quite old and frail. It’d been known for some time that his days were numbered.” Mary had gotten lazy about trying to avoid figures of speech, since Bandra knew so many of them, but she saw the puzzled expression on Ponter’s face. “That he was going to die relatively soon.”

“Did you ever meet him?”

“Meet the Pope?” said Mary, astonished at the notion. “No. No, it’s mostly just VIPs who get to meet the Pope face-to-face.” She looked at Ponter. “You would have had a much better chance of it than me.”

“I…am not sure what I would say to a religious leader.”

“He was more than just that. In Roman Catholicism, the Pope is the actual conduit for instructions to humanity from God.”

Mega wanted to get out of her chair and climb into Ponter’s lap just now. He helped her to do so. “You mean the Pope speaks to God?”

“Supposedly.”

Ponter shook his head ever so slightly.

Mary forced a smile. “I know you don’t believe that’s possible.”

“Then let’s not rehash it. But…you do look sad. And yet you didn’t personally know the Pope, and you said his death isn’t a crisis for your belief system.” Ponter was speaking softly, and so Mega was pretty much ignoring him. But Christine pumped her translation of Ponter’s words at normal volume through Mary’s cochlear implants.

“It’s just a shock,” said Mary. “And, well…”

“Yes?”

Mary blew out air. “The new Pope will make policy decisions about fundamental issues.”

Ponter blinked. “Such as?”

“The Roman Catholic Church is…well, a lot of people say it hasn’t kept pace with the times. You know it doesn’t allow abortion, and it doesn’t allow divorce—the dissolution of a marriage. But it also doesn’t allow its clergy to have sex.”

“Why not?” Mega was contentedly looking out Ponter’s window.

“Well, having a sexual life is supposed to interfere with the ability to perform spiritual duties,” said Mary. “But most other religions don’t require celibacy of their clergy, and many Roman Catholics think it’s an idea that does more harm than good.”

“Harm? We tell adolescent boys not to deny themselves, because they might fill up with sperm and explode. But that’s just a joke, of course. What harm comes from this celibacy?”

Mary looked away. “Priests—members of the celibate clergy—are known to…” She closed her eyes, started again. “It’s only a very small percentage of priests, you understand. Most of them are good, honest men. But some of them have abused children.”

“Abused them how?” asked Ponter.

“Sexually.”

Ponter looked down at Mega; she seemed to be paying no attention to what they were saying. “Define ‘children.’ ”

“Little boys and girls, three, four years old, and up.”

“Then it’s good that these priests are celibate. The gene for this activity should become extinct.”

“You’d think,” said Mary. She shrugged. “Maybe you guys do have it right, sterilizing not just the perpetrator, but also those who share at least half his genetic material. If anything, it seems that priestly child abuse is reaching epidemic proportions.” She hefted the Globe. “At least, that’s the impression you get by reading newspapers.”

“I cannot read them,” said Ponter, “although I hope to learn. But I have seen your television news and heard news on the radio from time to time. I have heard the comments: ‘When are we going to see the dark side of Neanderthal civilization? Surely they must have bad qualities, too.’ But I tell you, Mare”—Christine could have substituted Mary’s full name for Ponter’s utterance, but she didn’t—“we have nothing to compare with your child molesters, with your polluters, with your makers and users of bombs, with your slavery, with your terrorists. We are hiding nothing, and yet the belief persists that we must have comparably bad things. I don’t know if this fallacy is related to your religious impulses, but it does seem to do similar damage: your people believe that a certain amount of evil is inevitable, unavoidable. But it’s not. If any benefit comes from the contact between your world and mine, perhaps it can be that realization.”

“Maybe you’re right,” said Mary. “But, you know, we do make progress over time. And that’s where the new Pope comes in.”

“Daddy, look!” said Mega, pointing out the window. “Another helicopter!”

Ponter craned his neck. “So there is,” he said, stroking his daughter’s hair. “Well, you know, lots of people have to travel to go see their loved ones when Two become One.”

Mary waited until Mega had gone back to staring out the window. “A lot depends,” she said, “on what the new Pope decides to do—or, to put it as my faith would, on what God tells him to do. The last Pope wasn’t effective in dealing with the problem of child abuse by priests. But the new Pope could really go to town on that. And he could put an end to the celibacy requirement for priests. He could come up with a less-extreme anti-abortion policy. He could recognize homosexuals.”

“Recognize them how? Do they look different?”

“No, what I mean is that my Church considers same-sex relationships to be a sin. But the new Pope might lighten up on that, and on everything else.”

“What are you own beliefs in these matters?”

“Me?” said Mary. “I’m pro-choice—that is, in favor of letting a woman choose whether or not to complete a pregnancy. I’ve got nothing against homosexuality. I don’t think that priests should be forced to be celibate. And I certainly don’t think marriages should be hard to dissolve. That’s the big one for me right now, of course: Colm and I agreed to get an annulment—basically, stating before the Church and God that our marriage never existed, so that it could be expunged from the records. Now, though…” She paused, then went on. “Now, I guess we should wait a bit to see what the new Pope is likely to do. If he allows Catholics to divorce without leaving the Church, I’d be much happier.”

Another Neanderthal leaned over just then. “We’re about to land in Kraldak, sir. You’ll have to strap your daughter in.”

Ponter summoned a travel cube to take him, Mary, and Mega out to the location Hak had identified. The male driver did not seem to want the assignment—the cabin was far beyond Kraldak Rim—but Ponter finally convinced him. The cube flew over rocky outcroppings, negotiated around stands of trees, and cut across several small lakes, until at last it arrived at the spot Hak had identified.

They got out and approached the structure. It was a sort of log cabin, but the logs were standing on their ends, rather than stacked horizontally. Ponter knocked on the door, but there was no response. He operated the starfish-shaped handle, opening the door, and—

And little Mega let out a great yelp.

Mary felt her own blood run cold. Facing her, on the opposite wall, illuminated by a shaft of light entering from a window, was the giant skull of…

It couldn’t be, but…

But it certainly looked like one: a cyclops. A deformed skull, with a massive central eye socket.

Ponter had picked up his daughter, and was soothing her. “It’s just a mammoth skull,” he said. Mary realized he was right. The tusks had been removed, and the central hole had accommodated the trunk in life.

Ponter called out Vissan’s name, but the cabin was just a single large room, with a central eating table, a single chair, hide rugs on the floor, a stone fireplace and a cluster of logs, and a pile of clothing in one corner; there was no way anyone could be hiding within. Mary turned around, looking back at the countryside, hoping to spot Vissan, but she could be anywhere …

“Scholar Boddit!” It was the driver of the travel cube.

Ponter went back to the door. “Yes?” he shouted.

“How long will we be?”

“I don’t know,” said Ponter. “A daytenth or more, I should think.”

The driver considered this. “Well, then I’m going to go hunting,” he declared. “It’s been months since I’ve been this far out in the country.”

“Have fun,” said Ponter, waving at the man. Ponter then went back into the cabin, and headed over to the pile of clothing in the corner. He picked up a shirt, and brought it to his face, inhaling deeply. He did the same thing with several other pieces of clothing, then nodded to Mary. “Okay,” he said, “I’ve got her scent.”

Ponter boosted Mega up on his shoulders, and went out the front door. Mary followed, closing the door behind her. Ponter flared his nostrils, sucking in air, and walked most of the way around the house, before he stopped. “That way,” he said, pointing to the east.

“Great,” said Mary. “Let’s go.”

Little Neanderthal girls knew all about gathering but rarely got to see a hunter at work, and Mega seemed to be loving the adventure. Even with her perched on his shoulders, Ponter managed a brisk pace over the rock outcroppings and through the forest. Mary struggled to keep up. At one point, they startled some deer, who ran away; at another, their arrival set a flock of passenger pigeons into flight.

Mary wasn’t good at judging distance in the wilderness, but they must have gone six or seven kilometers before Ponter finally pointed to a figure in the distance, bent over, near a stream.

“There she is,” he said softly. “She’s upwind of us, so I’m sure she doesn’t know we’re here yet.”

“All right,” said Mary. “Let’s get closer.”

Ponter admonished Mega to be quiet, and they moved to within about forty meters of the female Neanderthal. But then Mary stepped on a stick, which cracked loudly, and the woman looked up, startled. The tableau held for a second, with Ponter, Mary, and Mega looking at the woman, and the woman looking back at them—and then the female Neanderthal took off, running away.

“Wait!” shouted Mary. “Don’t go!”

Mary hadn’t expected her words to do any good, but the female stopped dead in her tracks and turned around. And then it hit Mary: she’d shouted in English, and although Christine had dutifully translated a moment later, the woman had probably never heard either a voice so high-pitched or that strange alien language before. Someone who had been living on her own, without a Companion or a Voyeur, since early in the summer would have no idea that a portal had opened up to a parallel universe.

Ponter, Mega, and Mary closed some of the distance, getting within twenty meters of the woman, who had a look of absolute astonishment spread across her broad face.

“What—what are you?” she said in the Neanderthal tongue.

“I’m Mary Vaughan,” called Mary. “Please, don’t run off! Are you Vissan Lennet?”

The female’s broad jaw dropped—and Mary realized she’d said words that contained the never-before-heard ee phoneme.

“Yes,” said Vissan in the Neanderthal tongue. “I’m Vissan—but please don’t hurt me.”

Mary looked at Ponter, surprised, but then called back. “Of course we won’t hurt you!” Then, to Ponter: “Why would she be afraid of us?”

Ponter spoke softly. “She has no Companion. No record is being made for her benefit of this encounter, and she has no status under our law—she could never order a review of our own recordings at the alibi archives.”

“Don’t be afraid!” called out Mega helpfully. “We’re nice!”

Ponter, Mary, and Mega had managed to get another five meters closer to Vissan without her running off. “What are you?” said Vissan again.

“She’s a Gliksin!” said Mega. “Can’t you tell?”

Vissan stared at Mary. “No, really. What are you?”

“Mega’s right. I am what you’d call a Gliksin.”

“Astonishment!” said Vissan. “But—but you are an adult. If someone had recovered Gliksin genetic material many tenmonths ago, I would surely have known.”

It took a moment for Mary to figure out what Vissan meant; she thought Mary was a clone, made from ancient DNA.

“No, that’s not it. I’m—”

“Let me,” said Ponter. “Vissan, do you know who I am?”

Vissan narrowed her eyes, then shook her head. “No.”

“That’s my daddy,” said Mega. “His name’s Ponter Boddit. He’s a 145. I’m a 148!”

“Do you know of a chemist named Lurt Fradlo?” asked Ponter, looking at Vissan.

“Fradlo? Of Saldak? I know her work.”

“She’s Adikor’s woman-mate,” said Mega. “And Adikor is my daddy’s man-mate.”

Ponter put a hand on Mega’s shoulder. “That’s right. Adikor and I are both quantum physicists. Together, he and I accessed an alternative reality in which Gliksins survived to the present day and Barasts did not.”

“You’re ruffling my back hair,” said Vissan.

“No, he’s not!” said Mega. “It’s true! Daddy disappeared into another world, down in the Debral nickel mine. Nobody knew what happened to him. Daklar thought Adikor had done something bad to Daddy, but Adikor’s a good guy; he’d never do anything like that! Jasmel—that’s my sister—she worked with Adikor to bring Daddy back. But then they made a portal that’s always open, and Mare came through from the other side.”

“No,” said Vissan, looking down. “She must be of this world. She has a Companion.”

Mary looked down, as well; a bit of Christine’s faceplate was protruding past her jacket’s sleeve. She took off her jacket, rolled up her shirtsleeve, and held out her arm. “But my Companion has only recently been installed,” said Mary. “The wound is still healing.”

Vissan took her first step toward Mary, then another, then one more. “So it is,” she said at last.

“What we are saying is true,” said Ponter. He gestured at Mary. “You can see that it’s true.”

Vissan placed her hands on her broad hips, and studied Mary’s face, with its tiny nose, high forehead, and bony projection from the lower jaw. Then, her voice full of wonder, she said, “Yes, I suppose I can.”