After they left the restaurant, Mary and Ponter rendezvoused with Mega, and spent a while playing with her. But soon it was her bedtime, and Mega went home to the house she shared with her tabant, Daklar Bolbay—which made Mary think of a brilliant idea: she and Ponter could go back to Ponter’s house for the night, out at the Rim. After all, Adikor would not be there, and it would let Bandra and Harb have Bandra’s house to themselves. Ponter was startled by the suggestion—it simply wasn’t normal for a woman to come to a man’s house, although, of course, Mary had been to Ponter’s a couple of times now—but after Mary explained her apprehension about making love with someone else at home, Ponter quickly agreed, and they summoned a travel cube to take them out to the Rim.
After some more wonderful sex, Mary was lounging in the circular, recessed bathtub, and Ponter was sitting in a chair. He was pretending to read something on a datapad, but Mary noticed his eyes weren’t tracking left to right—or right to left, for that matter. Pabo was napping quietly by her master’s feet.
Ponter’s posture was somewhat different from what a Homo sapiens male would display: although he had a long (albeit chinless) jaw, he didn’t prop it up with a crooked arm. Of course, the proportions of his arms weren’t quite normal. No, damn it, no; “normal” was the wrong word. Still, maybe it wasn’t comfortable for him to assume the classic Rodin “Thinker” pose. Or—why hadn’t Mary noticed this before? Ponter’s occipital bun gave extra weight to the rear of his head, perfectly counterbalancing his heavy face. Perhaps, when brooding, he didn’t prop up his head because there was no need to.
Still, brooding was unquestionably what Ponter was doing.
Mary got out of the tub and toweled off, then, still naked, made her way across the room and perched herself on the broad arm of his chair. “A penny for your thoughts,” she said.
Ponter frowned. “I doubt they are worth that much.”
Mary smiled and stroked his muscular upper arm. “You’re upset about something.”
“Upset?” said Ponter, trying on the word. “No. No, that’s not it. I’m simply wondering about something.”
Mary moved her arm around Ponter’s broad shoulders. “Something to do with me?”
“In part, yes.”
“Ponter,” she said, “we decided to try to make this—this relationship of ours—work. But the only way we can do that is if we communicate.”
Ponter looked downright apprehensive, Mary thought, and his face seemed to convey a plaintive Don’t you think I know that?
“Well?” said Mary.
“Remember Veronica Shannon?”
“Of course. The woman at Laurentian.” The woman who made Mary Vaughan see the Virgin Mary.
“There is an…an implication in her work,” said Ponter. “She has identified the suite of structures in the Homo sapiens brain that are responsible for religious impulses.”
Mary took a deep breath. She certainly hadn’t been comfortable with that notion, but the scientist in her couldn’t ignore what Veronica had apparently demonstrated. Still, “I suppose,” is all Mary said, releasing the air she’d taken in.
“Well, if we know what causes religion,” said Ponter, “then…”
“Then what?” said Mary.
“Then perhaps we could cure it.”
Mary felt her heart jump, and she thought she was going to tumble backward off the chair’s arm. “Cure it,” she repeated, as if hearing the words in her own voice would somehow make them more palatable. “Ponter, you can’t cure religion. It’s not a disease.”
Ponter said nothing, but looking down on his head from her perch on the chair’s arm, Mary saw his eyebrow roll up onto his ridge as if to say, Isn’t it?
Mary decided to speak before Ponter filled the void with more things she did not want to hear. “Ponter, it’s part of who I am.”
“But it’s the cause of so much evil in your world.”
“And of much greatness, too,” Mary said.
Ponter tilted his head and turned it sideways so that he could look at her. “You asked me to speak. I was content to keep these thoughts private.”
Mary frowned. If he’d been keeping them totally private, she never would have asked him what was wrong.
Ponter went on: “It should be possible to determine what mutation caused this in Gliksins.”
Mutation. Religion as a mutation. Sweet Jesus. “How do you know that it’s my people who’ve mutated? Maybe ours is the normal state, the ancestral state, and your people are the mutants.”
But Ponter simply shrugged. “Perhaps we are. If so, it wouldn’t be…”
But Mary finished his thought for him, her tone betraying her bitterness. “It wouldn’t be the only improvement since neanderthalensis and sapiens split.”
“Mare…” said Ponter gently.
But Mary wasn’t going to let it go. “See! You don’t have the vocal range we do! We’re the more advanced state.”
Ponter opened his mouth to protest, but then closed it, his thought unspoken. But Mary knew what it probably was: the perfect rejoinder to her comment about vocal range, the fact that Gliksins could choke to death while drinking whereas Neanderthals could not.
“I’m sorry,” said Mary. She moved over to Ponter’s chair, sitting this time in his lap, draping her arms around his shoulders. “I am so sorry. Please forgive me.”
“Of course,” said Ponter.
“It’s just a difficult notion for me. Surely you can understand that. Religion as an accidental mutation. Religion as a detriment. My beliefs as merely a biological response with no basis in any higher reality.”
“I can’t say I understand, for I don’t. I’ve never believed anything in defiance of evidence to the contrary. But…”
“But?”
Ponter fell silent again, and Mary shifted in his lap, leaning back a bit so that she could study his broad, round, bearded face. There was such intelligence in his golden eyes, such kindness.
“Ponter, I’m sorry I reacted the way I did. The last thing I want you to do is clam up—feel intimidated about speaking openly to me. Please, tell me what you were going to say.”
Ponter took a deep breath, and when he did that, it was enough to make Mary feel a breeze. “Remember I told you I had seen a personality sculptor.”
Mary nodded curtly. “About my rape. Yes.”
“That was the proximate cause of my visits to the sculptor, but other…other things, other matters…”
“We call them issues,” said Mary.
“Ah. It turned out I had some other issues to resolve.”
“And?”
Ponter moved in the chair, shifting both himself and Mary with ease. “The personality sculptor is named Jurard Selgan,” said Ponter. An irrelevancy, buying time as he composed his thoughts. “Selgan had a hypothesis about…”
“Yes?”
Ponter shrugged slightly. “About my attraction to you.”
Mary felt her back stiffen. It was bad enough that she was apparently the cause of Ponter’s problems—but to be the subject of theories by someone she’d never met! Her voice was Pleistocene in its coldness. “And what was his hypothesis?”
“You know my woman-mate Klast died of cancer of the blood.”
Mary nodded.
“And so she is no more. Completely and totally devoid of any further existence.”
“Like those commemorated at the Vietnam veterans’ wall,” said Mary, remembering their trip to Washington, and the point Ponter had made so vigorously there.
“Exactly!” said Ponter. “Exactly!”
Mary nodded as she felt pieces fall together in her mind. “You were upset that people at the Vietnam wall were taking comfort in the notion that their loved ones might still exist in some form.”
“Ka, ” said Ponter softly; Christine didn’t bother translating the Neanderthal word for “yes” if that was all a Barast said.
Mary nodded again. “You were…you were jealous of them, of the comfort the
y had, despite their tragic loss. The comfort that you were denied because you don’t believe in heaven or an afterlife.”
“Ka, ” Ponter said again. But, after a long pause, he continued, with Christine translating: “But Selgan and I didn’t speak of my visit to Washington.”
“Then what?” asked Mary.
“He suggested that…that my attraction to you…”
“Yes?”
Ponter tipped his head up, looking at the ceiling with its painted mural. “I said before that I had never believed anything in defiance of evidence to the contrary. The same might be said about believing things in the absence of any evidence. But Selgan suggested that perhaps I did believe you when you said you had a soul, when you said you would continue to exist in some form, even after death.”
Mary drew her eyebrows together and tilted her head to one side, absolutely baffled. “Yes?”
“He…he…” Ponter seemed unable to go on. At last, he simply lifted his left forearm and said, “Hak?”
Hak took over, speaking directly in English. “Do not feel inadequate, Mare,” the Companion said. “Ponter himself could not see this, either, although it was obvious to Scholar Selgan…and to me, as well.”
“What?” said Mary, her heart pounding.
“It is conceivable,” continued the Companion, “that if you were to die, Ponter might not feel the grief as sharply as he did when Klast died—not because he loves you less, but because he might assuage his feelings with the belief that you still existed in some form.”
Mary felt her whole body sag. If Ponter’s arms hadn’t been encircling her waist, she would have fallen off his lap. “My…God,” she said. Her head was swimming; she had no idea what to think.
“I don’t accept that Selgan is correct,” said Ponter, “but…”
Mary nodded slightly. “But you are a scientist, and it is …” She paused, considering; a belief in an afterlife did allow such consolation. “It is an interesting hypothesis.”
“Ka, ” said Ponter.
Ka, indeed.
Chapter Twenty
“But now it’s time to resume our journey, for it is our love of the journey that makes us great…”
“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 hop
e 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?”
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