Hybrids

by Robert J. Sawyer

  Mary prayed repeatedly throughout the night, whispering softly, trying not to disturb Louise. “God in heaven, God of grace, save him...”

  And later: “God, please, don’t let Ponter die.”

  And later still: “Damn you, God, you owe me one...”

  Finally, after tossing and turning all night, tormented by dreams of drowning in a sea of blood, Mary became aware of sunlight streaming in through the lodge’s small window, and thekek-kek-kek call of passenger pigeons heralding the dawn.

  Louise was also awake, lying on the couch, staring up at the wooden ceiling.

  There was a vacuum box and a laser cooker in the hunting lodge, presumably powered by solar panels on the roof. Mary opened the vacuum box and found some chops-of what kind of animal, she had no idea-and some roots. She cooked them up, making a simple breakfast for her and Louise.

  The lodge had a small square table with saddle-seats on all four sides. Mary straddled one, and Louise sat opposite her.

  “How are you doing?” asked Mary gently, after they’d finished eating. She’d never seen Louise like this: bedraggled, with dark circles under her eyes.

  “I’m okay,” she said softly, in her accented voice, but she sounded anything but.

  Mary wasn’t sure what to say. She didn’t know whether it was best to bring up the topic of Reuben, or to let it be, in hopes that Louise had somehow put it out of her own mind, at least for a few moments. But then Mary thought of the rape, and her utter inability to stop thinking about it early on. There was no way Louise could be thinking about anything other than her dead boyfriend.

  Mary reached a hand across the table, taking one of Louise’s. “He was a good man,” she said, her own voice breaking as she did so.

  Louise nodded, her brown eyes dry but bloodshot. “We’d talked about moving in together.” Louise shook her head. “He was divorced, and, you know, nobody my age bothers getting married in Québec-the law treats you the same whether you have the piece of paper or not, so why bother? But we’d talked about making things permanent.” She looked away. “It was almost a joke between us. He’d say things like, ‘Well, when we move in together, we’ll have to get a place with big closets,’ because he thought I had too many clothes.” She looked at Mary; her eyes were moist now. “Just joking stuff like that, but...” She shook her head. “But, you know, I thought it was really going to happen. After I finished my work at Synergy, I’d move back up to Sudbury. Or we’d go to Montréal, and Reuben would set himself up in private practice. Or...” She shrugged, apparently realizing it was pointless to go on enumerating options that now could never be.

  Mary squeezed Louise’s hand, and just sat with her for a time. Finally, though, she said, “I want to go find Ponter.” She shook her head. “Damn, I got so used to these Companions letting us keep in touch, but with Hak broken...”

  “Ponter must be okay,” said Louise, realizing, apparently, that it was now her turn to provide comfort. “He wasn’t showing the slightest sign of fever.”

  Mary tried to nod in agreement, but her head didn’t seem to want to move. She was so upset, so nervous, so...

  Suddenly there was a scratching sound at the door. Mary’s heart jumped. She knew she almost certainly had nothing to fear from Neanderthals, but this was prime hunting territory-or else the lodge wouldn’t have been built here. Who knew what sorts of beasts were prowling outside?

  “We can’t go looking for Ponter,” said Louise. “Think about it: the lasers may have zapped the virus that was in him, but that hardly confers immunity, and we’re infected, too, no? It may not do anything to white Gliksins, but we’re carriers. He can’t see us until you and I have been decontaminated, as well.”

  “So, what should we do then?” asked Mary.

  “Get Jock Krieger,” said Louise.

  “What? Why? He can’t hurt anyone where we left him.”

  “No, but if thereis an antidote for the virus, or a way to neutralize it on a large scale, he’s the one who would know, right?”

  “What makes you think he’ll tell us?” said Mary.

  Louise’s tone was firm for the first time since Reuben had died. “If he doesn’t, I’ll kill him,” she said simply.

  They waited until it had been many minutes since they’d heard any animal sounds from outside. Then, cautiously, they opened the lodge’s door, snow swirling in.

  It took most of the morning to reach the building near Konbor Square where’d they’d deposited the trussed-up Jock Krieger.

  “I half expect him to be gone,” said Louise as they approached the closed door. “That bastard seems to have no end of tricks up his sleeve...”

  She pushed up the five-pronged control that unlatched the door.

  Jock was not gone.

  He was lying on his side. Pools of dark blood were on the floor around him. His skin was white, waxy.

  Mary turned him over. There was coagulated blood all over Jock’s cheeks and chin, and extending down like wine-colored sideburns from his ears. She glanced down briefly and saw that his pants were also soaked with blood, which had presumably poured out of his lower orifices.

  Mary fought to keep down the tubers and meat she’d eaten for breakfast. She looked over at Louise, who was biting her lower lip. Mary turned away and tried to make sense of it all.

  Two dead Gliksins.

  Two deadmale Gliksins...

  It was almost as if...

  Surfer Joe, Mark II.

  But no. No, that was impossible.Impossible! Yes, Mary had doodled a design for a virus that would only kill male Gliksins, but she’d shredded those sheets of paper, and she’d certainly never coded it into Jock’s program. He’d obviously made his virusbefore Mary had rendered it harmless, then, but...

  But itwas behaving like the one Mary had thought of, the one that would killHomo sapiens who had Y chromosomes.

  Mary hadn’t made that virus. She hadnot ...

  Unless...

  No, no. That was crazy.

  But she’d traveled between universes, and so had Jock. And if, in one version of her reality, she had not made Surfer Joe deadly to maleHomo sapiens , then...

  Then, perhaps, in another version of reality shehad gone ahead with her fantasy, had mapped out such a virus...

  And this Jock Krieger, the one who had exsanguinated through every natural opening in his body, might have come fromthat version of reality...

  Mary shook her head. It was all too bizarre. Besides, hadn’t Ponter and Louise said often enough that the universe Mary called home and the one Ponter called home were entangled? That they were the two original branches that had split apart when consciousness first arose on Earth 40,000 years ago?

  If that was the case...

  If that was the case, then someone other than Mary had modified the virus.

  But who? Why?

  Chapter Forty-three

  “And we are just that: a great and wonderful people. Yes, we have made missteps-but we made thembecausewe are always walking forward, always marching toward our destiny...”

  Cornelius Ruskin tried to control it as he watched the news report, but he couldn’t: his whole body was shaking.

  He’d intended his modification of Jock Krieger’s Surfaris virus as adefensive weapon, not an offensive one-a way of protecting the Neanderthal world from the depredations of...

  ...well, of people like him. Like he used to be...

  And now, two men were dead.

  Of course, if all went as he’d expected from now on, no more would die. MaleHomo sapiens would stay in their own world, denied nothing except the right to take their evil through the portal.

  Cornelius had found a nice rental house in Rochester, on a tree-linedLeave It to Beaver street; such a wonderful contrast to his old penthouse in the slums. But it didn’t feel comfortable; it felt like hell. He was gripping the arms of his new easy chair, trying to steady himself, as CNN showed the interview with Mary Vaughan, one of the women he’d raped. Not that she wa
s discussing that; rather, she was explaining why male Gliksins had to stay here, in this world, never traveling to the Neanderthal one. Accompanying her, looking hale and hearty, was Ponter Boddit.

  The interview had been done by CBC Newsworld, and picked up by CNN; Mary had apparently stood Newsworld up a few days ago, when she’d raced off to try to stop Jock Krieger, but now she was back here, in this reality.

  The reality that Cornelius Ruskin had to live with.

  “So you’re saying it’s not safe for any maleHomo sapiens to travel to the Neanderthal world?” asked the male Asian interviewer.

  “That’s right,” said Mary. “The viral strain Jock Krieger released is-“

  “That’s the strain the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has dubbed ‘Ebola-Saldak,’ correct?” asked the interviewer.

  “That’s right,” said Mary. “We assume Krieger’s intention had been to make a strain that was only fatal to Neanderthals, but instead he ended up with something that selectively kills maleHomo sapiens . We don’t know how widely dispersed that strain is now in the Neanderthal world, but we do know that it’s fatal to male humans of our species within hours of exposure.”

  “What about this Neanderthal decontamination technology? Dr. Boddit, what can you tell us about that?”

  “It uses tuned lasers to destroy foreign biomolecules in the body,” said Ponter. “Both Dr. Vaughan and myself were processed by it before crossing back to this version of Earth. It’s completely effective, but, as Dr. Vaughan said, any male Gliksin infected with Ebola-Saldak will die unless treated by this same process very quickly, and there are very few such decontamination stations on my world.”

  “And other than this laser technology, there’s no cure or vaccine?”

  “Not yet,” said Mary. “Of course, we will try to find one. But, remember, we’ve been working on cures for other Ebola strains for years, so far without success.”

  Cornelius shook his head. When he’d realized that Jock wasn’t just doing simulations but really planned to produce his virus, Cornelius had modified the code he’d written, had let Jock produce liters of the virus in sealed glassware, and then, when that was done, he’d reinstated the original code, so that if Jock checked it again, he’d never know it had been changed.

  It was supposed to compensate a bit, be a step toward evening out Cornelius’s karmic account-not that he could ever make up for what he’d done in Toronto. But the rapist had been theold him, theangry him. He really was a new man now-still wronged, but able to control his anger at being wronged. No, he no longer felt the way he had, back when he’d attacked Mary Vaughan, back when he’d savaged Qaiser Remtulla, back when testosterone had coursed through his veins. Butthey must still feel it, must still wake up in cold sweats, terrifying images of...

  Well, not ofhim , he imagined, but of a man in a black ski mask. At least, that was how Qaiser must see him, for she didn’t know the identity of her attacker.

  But Mary Vaughan knew who he was.

  It was a double-edged sword. Cornelius understood that. Mary couldn’t identify Cornelius without Ponter being exposed to charges for the...thecure ...he’d administered to him.

  But, still, the images that haunted Mary surely had a face, white-skinned, blue-eyed, features twisted into anger and hatred.

  And now, Cornelius realized, it mattered little that no one would likely ever be able to identify his role in Reuben and Jock’s deaths. Mary had already told the world that Jock Krieger had made some mistake in designing his virus, that he’d been hoisted on his own petard, the victim of his own creation.

  And, truth be told, Cornelius didn’t feel too bad about the death of Krieger, who, after all, had been planning genocide for the Neanderthals.

  But an innocent man was dead, too, this doctor-thisreal doctor, this healer, this saver of lives, this Reuben Montego.

  Cornelius let go of his chair’s arms and lifted his hands to see if they were still shaking. They were. He grabbed hold of the armrests again.

  “An innocent man,” he said aloud, although there was no one but him around to hear it. He shook his head.

  As if there could be any such thing...

  But, then again, maybe there was.

  The obituaries and appreciations of Reuben Montego that had already appeared online spoke glowingly of him. And his girlfriend, Louise Benoît, whom Cornelius had met at the Synergy Group, was absolutely devastated by his death, saying over and over again what a kind and gentle man he’d been.

  Yet again, Cornelius had caused great sadness to a woman.

  He knew he’d have to do something soon about his castration. Other changes, after all, would shortly begin to occur: his metabolism would slow, fat would begin to pile up on his body. He’d already noticed that his beard came in more slowly, and he was feeling listless much of the time-listless, or depressed. The obvious solution was to start testosterone treatments. Testosterone was a steroid, he knew, produced mainly in the testicles’ Leydig cells. But he also knew it could be synthesized from more readily obtainable steroids, such as diosgenin; doubtless there was a black market in it. Cornelius had tried to ignore the drug dealing going on near his old apartment in Driftwood, but surely if he’d wanted to find a dealer for testosterone, he could locate one there, or somewhere here in Rochester.

  But no. No, he did not want to do that. He did not want to go back to being his old self, to feeling that way.

  There was no going back for him.

  And...

  And no going forward, either.

  He lifted his hands. They weren’t shaking anymore; they weren’t shaking at all.

  He wondered what people would say abouthim after he was gone.

  He’d followed all the recent debate about religious worldviews in the press. If people like Mary Vaughan were right, he’d know-even in death, he’d know. And maybe, just maybe, his having saved the Neanderthal world from the likes of himself would count for something.

  Of course, if the Neanderthals were right, death would be oblivion, a simple cessation of being.

  Cornelius hoped the Neanderthals were right.

  He didn’t want to leave any evidence of the mutilation he’d suffered. He couldn’t care less what happened to Ponter Boddit, but he didn’t want his own family to ever know what he’d done in Toronto.

  Cornelius Ruskin headed out to the garage, and began siphoning gasoline from his car’s tank.

  “Well, Bandra, what do you think?” asked Mary.

  Bandra was wearing Gliksin clothes-taupe Nikes, stone-washed blue jeans, and a loose green shirt, all bought at the same Mark’s Work Wearhouse that had provided Ponter’s new clothes during his first visit to Mary’s world. She placed her hands on her wide hips and looked around in astonishment. “It...it is unlike any dwelling I have ever seen.”

  Mary looked around the large living room as well. “This is the kind of house most people live in-at least, here in North America. Well, actually, this is an exceptionallynice house, and most people live in big cities, not out in the country.” She paused. “Do you like it?”

  “It will take some getting used to,” said Bandra. “But, yes, Ido like it very much. It’s so big!”

  “Two stories,” said Mary. “Thirty-five hundred square feet, plus basement.” She gave Bandra’s Companion a second to do the conversion, then smiled. “And there arethree bathrooms.”

  Bandra’s wheat-colored eyes went wide. “The lap of luxury!”

  Mary smiled, recalling the slogan of the hair dye she used. “We’re worth it.”

  “And you say the surrounding land is ours, as well?”

  “Yup. All 2.3 acres.”

  “But...but can we afford it? I know here everything has a cost.”

  “We certainly couldn’t afford this much land anywhere near Toronto. But here, outside Lively? Sure. After all, Laurentian University will be paying us both well, as academic salaries go.”

  Bandra sat down on the living-room couch and
gestured toward the dark wood curio cabinets, filled with little carvings. “The furnishings and decorations are beautiful,” she said.

  “It’s an unusual mix,” said Mary. “Canadian and Caribbean. Of course, Reuben’s family will want some of the things, and I’m sure Louise will want a few, as well, but we’ll get to keep most of them. I bought the house furnished.”

  Bandra looked down. “I wish I had met your friend Reuben.”

  “You’d have liked him,” said Mary, sitting next to Bandra on the couch. “He was a terrific person.”

  “Won’t it make you sad, though?” asked Bandra. “Living here?”

  Mary shook her head. “Not really. See, this is where Ponter, Louise, Reuben, and I were all quarantined together during Ponter’s first visit to my world. It’s where I got to know Ponter, where I started to fall in love with him.” She pointed across the room, at some heavy built-in bookcases, filled with mystery novels. “I can picture him, right there, using the edge of that far bookcase as a scratching post, shimmying left and right. And we had so many wonderful conversations on this very couch. I know I’ll only be with him four days a month from now on, and mostly in his world, not mine, but it’s like, in a way, that this ishis home, too.”

  Bandra smiled. “I understand.”

  Mary patted her knee. “And that’s why I love you. Because youdo understand.”

  “But,” said Bandra, grinning now, “it won’t be just the two of us much longer. It’s been a long time since I’ve lived in a house with a baby in it.”

  “I hope you’ll help me,” said Mary.

  “Of course. I know what ninth-daytenth feedings are like!”

  “Oh, I don’t mean that...although I certainly would be grateful! No, what I mean is I hope you’ll help me in bringing up Ponter and my daughter. I want her to know and appreciate both cultures, Gliksin and Barast.”

  “True synergy,” said Bandra, smiling widely. “Two really becoming One.”

  Mary smiled back at her. “Exactamundo.”

  The call came two days later, about six in the evening. Mary and Bandra had finished their first full day at Laurentian, and were relaxing in their house, the house that had been Reuben’s. Mary was stretched out on the couch, finally finishing the Scott Turow novel she’d started ages ago, back before the first opening of the interuniversal portal. Bandra was reclining in the La-Z-Boy that had come with the place, the very one Mary had slept in during the quarantine. She was reading a book of her own on a Neanderthal datapad.