Hominids tnp-1

by Robert J. Sawyer

  “We knew nothing of your skin color,” said Ponter, “or the color of your hair. The”—bleep; Hak also bleeped as a placeholder when a word was omitted because the English equivalent wasn’t yet in the Companion’s vocabulary—“of my world would be astonished to learn of the variety.”

  Mary smiled. “Well, it’s not all natural,” she said. “I mean, my hair isn’t really this color.”

  Ponter looked astonished. “What color is it really?”

  “Kind of a mousy brown.”

  “Why did you alter it?”

  Mary shrugged a little. “Self-expression, and—well, I said it was brown, but, actually, it has a fair bit of gray in it. I—many people, actually—dislike gray hair.”

  “The hair of my kind turns gray as we age.”

  “That’s what happens to us, too; nobody is born with gray hair.”

  Ponter frowned again. “In my language, the term for one who has, knowledge that comes with experience and for the color hair turns is the same: ‘Gray.’ I cannot imagine someone wanting to hide that color.”

  Mary shrugged once more. “We do a lot of things that don’t make sense.”

  “That much is clearly true,” said Ponter. He paused, as if considering whether to go on. “We have often wondered what became of your people … on our world, that is. Forgive me; I do not wish to sound”—bleep—“but you must know that your brains are smaller than ours.”

  Mary nodded. “About 10 percent smaller, on average, if I remember correctly.”

  “And you seemed physically weaker. Judging by attachment scars on your bones, your kind was believed to have had only half our muscle mass.”

  “I’d say that’s about right,” said Mary, nodding.

  “And,” continued Ponter, “you have spoken of your inability to get along, even with others of your own kind.”

  Mary nodded again.

  “There is some archeological evidence for this among your kind on my world, too,” said Ponter. “A popular theory is that you wiped each other out … what with being not all that intelligent, you see …” Ponter lowered his head. “I am sorry; again, I do not mean to upset you.”

  “That’s all right,” said Mary.

  “I am sure there is a better explanation,” said Ponter. “We knew so little about you.”

  “In a way,” said Mary, “the knowledge that it could have gone another way—that we didn’t necessarily have to end up surviving—is probably all to the good. It will remind my people of how precious life really is.”

  “This is not obvious to them?” asked Ponter, eyes wide in astonishment.

  Chapter 31

  Adikor finally left the Council chamber, walking slowly and sadly out the door. This was all madness—madness! He’d lost Ponter, and, as if that weren’t devastating enough, now he would have to face a full tribunal. Whatever confidence he’d once had in the judicial system—an entity of which he’d only been vaguely aware to this point—had been shattered. How could an innocent, grieving person be hounded so?

  Adikor headed down a long corridor, its walls lined with square portraits of great adjudicators of the past, men and women who had developed the principles of modern law. Had this—this travesty—really been what they’d had in mind? He continued along, not paying much attention to the other people he occasionally passed … until a flash of orange caught his eye.

  Bolbay, still wearing the color of the accuser, down at the end of the corridor. She’d tarried in the Council building, perhaps to avoid Exhibitionists, and was now making her own way outside.

  Before he’d really given it any thought, Adikor found himself running down the corridor toward her, the moss carpet cushioning his footfalls. Just as she stepped out through the door at the end, exiting into the afternoon sun, he caught up with her. “Daklar!”

  Daklar Bolbay turned, startled. “Adikor!” she exclaimed, her eyes wide. She raised her voice. “Whoever is monitoring Adikor Huld for his judicial scrutiny, pay attention! He is now confronting me, his accuser!”

  Adikor shook his head slowly. “I’m not here to harm you.”

  “I have seen,” said Bolbay, “that your deeds do not always match your intentions.”

  “That was years ago,” said Adikor, deliberately using the noun that most emphasized the length of time. “I’d never hit anyone before that, and I’ve never hit anyone since.”

  “But you did do it then,” said Bolbay. “You lost your temper. You lashed out. You tried to kill.”

  “No! No, I never wanted to hurt Ponter.”

  “It’s inappropriate for us to be speaking,” said Bolbay. “You must excuse me.” She turned.

  Adikor’s hand reached out, grabbing hold of Bolbay’s shoulder. “No, wait!”

  Her face showed panic as it swung back to look at him, but she quickly changed her expression, staring meaningfully at his hand. Adikor removed it. “Please,” he said. “Please, just tell me why. Why are you going after me with such … such vindictiveness? In all the time we’ve known each other, I’ve never wronged you. You must know that I loved Ponter, and that he loved me. He wouldn’t possibly want you to pursue me like this.”

  “Don’t play the innocent with me,” said Bolbay.

  “But I am innocent! Why are you doing this?”

  She simply shook her head, turned around, and began walking away.

  “Why?” Adikor called after her. “Why?”

  * * *

  “Maybe we can talk about your people,” Mary said to Ponter. “Until now, we’ve only had Neanderthal fossils to study. There’s been a lot of debate over various things, like, well, for instance, what your prominent browridges are for.”

  Ponter blinked. “They shield my eyes from the sun.”

  “Really?” said Mary. “I guess that makes sense. But then why don’t my people have them? I mean, Neanderthals evolved in Europe; my ancestors come from Africa, where it’s much sunnier.”

  “We wondered that, too,” said Ponter, “when we looked at Gliksin fossils.”

  “Gliksin?” repeated Mary.

  “The type of fossil hominid from my world you most closely resemble. Gliksins didn’t have browridges, so we had assumed that they were nocturnal.”

  Mary smiled. “I guess a lot of what people conclude from looking just at bones is wrong. Tell me: what do you make of this?” She tapped her index finger against her chin.

  Ponter looked uncomfortable. “I know now that it is wrong, but …”

  “Yes?” said Mary.

  Ponter used an open hand to smooth down his beard, showing his chinless jaw. “We do not have such projections, so we assumed …”

  “What?” said Mary.

  “We assumed it was a drool guard. You have such tiny mouth cavities, we thought saliva was constantly dribbling out. Also, you do have smaller brains than we do, and, well, idiots often drool …”

  Mary laughed. “Good grief,” she said. “But, say, speaking of jaws, what happened to yours?”

  “Nothing,” said Ponter. “It is the same as it was before.”

  “I saw the x-rays that were taken of you at the hospital,” said Mary. “Your mandible—your jawbone—shows extensive reconstruction.”

  “Oh, that,” said Ponter, sounding apologetic. “I got hit in the face a couple of hundred months ago.”

  “What were you hit with?” asked Mary. “A brick?”

  “With a fist,” Ponter said.

  Mary’s own jaw dropped. “I knew Neanderthals were strong, but—wow. One punch did that?”

  Ponter nodded.

  “You’re lucky you weren’t killed,” said Mary.

  “We are both lucky—the punchee, as you might say, and the puncher.”

  “Why did someone hit you?”

  “A stupid argument,” said Ponter. “Certainly, he never should have done it, and he apologized profusely. I chose not to pursue the matter; if I had, he would have been tried for attempted murder.”

  “Could he have real
ly killed you with one punch?”

  “Oh, yes. I had reacted in time and lifted my head; that is why he connected with my jaw instead of the center of my face. Had he punched me there, he could well have caved in my skull.”

  “Oh, my,” said Mary.

  “He was angry, but I had provoked him. It was as much my fault as his.”

  “Could—could you kill someone with your bare hands?” asked Mary.

  “Certainly,” said Ponter. “Especially if I approached them from the rear.” He intertwined his fingers, lifted his arms, then pantomimed smashing his interlocked fists down. “I could smash in a person’s skull by doing that from behind. From the front, if I could get a good punch or kick into the center of someone’s chest, I might crush their heart.”

  “But … but … no offense, but apes are very strong, too, and they rarely kill each other in fights.”

  “That is because in battles within a troop for dominance, ape fighting is ritualized and instinctive, and they simply slap each other—really just a display behavior. But chimpanzees do kill other chimpanzees, although they do it mostly with their teeth. Clenching the fingers into a fist is something only humans can do.”

  “Oh … my.” Mary realized she was repeating herself, but couldn’t think of anything better to sum up her feelings. “Humans here get into fights all the time. Some even make a sport of it: boxing, wrestling.”

  “Madness,” said Ponter.

  “Well, I agree, yes,” said Mary. “But they almost never kill each other. I mean, it’s almost impossible for a human to kill another human with his bare hands. We just aren’t strong enough, I guess.”

  “In my world,” said Ponter, “to hit is to kill. And so we never hit each other. Because any violence can be fatal, we simply cannot allow it.”

  “But you were hit,” said Mary.

  Ponter nodded. “It happened long ago, while I was a student at the Science Academy. I was arguing as only a youth can, as if winning mattered. I could see that the person I was arguing with was growing angry, but I continued to press my point. And he reacted in an … unfortunate manner. But I forgave him.”

  Mary looked at Ponter, imagining him turning the other long, angular cheek toward the person who had hit him.

  * * *

  Adikor had had his Companion summon a travel cube to take him home, and he now was sitting out back, on the deck, alone, researching legal procedures. Someone might indeed be monitoring his Companion’s transmissions, but he could still use it to tap into the world’s accumulated knowledge, transferring the results to a datapad for easier viewing.

  His woman-mate, Lurt, had agreed at once to speak on behalf of Adikor in front of the tribunal. But although she and others—she’d be allowed to call witnesses this time—could attest to Adikor’s character and to the stability of his relationship with Ponter, it seemed unlikely that that would be enough to convince Adjudicator Sard and her associates to acquit Adikor. And so Adikor had begun digging into legal history, looking for other cases involving a charge of murder without a body having been found, in hopes of locating a previous judgment that might help him.

  The first similar case he uncovered dated way back to generation 17. The accused was a man named Dassta, and he was said to have killed his woman-mate after supposedly sneaking into the Center. But her body was never located; she’d simply disappeared one day. The tribunal had ruled that without a body, no murder could be said to have occurred.

  Adikor was thrilled by that discovery—until he read further in the law.

  Ponter and Adikor had selected normal deck chairs—indeed, fragile chairs. It had been a sign of Ponter’s unshakable belief that Adikor was cured, that his temper would never again erupt into physical violence. But Adikor was so frustrated now that he smashed the armrest off his deck chair with a pounding of his fist, splinters of wood flying up. For prior cases to have legal significance, he read off his datapad, they had to date from within the last ten generations; society always advanced, said the Code of Civilization, and what people had done long ago had no bearing on the sensibilities of today.

  Adikor continued searching and eventually turned up an intriguing case from generation 140—just eight generations before the current one—in which a man was accused of killing another male during a dispute over whether the latter had grown a home too close to the former’s. But, again, no body was ever found. In that case, too, the tribunal had ruled that the lack of the body was enough to dismiss the accusation. That buoyed Adikor, except—

  Except …

  Generation 140. That was the period between—let’s see—about 1,100 to 980 months ago; eighty-nine to seventy-nine years past. But the Companions had been introduced just shy of a thousand months ago; celebrations commemorating that were coming up.

  Did the case in generation 140 date from before or after the introduction of the Companions? Adikor read further.

  From before. Gristle! Bolbay would doubtless argue that this rendered it not germane. Sure, she would say, bodies and even living people could easily disappear during the dark times before the great Lonwis Trob had liberated us, but a case in which there couldn’t have been a record of the accused’s activities had no bearing on one in which the accused had contrived a situation specifically to avoid having a record made.

  Adikor searched some more. He thought briefly that it might have been convenient if there were people who specialized in dealing with legal matters on behalf of others; that, it seemed, would be a useful contribution. He’d have gladly exchanged labor with someone familiar with this field who could do this research for him. But no; it was surely a bad idea. The mere existence of people who worked full-time on things legal would doubtless increase the number of such matters instigated, and—

  Suddenly Pabo came tearing out of the house, barking. Adikor looked up, and, as it always did these days, his heart jumped. Could it be? Could it be?

  But, no, it wasn’t. Of course not. And, yet, it was someone Adikor hadn’t expected to see: young Jasmel Ket. “Healthy day,” she said, once she was within ten paces.

  “Healthy day,” Adikor replied, trying to keep his tone neutral.

  Jasmel sat on the other deck chair, the one that had been her father’s. Pabo knew Jasmel well; the dog had often come into the Center when Two became One, and was clearly pleased to see another familiar face. Pabo nuzzled Jasmel’s legs, and Jasmel scratched the reddish brown fur on the top of the dog’s head.

  “What happened to your chair?” asked Jasmel.

  Adikor looked away. “Nothing.”

  Jasmel evidently decided not to pursue the point; after all, what had happened was obvious. “Did Lurt agree to speak for you?” she asked.

  Adikor nodded.

  “Good,” said Jasmel. “I’m sure she’ll do the best she can.” She fell silent, for a time, then, glancing again at the damaged chair: “But …”

  “Yes,” said Adikor. “But.”

  Jasmel looked out at the countryside. Off in the distance, a mammoth was wandering by, stolid, placid. “Now that this matter has been referred to a full tribunal, my father’s alibi cube has been moved to the wing of the dead. Daklar spent the afternoon reviewing parts of it, as she prepares to make her full case against you. That’s her right, of course, as accuser speaking on behalf of a dead person. But I insisted she let me review Ponter’s alibi archive with her. And I’ve looked at you and my father together, in the days leading up to his disappearance.” She brought her gaze back to Adikor. “Bolbay can’t see it but, then again, she has been alone for a long time. But—well, I told you I had a young man interested in me. Despite what you said about me not yet being bonded, I know what love looks like—and there is no doubt in my mind that you truly loved my father. After seeing you the way he saw you, I can’t believe you would do anything to harm him.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Is … is there anything I can do to help you prepare to appear in front of the tribunal?”

  Adiko
r shook his head sadly. “I’m not sure anything can save me or my relatives now.”

  Chapter 32

  Day Six

  Wednesday, August 7

  148/118/29

  NEWS SEARCH

  Keyword(s): Neanderthal

  Playgirl has sent a letter to Ponter Boddit, asking him if he’d like to pose nude …

  “Does he have a soul?” said Reverend Peter Donaldson of Los Angeles’s Church of the Redeemer. “That’s the key question. And I say, no, he does not …”

  “We believe the rush to grant Ponter Canadian citizenship is calculated to allow him to represent Canada in the next Olympic Games, and we call upon the IOC to specifically bar all but Homo sapiens sapiens from competing …”

  Get yours now: T-shirts, with Ponter Boddit’s face on them. S, M, L, XL, XXL, and Neanderthal sizes available.

  The German Skeptics, headquartered in Nuremberg, today announced that there was no good reason to believe that Ponter Boddit comes from a parallel universe. “That would be the last interpretation to accept,” said Executive Director Karl von Schlegel, “and should only be adopted after every other simpler alternative has been eliminated …”

  Mounties today arrested three men found trying to infiltrate the cordon around Dr. Reuben Montego’s home in Lively, a town 14 km southwest of Sudbury, where the Neanderthal man is quarantined …

  There were many ways to pass time, and it seemed that Louise and Reuben had found one of the oldest. Mary hadn’t really looked at Reuben in that light, but, now that she did take stock of him, she realized he was indeed quite handsome. The shaved head wasn’t her thing, but Reuben did have good, sturdy features, a dazzling smile, and intelligent eyes, and he was lean and nicely muscled.

  And, of course, he had that wonderful accent—but that wasn’t all. It turned out that he was fluent in French, meaning Louise and he could converse in her language. Plus, judging by his home, he obviously made a fair bit of money—not surprising, given he was a doctor.