Humans

by neetha Napew

  “Thank you. Umm, how do I...?”

  “Pay for it?” provided Lurt, smiling. “Just walk out of the shop; your account will be billed.”

  That was one way to deal with shoplifters, thought Mary. “Thank you,” she said, and she and Lurt headed outdoors again. With the lenses down, Mary found it much more comfortable, although the blue cast to everything made her feel even colder than she already did. As she and Lurt walked along, Mary broached the topic she wanted to talk about.

  “I don’t know what the protocols are here,” said Mary. “I’m not a politician or a diplomat or anything like that. And I certainly don’t want to offend you or put you in an awkward spot, but...”

  They were walking down another wide strip of grass, this one decorated at intervals with carved life-size statues of presumably great Neanderthals, all female. “Yes?” prodded Lurt.

  “Well, I’m wondering about Ponter’s relationship with Daklar Bolbay.”

  “Daklar was woman-mate to Ponter’s woman-mate. Our technical term for that interaction istulagark . Ponter is Daklar’stulagarkap, and Daklar is Ponter’stulagarlob.”

  “Is that normally a...a close relationship?”

  “It can be, but it does not have to be. Ponter is my owntulagarkap , after all-the same-sex mate of my opposite-sex mate, Adikor. Ponter and I do happen to be quite close. But it just as often is a merely cordial relationship, and occasionally one of some hostility.”

  “Ponter and Daklar seem to be...close.”

  Lurt made a cold laugh. “Daklar brought charges against my Adikor in Ponter’s absence. There can be no affection between Ponter and Daklar now.”

  “So I would have thought,” said Mary. “But thereis.”

  “You are misreading the signs.”

  “Daklar herself told me.”

  Lurt stopped walking, perhaps startled, perhaps to try to catch a whiff of Mary’s pheromones. “Oh,” she said at last.

  “Indeed. And, well...”

  “Yes?”

  Mary paused, and then motioned for them to begin walking again. The sun moved behind a cloud. “You have not seen Adikor since Two last became One, is that right?”

  Lurt nodded.

  “Have you spoken to him?”

  “Briefly. On a matter concerning Dab.”

  “But not about...about Ponter and...and me?”

  “No,” said Lurt.

  “Are you...are you obliged to share everything with Adikor? I don’t mean possessions; I mean knowledge. Gossip.”

  “No, of course not. We have a saying: ‘What happens when Two are separate is best kept separate.’”

  Mary smiled. “All right, then. I really don’t want this to get back to Ponter, but...well, I, um, I like him.”

  “He has an agreeable disposition,” said Lurt.

  Mary suppressed a grin. Ponter himself had told her he wasn’t good-looking by the standards of his own people, not that Mary cared or could even tell. But Lurt’s words reminded her of what was usually said about homely people in her own world.

  “I mean,” said Mary, “I like him a lot.” God, she felt fourteen years old again.

  “Yes?” said Lurt.

  “But he likes Daklar. They spent part-maybe all-of the last Two becoming One together.”

  “Really?” said Lurt. “Astonishing.” She stepped aside, making room for a couple of younger women, holding hands, to pass by them. “Of course, the last Two becoming One occurred prior to reestablishing contact with your world. Did you and Ponter have sex when he was there the first time?”

  Mary was flustered. “No.”

  “And have you had sex since? Two have not been One since, but I understand Ponter spent considerable time in your world over the last couple of ten days.”

  Mary knew from Ponter that discussions about sexual matters weren’t taboo in his world. Still, she felt her cheeks warming. “Yes.”

  “How was it?” asked Lurt.

  Mary thought for a second, and then, having no idea how the translator might render the word, but not having a better one at hand, she said simply, “Hot.”

  “Do you love him?”

  “I-I don’t know. I think so.”

  “He has no woman-mate; I am sure you know that.”

  Mary nodded. “Yes.”

  “I do not know how long this portal between our two worlds will stay open,” said Lurt. “It might be permanent; it might close tomorrow-even with so many of our greatest on the other side, the portal itself might be unstable. But even if it were permanent, do you propose somehow to make a life with Ponter?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know if that is even a possibility.”

  “Do you have children?”

  “Me?” said Mary. “No.”

  “And you have no man-mate?”

  Mary took a deep breath, and examined a stack of three travel cubes they were passing. “Welllll,” she said, “it’s complex. I was married-bonded-to a man named Colm O’Casey. My religion”-ableep -“my belief system does not allow an easy dissolution of such bonds. Colm and I haven’t lived together for years, but technically we are still bonded.”

  “’Lived together?’” repeated Lurt, astonished.

  “In my world,” said Mary, “a man lives with his woman-mate.”

  “What about his man-mate?”

  “He doesn’t have one. There are only two people in the relationship.”

  “Incredible,” said Lurt. “I love Adikor dearly, but I certainly would not want to live with him.”

  “It’s the way of my people,” said Mary.

  “But not of mine,” said Lurt. “If you were to pursue this relationship with Ponter, where would the two of you live? His world, or yours? He has children here, you know, and a man-mate, and work he enjoys.”

  “I know,” said Mary, her heart aching. “I know.”

  “Have you talked to Ponter about any of this?”

  “I was going to, but...but then I found out about Daklar.”

  “It would be very difficult to make it work,” said Lurt. “Surely you must understand that.”

  Mary exhaled noisily. “I do.” She paused. “But Ponter isn’t like the other men I know.” A silly comparison occurred to Mary: Jane Porter and Tarzan of the Apes. Jane had fallen head over heels for Tarzan, who truly had been unlike any man she’d ever met. And Tarzan, feral, raised by simians after the death of his parents, Lord and Lady Greystoke, was unique, truly one of a kind. But Ponter had said there were a hundred and eighty-five million people in his world, and perhaps all those men were like Ponter, and so unlike the rough, rude, mean, petty men of Mary’s world.

  But after a moment, Lurt nodded. “Yes, Ponter is not like other men that I know, either. He is amazingly intelligent, and truly kind. And...”

  “Yes?” said Mary, eagerly.

  But it was a while before Lurt went on. “There was an event, in Ponter’s past. He was...injured...”

  Mary touched Lurt’s massive forearm gently. “I know about what happened with Ponter and Adikor; I know about Ponter’s jaw.”

  Mary saw Lurt’s continuous eyebrow roll up her browridge before Mary turned her attention back to the path in front of them. “Ponter told you this?” asked Lurt.

  “About the injury, yes-I’d seen it in his X rays. Not who did it. I learned that from Daklar.”

  Lurt spoke a word that wasn’t translated, then: “Well, you know that Ponter forgave Adikor, totally and completely. It is something few people could have done.” She paused again. “And, I suppose, given his admirable history in such matters, it is little surprise that he has apparently forgiven Daklar, too.”

  “So,” said Mary, “what should I do?”

  “I have been given to understand that your people believe in some sort of existence after this one,” said Lurt.

  Mary started at the apparentnon sequitur . “Um, yes.”

  “We do not, as I am sure Ponter must have told you. Perhaps if we believed there was more to
life than just this existence, we might have a different philosophy, but let me tell you what tends to be our guiding principle.”

  “Please,” said Mary.

  “We live our lives so as to minimize deathbed regrets. You are a 145, no?”

  “I’m thirty-nine...years old, that is.”

  “Yes. Well, then you are perhaps halfway through your life. Ask yourself if in...in another thirty-nine years, to phrase it as you would, when your life is ending, will you regret not having tried to make a relationship with Ponter work?”

  “Yes, I believe so.”

  “Listen carefully to my question, friend Mare. I am not asking you if you would regret not pursuing this relationship if it were to succeed. I am asking you if you would regret not pursuing iteven if it fails.”

  Mary narrowed her eyes, although they were comfortable behind the blue lenses. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “My contribution is chemistry,” said Lurt. “Now. But it was not my first choice. I wanted to write stories, to create fiction.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. But I failed at it. There was no audience for my tales, no positive response to my work. And so I had to make a different contribution; I had an aptitude for mathematics and science, and so I became a chemist. But I do not regret having tried and failed at writing fiction. Of course, I would have preferred to succeed, but on my deathbed I knew I would be more sad if I had never tried, had never tested to see if I might succeed at it, than I would be had I tried and failed. So I did try-and I did fail. But I am happy for the knowledge that I made the attempt.” Lurt paused. “Obviously, you will be happiest if your relationship with Ponter works out. But will you be happier on your deathbed, friend Mare, to know that you tried and failed to have a long-term relationship with Ponter than that you never tried at all?”

  Mary considered this. They walked on in silence for several minutes. Finally, Mary said, “I need to try,” she said. “I would hate myself if I didn’t at least try.”

  “Then,” said Lurt, “your path is clear.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  It was still one more day until Two became One, but Ponter and Mary had rendezvoused at the Alibi Archive Pavilion. Ponter had led her into the south wing, and they were now standing in front of a wall full of little compartments, each containing a reconstituted granite cube about the size of a volleyball. Mary had learned to read Neanderthal numerals. The particular cube Ponter was holding his Companion up to was number 16,321. It was identified in no other way, but, like all the other cubes, it had a blue light glowing in the center of one side.

  Mary shook her head in wonder. “Your whole life is recorded in there?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Ponter.

  “Everything?”

  “Well, everything except my work down in the quantum-computing facility-the signals from my Companion couldn’t penetrate the thousand armspans of rock overhead. Oh, and my entire first trip to your world is missing, too.”

  “But not the second trip?”

  “No, that was uploaded starting as soon as the alibi archives reacquired Hak’s signal-when we emerged from the mine. An entire record of that trip is stored here.”

  Mary wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that. She certainly wasn’t the stereotype of the good Catholic girl, but there was now one hell of a porno film in there...

  “Amazing,” said Mary. Lilly, Kevin, and Frank back at the Synergy Group would kill to be standing right here. She looked again at the reconstituted granite block. “Can you edit the stored memories?”

  “Why would you want to do that?” asked Ponter. But then he looked away. “Sorry. Stupid question.”

  Mary shook her head. Despite what they’d come to research, Mary hadn’t been contemplating the rape. “Actually,” she said, “I was just thinking about my first marriage.”

  Suddenly she felt her cheeks go flush. She’d never before referred to it as herfirst marriage. “Anyway,” she said, “let’s get on with it.”

  Ponter nodded and led them to the front desk, where he spoke to an elderly woman. “I’d like to access my own archive, please.”

  “Ident?” said the woman. Ponter waved his forearm over a scanning plate on the desktop. The woman looked at a square monitor screen. “Ponter Boddit?” she said. “I thought you were dead.”

  “Funny,” said Ponter. “Funny woman.”

  The female grinned. “Come with me.” She led the way back to Ponter’s alibi cube. Ponter held Hak up to the blue light. “I, Ponter Boddit, wish to access my own alibi archive for reasons of personal curiosity. Timestamp.”

  The light turned yellow.

  The elderly woman then held up her Companion. “I, Mabla Dabdalb, Keeper of Alibis, hereby certify that Ponter Boddit’s identity has been confirmed in my presence. Timestamp.” The light turned red, and a tone sounded.

  “All set,” said Dabdalb. “You can use room seven.”

  “Thank you,” said Ponter. “Healthy day.”

  “And to you,” said the woman as she scurried back to her desk.

  Ponter led the way to the viewing room, and Mary followed. For the first time, she really understood what Ponter must have felt like in her world. She could feel every eye in this vast place trained on her, gawking. She tried not to look flustered.

  Ponter entered the room, which had a small yellow wall-mounted console and two of those saddle-shaped chairs the Neanderthals liked, presumably because of their wide hips. He moved over to the control panel and started pulling out the buds that operated the unit. Mary peered over his shoulder. “How come you don’t use buttons?” asked Mary.

  “Buttons?” repeated Ponter.

  “You know, those mechanical switches that you press in.”

  “Oh. We do in some applications. But not many. If someone trips and falls, they can accidentally press buttons with their hand. Control buds must be pulled out; we consider them safer.”

  Mary had a brief thought of aStar Trek episode in which Spock, of all people, accidentally pushed some buttons while hauling himself to his feet, alerting the Romulans to theEnterprise ‘s presence. “Makes sense,” she said.

  Ponter continued to pull out buds. “All right,” he said at last. “Here it is.”

  To Mary’s astonishment, a large transparent sphere appeared in the middle of the room, floating freely. It split into smaller and smaller spheres, each tinted a slightly different color. The subdividing continued until Mary realized she was seeing a three-dimensional image of the interrogation room at the police station back in Toronto. There was Detective Hobbes, with his back to them, speaking to somebody. And there was Mary herself, looking chunkier than she liked, and Ponter. Ponter’s hand snaked out, grabbing the file folder Hobbes had left on the table and quickly leafing through it. The images of the pages within went by too fast for Mary to see, but Ponter returned to the beginning, then played everything back slowly. To Mary’s astonishment, there was no motion blur at all; she could easily read the pages as they flipped by, although she had to cock her head at an odd angle to do so.

  “Well?” said Ponter.

  “Just a sec...” said Mary, looking for anything she didn’t already know. “No, nothing there. Can you advance to the next page, please? There! Hold it. Okay, let’s see...”

  Suddenly Mary felt a churning in her gut. “Oh my God,” she said. “Oh my God.”

  “What is it?” asked Ponter.

  Mary staggered backward. She bumped up against a saddle seat, and used it to support herself. “The other victim,” said Mary...

  “Yes? Yes?”

  “It was Qaiser Remtulla.”

  “Who?”

  “My boss. My friend. The head of the genetics department at York.”

  “I am sorry,” said Ponter.

  Mary closed her eyes. “So am I,” she said. “If I’d only...”

  “Mare,” said Ponter, placing a hand on her arm, “the past is done. There is nothing you can do about it. B
ut there may be something you can do about the future.”

  She looked up but said nothing.

  “Read the rest of the report. There may be useful information.”

  Mary took a moment to compose herself, then returned to the hologram and read on, despite the stinging in her eyes, until-

  “Yes!” she exclaimed. “Yes, yes!”

  “What is it?”

  “The Toronto Police,” Mary said. “They have physical evidence from the attack on Qaiser. A complete rape kit.” She paused. “Maybe theywill catch the bastard after all.”

  But Ponter frowned. “Enforcer Hobbes seemed doubtful.”

  “I know, but...” Mary sighed. “No, you’re probably right.” She was quiet for a time. “I don’t know how I’ll ever manage to face Qaiser again.”

  Mary hadn’t intended to bring up the issue of going home-really she hadn’t. But if she were to see Qaiser again, she’d have to go back, and so now there it was, out in the air, floating between them.

  “She will forgive you,” said Ponter. “Forgiveness is a Christian virtue.”

  “Qaiser’s not Christian; she’s Muslim.” Mary frowned, embarrassed by her own ignorance. Did Muslims hold forgiveness in high regard, too? But, no, no. That didn’t matter. If the situation were reversed, could Mary really have forgiven Qaiser?

  “What are we going to do?” said Mary.

  “About the rapist? Whatever we can, whenever we can.”

  “No, no. Not about the rapist. About tomorrow. About Two becoming One.”

  “Ah,” said Ponter. “Yes.”

  “Jasmel will be spending all her time with Tryon, won’t she?”

  Ponter grinned. “Oh, yes, indeed.”

  “And you just saw Megameg.”

  “I can never see her enough-but I take your point.”

  “And that leaves...”

  Ponter sighed. “That leaves Daklar.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Ponter considered. “I have already violated tradition by coming into the Center a day early. I suppose it will not compound matters significantly if I go see Daklar now.”

  Mary’s heart jumped. “Alone?”

  “Yes,” said Ponter. “Alone.”

  Ponter stood outside the door to Daklar’s office, trying to summon his courage. He felt like he was back in the Gliksin world; every female he’d passed on the way here had stared at him as though he didn’t belong.