Neanderthal Parallax 2 - Humans Read online

  Actually, that wasn’t quite true: neither he nor Hak could yet read English, but he was using a clamshell computer provided by the Canadian government, which had some sort of encyclopedia loaded onto it. The encyclopedia had a text-to-speech feature that read in an irritating mechanical tone—certainly Ponter’s people could teach the Gliksins a thing or two about voice synthesis. Anyway, Hak listened to the English words spoken by the computer, and then translated them into the Neanderthal tongue for Ponter.

  Early in the article on the United Nations, there was a reference to the organization’s “Charter,” apparently its founding document. Ponter was horrified by its opening:

  We the Peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind…

  Two wars—within a single human lifetime! There had been wars in the history of Ponter’s world, but the last one was almost twenty thousand months ago. Still, it had been devastating, and the sorrow was certainly not untold (which Hak translated as “not counted”). Rather, every youngster was taught the horrible truth, that fully 719 people had died in that war.

  Such devastating loss of life! And yet these Gliksins had fought not one but two wars in as little as a thousand moons.

  Still, who knew how old this United Nations was? Perhaps the “lifetime” in question had been long ago. Ponter asked Hak to listen to more of the article, and see if he could find a founding date. He did: one-nine-four-five.

  The current year, as the Gliksins tallied them, was two-something, wasn’t it? “Exactly how long ago was that?” asked Ponter.

  Hak told him, and Ponter felt himself sagging against his chair. The lifetime in question—the lifetime in which not one but two wars had ravaged humankind—was this lifetime.

  Ponter wanted to know more about Gliksin war. Hélène had opened the encyclopedia to the entry on the United Nations for him before she’d left with Tukana, but Ponter managed slowly to work out the completely nonintuitive interface. “Which one is their word for ‘war?’” he asked.

  Hak did an analysis of the text he’d heard and the words that had been displayed on the computer’s screen. “It is the sixth character-grouping in from the right on the ninth line of text.”

  Ponter used his fingertip to help him find the spot on the flat screen. “That can’t be right,” he said. “That grouping only has three symbols in it.” The Neanderthal word for “war” was mapartaltapa; Ponter had often wished since coming here that he knew more about linguistics—what a help it would have been!—but one principle he did understand is that you reserved short terms for common concepts.

  “I believe I am correct,” said Hak. “The word is pronounced ‘war.’”

  “But—oh.”

  Ponter looked down at the— keyboard, that was the term. He managed to find a match for the first symbol, w, but couldn’t find any that looked like a or r. “If you select the word,” said Hak, “I believe it can be cross-referenced.”

  Ponter struggled with the touch-sensitive area in front of the keyboard, moving the little pine tree on screen until its apex touched the word, and after some experimentation, he got the word highlighted. On the left side of the screen, a list of topics appeared, and—

  Ponter felt his jaw drop, as Hak read out the names.

  The Gulf War.

  The Korean War.

  The Spanish Civil War.

  The Spanish-American War.

  The Vietnam War.

  The War Between the States.

  The War of 1812.

  The War of the Roses.

  On and on.

  More and more.

  And…

  And…

  Ponter’s heart was fluttering.

  World War I.

  World War II.

  Ponter wanted to swear, but the only epithets he had at his command were the ones his species had come up with: references to the putrefaction of meat, to the elimination of bodily wastes. None of those seemed suitable just now. Until this moment, he hadn’t understood the Gliksin style of imprecations that invoked a putative higher power, calling on a superior being to make sense of the follies of man. But that really was the sort of expression needed here. The entire world at war! Ponter was almost afraid to look at the articles, afraid to hear what the death tolls had been. Why, they must have run into the thousands…

  He moved his finger on the touch-sensitive pad, and let the encyclopedia speak to Hak.

  In World War I, ten million soldiers had died.

  And in World War II, fifty-five million people—soldiers and civilians both—had died, from causes variously termed “combat,” “starvation,” “bombing raids,” “epidemics,” “massacres,” and “radiation,”—although what that last could possibly have to do with war, Ponter had no idea.

  Ponter felt physically sick. He got up from his chair, moved over to the hotel room’s window, and looked out at the nighttime panorama of this city, this Ottawa. Hélène had told him the tall edifice he could see from here on Parliament Hill was called the Peace Tower.

  He opened the window as much as it would allow—which was not a lot—and let some of the wonderfully cold exterior air come in. Despite the smell, it calmed his stomach a bit, but he still found himself shaking his head back and forth over and over again.

  He thought about the question his beloved Adikor had asked him upon his return from his first visit to this world:“ Are they good people, Ponter? Should we be in contact with them?”

  And Ponter had said yes. The fact that there was any further contact with this race of—of murderers, of warriors—was his own doing. But he’d seen so little of their world the first time, and…

  No. He’d seen plenty. He’d seen what they’d done to the environment, how they’d destroyed vast tracts of land, how they bred unchecked. He’d known what they were, even then, but…

  Ponter took another restorative inspiration of the chill air.

  He had wanted to see Mare again. And that desire had blinded him to what he’d known about the Gliksins. His nausea wasn’t caused by the shock of what he’d just learned, he knew. Rather, it was caused by the realization that he’d deliberately suppressed his own best judgment.

  He looked again at the Peace Tower, tall and brown with some sort of timepiece near its apex, right at the heart of the seat of government for this country he was in. Perhaps…perhaps the Gliksins had changed. They’d created this organization he would visit tomorrow, this United Nations, specifically, so its charter had said, to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.

  Ponter left the window open, moved over to his bed—he doubted he’d ever get used to these elevated, soft beds the Gliksins favored—and lay down on his back, arms behind his head, staring at the swirling plaster patterns on the ceiling.

  Ponter and Tukana, accompanied by Hélène Gagné and two plainclothes RCMP officers who were serving as bodyguards, were taken by limousine to Ottawa International Airport. The two Neanderthals had both been exhilarated by their earlier flight from Sudbury to Ottawa: neither of them had ever seen the terrain of Northern Ontario—which was the same mixture of pines and lakes and shield rocks as in their version of Earth—from such a wonderful vantage point.

  At first, Ponter had felt some inferiority in light of all these advanced Gliksin technologies—airplanes and even spaceships. But his research last night had made him realize why these humans had progressed so much in these areas; he’d gone back to exploring various articles in the encyclopedia.

  It was a central concept for them, deserving of its short designation.

  War had made—

  Even the phrases they used to describe these breakthroughs were martial.

  War had made the conquest of air, the conquest of space, possible.

  They pulled up to the terminal, Hak noting the irony of this term’s double meaning. Ponter had thought the building the miners used for changing clothes w
as huge, but this massive structure was the largest enclosed interior space he had ever seen. And it was packed with people, and their pheromones. Ponter felt woozy, and also rather embarrassed: many people were openly staring at him and Tukana.

  They dealt with some paperwork formalities—Ponter didn’t quite follow the details—and then were led to an odd oversize wicket. Hélène told him and Tukana to remove their medical belts and send them down a conveyor, and also to empty the storage pouches on their clothing, which they did. And then, at Hélène’s gesture, Ponter walked through the wicket.

  An alarm immediately went off, startling Ponter.

  Suddenly a uniformed man was waving some sort of probe over Ponter’s body. The probe shrieked when passing over Ponter’s left forearm. “Roll up you sleeve,” said the man.

  Ponter had never heard that expression before, but he guessed its meaning. He undid the closures on his sleeve, and folded back the fabric, revealing the metal and plastic rectangle of his Companion.

  The man stared for a time at this, and then, almost to himself, he said, “We can rebuild him. We have the technology.”

  “Pardon?” asked Ponter.

  “Nothing,” said the man. “You can go on ahead.”

  The flight to New York City was quite brief—not even half a daytenth. Hélène had warned Ponter both on this flight and yesterday’s that he might experience some discomfort as the plane descended, since the air pressure would be changing quickly, but Ponter didn’t feel a thing. Perhaps it was a peculiarly Gliksin affliction, caused by their tiny sinus cavities.

  The plane, according to an announcement over the speakers, had to divert to the south and fly directly over the island known as Manhattan, to accommodate other air traffic. Crowded skies, thought Ponter. How astonishing! Still, Ponter was delighted. After having his fill of hearing about war last night, he’d turned to the encyclopedia’s entry on New York City. There were, he discovered, many great human-made landmarks here, and it would be wonderful to get to see them from the air. He looked for, and found, the giant green woman with the dour expression, holding aloft a torch. But, try as he might, he couldn’t spot the two towers that supposedly rose above the surrounding buildings, each an incredible hundred and ten stories tall.

  When they were at last on the ground, Ponter asked Hélène about the missing—he found the word poetic—“skyscrapers.”

  Hélène looked very uncomfortable. “Ah,” she said. “You mean the World Trade Center towers. Used to be two of the tallest buildings on the planet, but…” Her voice cracked slightly, which surprised Ponter. “I—I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but…” Another hesitation. “But they were destroyed by terrorists.”

  Ponter’s Companion bleeped, but Tukana, who had clearly been doing research of her own, tipped her head toward Ponter. “Gliksin outlaws who use violence to try to force political or social change.”

  Ponter shook his head, once more astonished by the universe he’d come to. “How were the buildings destroyed?”

  Hélène hesitated yet again before responding. “Two large airplanes with tanks full of fuel were hijacked and deliberately crashed into them.”

  Ponter could think of no reply. But he was glad he hadn’t learned this until he was safely back on the ground.

  Chapter Sixteen

  When she had been eighteen, Mary’s boyfriend Donny had gone to Los Angeles with his family for the summer. That had been before widespread e-mail or even cheap long-distance calling, but they’d kept in touch by letter. Don had sent long, densely packed ones at first, full of news and declarations of how much he missed her, how much he loved her.

  But as the pleasant days of June gave way to the heat of July, and the sweltering humidity of August, the letters grew less frequent, and less densely packed. Mary remembered vividly the day one arrived with just Don’s name at the end, standing there alone, not preceded by the word “Love.”

  They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. Perhaps it does in some cases. Perhaps, indeed, it had in the current case. It had been weeks since Mary had last seen Ponter Boddit, and she felt at least as much, if not more, affection for him than she had when he departed.

  But there was a difference. After Ponter had left, Mary had gone back to being alone—not even a free woman, for she and Colm were only separated; divorce meant excommunication for both of them, and the process of pursuing an annulment had seemed hypocritical.

  But Ponter had only been alone when he was here. Yes, he was a widower, although that wasn’t the term he used for it, but when he’d gone back to his universe, he’d been surrounded by family: his man-mate Adikor Huld—Mary had committed the names to memory—and his two daughters, eighteen-year-old Jasmel Ket and eight-year-old Megameg Bek.

  Mary was in an anteroom on the eighteenth floor of the Secretariat building at the UN, waiting for Ponter to get out of a meeting, so she could at last rendezvous with him. As she sat in a chair, too nervous to read, her stomach churned, and all sorts of thoughts went through her head. Would Ponter even recognize her? He must have seen plenty of late-thirties blondes here in New York; would all similarly colored Gliksins look alike to him? Besides, she’d cut her hair since Sudbury, and, if anything, was a pound or two heavier, God damn it.

  And, after all, it had been she who had rejected him last time. Perhaps she was the last person Ponter wanted to see, now that he had returned to this Earth.

  But no. No. He had understood that she was still dealing with the aftermath of the rape, that her inability to respond to his advance had nothing to do with him. Yes, surely, he had understood that.

  And yet, there was—

  Mary’s heart jumped. The door was opening, and the muffled voices within suddenly became distinct. Mary leapt to her feet, her hands clasped nervously in front of her.

  “—and I’ll get you those figures,” said an Asian diplomat, talking over his shoulder to a silver-haired female Neanderthal who must be Ambassador Tukana Prat.

  Two more H. sap diplomats shouldered through the door, and then—

  And then, there was Ponter Boddit, his dark blond hair parted precisely in the center, his arresting golden brown eyes obvious even at this distance. Mary lifted her eyebrows, but Ponter hadn’t caught sight, or wind, of her just yet. He was speaking to one of the other diplomats, saying something about geological surveys, and—

  And then his eyes did fall on Mary, and she smiled nervously, and he did a neat little sideways step, bypassing the people in front of him, and his face split into that foot-wide grin Mary knew so well, and he closed the distance between him and her, and swept her into his arms, hugging her close to his massive chest.

  “Mare!” exclaimed Ponter, in his own voice, and then, with Hak translating, “How wonderful to see you!”

  “Welcome back,” said Mary, her cheek against his. “Welcome back!”

  “What are you doing here in New York?” asked Ponter.

  Mary could have said that she’d just come in hopes of collecting a DNA sample from Tukana; it was part of the truth, and it afforded an easy out, a face-saving explanation, but…

  “I came to see you,” she said simply.

  Ponter squeezed her again, then relaxed his grip and stepped back, putting a hand on each of her shoulders, looking her in the face. “I am so glad,” he said.

  Mary became uncomfortably aware that the other people in the room were looking at her and Ponter, and, indeed, after a moment, Tukana cleared her throat, just as a Gliksin might.

  Ponter turned his head and looked at the ambassador. “Oh,” he said. “Forgive me. This is Mare Vaughan, the geneticist I told you about.”

  Mary stepped forward, extending her hand. “Hello, Madam Ambassador.”

  Tukana took Mary’s hand and shook it with astonishing strength. Mary reflected that if she’d been sufficiently sneaky, she could have collected a few of Tukana’s cells just in the process of shaking hands. “It is a pleasure to meet you,” said the old
er Neanderthal. “I am Tukana Prat.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Mary, smiling. “I’ve been reading about you in the papers.”

  “My feeling,” said Tukana, a sly grin on her wide face, “is that perhaps you and Envoy Boddit would like some time alone together.” Without waiting for an answer, she turned to one of the Gliksin diplomats. “Shall we go to your office and look over those population-dispersal figures?”

  The diplomat nodded, and the rest of the party left the room, leaving Mary and Ponter alone.

  “So,” said Ponter, sweeping Mary into another hug. “How are you?”

  Mary couldn’t tell if it was her heart, or Ponter’s, that was jack hammering. “Now that you’re here,” she said, “I’m fine.”

  The General Assembly hall of the United Nations consisted of a series of concentric semicircles facing a central stage. Ponter was baffled at the mix of faces he saw. In Canada, he’d noted a range of skin colors and facial types, and, so far, his experience of the United States had been similar. Here, in this massive chamber, he saw the same wide variety of coloration, which Lurt had told him almost certainly had resulted from prolonged periods of geographic isolation for each color group, assuming, as Mare had asserted, that they were indeed cross fertile.

  But here, all the representatives from each country were the same color—even Canada and the United States had only light-skinned representatives at this United Nations.

  More: Ponter was used to seeing councils on his world consisting entirely of members of one gender, or councils with exactly equal numbers of males and females. But here there were perhaps ninety-five percent males, with only a smattering of females. Was it possible, wondered Ponter, that there was a hierarchy among the “races,” as Mare had called them, with the light-skinned holding the ultimate power? Likewise, was it conceivable that Gliksin females were accorded lesser status, and only rarely allowed into the most senior circles?