Hominids Read online

  “Me?” said Adikor. “Sure.” He smiled. “Of course, I said that yesterday and the day before and the day before that.”

  “The perpetual optimist,” said Ponter.

  “Hey,” said Adikor, “when you’re this far down, there’s nowhere to go but up.”

  Ponter laughed, then walked through the archway into the eating room to get a squeeze tube of water. He hoped the experiment would indeed succeed today. The next Gray Council was coming up soon, and he and Adikor would have to explain again what they were giving back to the community through their work. Scientists usually got their proposals approved—everyone could clearly see how science had bettered their lives—but, still, it was always more satisfying to report positive results.

  Ponter used his teeth to pull open the plastic tab on the tube of water, and gulped some of the cool liquid. He then moved back into the control room, sat at his desk, and started reading through a fan of pale green sheets of square plastic, reviewing the notes from their last attempt, occasionally taking sips of his water. Ponter’s back was to Adikor, who was fiddling with controls on the opposite side of the small room. The main wall of the room was mostly glass, a big window looking out over the large computing chamber, which had both a higher ceiling and a lower floor than the other rooms.

  They’d already had considerable success with their quantum computer. Last tenmonth, they had factored a number that required 1073 hydrogen atoms as registers—a quantity vastly greater than all the hydrogen in all the stars in this entire galaxy, and sixty-odd orders of magnitude greater than the capacity of the entire computing chamber, even if it had been filled entirely with hydrogen. The only way they could have succeeded was if they really were getting true quantum-computing effects—having their limited number of physical registers existing simultaneously in multiple states superimposed one upon the other.

  In a way, this next experiment was merely incremental: it was an attempt to factor an even bigger number. But the number in question was one of the vastly huge ones that Digandal’s Theorem said should be prime. No conventional computer could test that, but their quantum computer should be able to do so.

  Ponter checked a few more pages of the printout, then went over to another control cluster and pulled some operational buds, adjusting parts of the recording system. He wanted to make sure that every facet of the run would be recorded, so that there could be no doubt afterward about the result. If they could just—

  “Ready,” said Adikor.

  Ponter felt his heart begin to race. He so much wanted it to work—both for his own sake, and for Adikor’s, too. Ponter had had much luck early in his career; his was a respected name in physics circles. Even if he were to die today, he would be long remembered. Adikor hadn’t been as successful, Ponter knew, although he surely deserved to be. How wonderful it would be for both of them if they could prove—or disprove; either result would be significant—Digandal’s Theorem.

  There were two control clusters to be operated, one on each side of the small room. Ponter stayed at the one he was now at, next to the arch leading to the eating room; Adikor moved over to the other one on the opposite side of the room. All the controls should have been localized in one place, but this setup had saved almost thirty armspans’ worth of the expensive quantally transductive cable used to link the registers. Each control cluster was mounted on a wall. Adikor stood next to his and pulled the buds that needed pulling. Ponter, meanwhile, was operating the appropriate controls on his own cluster.

  “All set?” asked Adikor.

  Ponter looked at the series of indicator lights on his board; they were all red, the color of blood, the color of health. “Yes.”

  Adikor nodded. “Ten beats,” he said, starting the countdown. “Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Zero.”

  Several lights flashed on Ponter’s board, showing that the registers were working. In theory, over the span of a fraction of a beat, all the possible factors had been tried, and the results had already been received as a series of interference patterns on photographic film. It would take the conventional computer that decoded the interference patterns a while to compose the list of factors—which, if Digandal was wrong and this number wasn’t prime, could be a very large list indeed.

  Ponter left his console and moved to sit down. Adikor paced back and forth, looking out the window at the rows of register tanks, each a sealed glass-and-steel column containing a specific amount of hydrogen.

  Finally, the conventional computer made a plunk sound, signaling that it had finished.

  There was a monitor square in the center of Ponter’s control cluster; the results appeared on it in black glyphs on a yellow background. And the results were—

  “Gristle!” swore Adikor, standing behind Ponter, a hand on his shoulder.

  The display read: “Error in register 69; factoring aborted.”

  “We have got to get that one replaced,” said Ponter. “It’s given us nothing but trouble.”

  “It’s not the register,” said Adikor. “It’s the base that holds it to the floor. But it’ll take tendays to get a new one made.”

  “So we can’t do anything before the Gray Council?” asked Ponter. He didn’t look forward to facing the elder citizens and saying that nothing had been added to our knowledge since the last Council session.

  “Not unless…” Adikor trailed off.

  “What?”

  “Well, the problem with 69 is that it tends to vibrate on its base; the attachment clamps weren’t machined quite right. If we could find something to anchor it with…”

  Ponter scanned the room. There was nothing that looked suitable. “How about if I just go out on the computing floor and lean on it? You know, press down with all my weight. Wouldn’t that keep it from vibrating?”

  Adikor frowned. “You’d have to hold it very steady. The equipment can tolerate some movement, of course, but…”

  “I can do it,” said Ponter. “But—but will my presence on the computing floor promote decoherence?”

  Adikor shook his head. “No. The register columns are heavily shielded; it would take something a lot more radioactive or electrically noisy than a human body to upset the contents.”

  “Well, then?”

  Adikor frowned again. “It’s hardly an elegant solution to the problem.”

  “But it might work.”

  Adikor nodded. “I suppose it’s worth a try. Better than going to Council empty-handed.”

  “All right!” said Ponter, decisively. “Let’s do it.” Adikor nodded, and Ponter opened the door that separated the other three rooms from the large chamber containing the register tanks. He then walked down the steps to the room’s polished granite floor, which had been leveled with laser beams. Ponter moved carefully along it; he’d slipped once before while crossing. When he got to cylinder 69, he placed one hand on its curved top, covered that with his other hand, and then pressed down with all his strength. “Any time you’re ready,” Ponter shouted.

  “Ten,” Adikor shouted back. “Nine. Eight. Seven.”

  Ponter fought to keep his hands steady. As far as he could tell, the cylinder wasn’t vibrating at all.

  “Six. Five. Four.”

  Ponter took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. He held it in.

  “Three. Two. One.”

  Here we go, thought Ponter.

  “Zero!”

  Adikor heard the glass rattle fiercely in the window looking over the computing floor. “Ponter!” he shouted. Adikor hurried to the window. “P-Ponter?”

  But there was no sign of him.

  Adikor pulled the grip that unlatched the door, and—

  Whoosh!

  The door swung forward, flying open, the grip wrenched from Adikor’s hand as a great rush of air from the control room flew past him out into the computing chamber; it was almost enough to tumble Adikor face first down the small staircase. Air was rushing into the computing chamber from the control room and the
mine beyond as if—as if somehow the air that had been in there earlier had all been sucked away. Adikor’s ears popped repeatedly.

  “Ponter!” he called again once the wind had died down, but although the room was large, the register tanks, arrayed in a vast grid, were all narrow columns; there was no way Ponter could be concealed behind one of them.

  What could have happened? If a rock wall elsewhere in the mine had collapsed, and behind it had been an area of low pressure, maybe…

  But there were seismic sensors throughout the mining complex, and they’d have triggered the release of warning smells here in the computing lab if there had been any such disturbance.

  Adikor hurried across the granite floor. “Ponter!” he called again. “Ponter?”

  There was no fissure in the flooring; he couldn’t have been swallowed up by the ground. Adikor could see register tank 69, the one Ponter had been working on, at the far end of the room. Ponter obviously wasn’t there, but Adikor ran over to the register, anyway, looking for any clue, and—

  Gristle!

  Adikor found his feet going out from under him, and he came slamming down on his back on the granite floor. The surface was covered with water—lots of water. Where had it come from? Ponter had been drinking from a tube earlier, but Adikor was sure he’d finished it upstairs. And besides, there was much more here than could have fit in a tube; there were buckets of it, spreading out in a wide puddle.

  The water—if that’s what it was—looked clean, clear. Adikor brought his wet palm up to his face, sniffed. No odor.

  A tentative lick.

  No taste at all.

  It was pure, apparently. Pure, clean water.

  Heart pounding, head racing, Adikor went to get some containers to collect it in; it was the only clue he had.

  Where had the water possibly come from?

  And where on Earth had Ponter gone?

  Chapter Five

  What the—?

  Absolute blackness.

  And—water! Ponter Boddit’s legs were wet, and—

  And he was sinking, water up to his waist, his chest, the bottom of his jaw.

  Ponter kicked violently.

  His eyes were indeed wide open, but there was nothing—absolutely nothing—to be seen.

  He flailed with his arms while treading water. He gulped in air.

  What had happened? Where could he be?

  One moment he’d been standing in the quantum-computing facility, and the next—

  Darkness—so unrelentingly dark, Ponter thought perhaps he was blind. An explosion could have done that; rock bursts were always a danger this far underground, and—

  And an influx of subterranean water was possible. He swung his arms some more, then stretched out his toes, trying to feel for the bottom, but—

  But there was nothing, nothing at all. Just more water. He could be a handspan from the bottom, or a thousand times that much. He thought about diving down to find out, but in the dark, floating freely, with no light at all, he might lose track of which way was up and not make it back to the surface in time.

  He’d taken in a mouthful of water as he’d felt for the bottom. It was utterly free of taste; he’d have expected a subterranean river to be brackish, but this seemed as pure as meltwater.

  He continued to gulp air. His heart was racing, and—

  And he wanted to swim toward the edge, wherever that—

  A groaning sound, low, deep, from all around him.

  Again, like an animal awakening, like…

  Like something under great stress?

  He finally had enough air in his lungs to manage a shout. “Help!” Ponter called. “Help!”

  The sound echoed weirdly, as if he were in an enclosed space. Could he still be in the computing room? But, if he were, why wasn’t Adikor responding to his calls?

  He couldn’t just stay there. Although he wasn’t exhausted yet, he soon would be. He needed to find a surface to clamber onto, or something in the water with him that he could use as a flotation aid, and—

  The groaning again, louder, more insistent.

  Ponter started to dog paddle. If only there were some light—any light. He swam for what seemed a short distance, and—

  Agony! Ponter banged his head into something hard. He switched back to treading water, his limbs beginning to ache, and he reached out with one hand, fingers splayed, palm forward. Whatever he had hit was hard and warm—not metal or glass, then. And it was absolutely smooth, maybe slightly concave, and—

  Another groan, coming from—

  His heart fluttered; he felt his eyes go wide, but they saw nothing at all in the blackness.

  —coming from the hard wall in front of him.

  He began to swim in the opposite direction, the noise now growing to earsplitting proportions.

  Where was he? Where was he?

  The volume continued to increase. He swam farther and—

  Ouch! That hurt!

  He’d slammed into another hard, smooth wall. These certainly weren’t the walls in the quantum-computing chamber; those were covered with soft sound-deadening fabric.

  Whooooooshhhh!

  Suddenly, the water around Ponter was moving, rushing, roaring, and he was caught up in it, as if he were in a raging river. Ponter took a huge breath, drawing some water in with the air, and then—

  And then he felt something hard smash into the side of his head, and, for the first time since this madness began, he saw light: stars before his eyes.

  And then, the blackness again, and silence, and—

  Nothing more.

  Adikor Huld walked back up to the control room, shaking his head in astonishment, in disbelief.

  Ponter and he had been friends for ages; they were both 145s, and had first met as students at the Science Academy. But in all that time, he’d never known Ponter to be given to practical jokes. And, besides, there was no place he could be hiding. Fire safety required multiple exits from a room on the surface, but down here practicality made that impossible. The only way out was by walking through the control room. Some computing facilities had false floors to conceal cabling, but here the cabling was out in the open, and the floor was ancient granite, polished smooth.

  Adikor had been watching the controls; he hadn’t been looking out the window at the computing chamber. Still, there had been no flash of light to catch his eye. If Ponter had been—well, what? Vaporized? If he’d been vaporized, surely there should have been a smell of smoke or a tinge of ozone in the air. But there was nothing. He was simply gone.

  Adikor collapsed into a chair—Ponter’s chair—stunned.

  He didn’t know what to do next; he literally had no idea. It took several beats for him to focus his thoughts. He should notify the town’s administrative office that Ponter was missing; get them to organize a search. It was conceivable—barely—that the ground had opened up, and Ponter had fallen through, maybe into another drift, another level of the mine. In which case he might be injured.

  Adikor got to his feet.

  Dr. Reuben Montego, the two ambulance attendants, and the injured man entered through the sliding glass doors to Emergency Admitting at St. Joseph’s Health Centre, part of the Sudbury Regional Hospital.

  The E.R.’s casualty officer turned out to be a Sikh in his midfifties with a jade green turban. “What is it that is wrong?” he asked.

  Reuben glanced down at the man’s nametag, which read N. SINGH, M.D. “Dr. Singh,” he said, “I’m Reuben Montego, the site doctor at the Creighton Mine. This man here almost drowned in a tank of heavy water, and, as you can see, he’s suffered a cranial trauma.”

  “Heavy water?” said Singh. “Where would you—”

  “At the neutrino observatory,” said Reuben.

  “Ah, yes,” replied Singh. He turned and called for a wheelchair, then looked back at the man and started making notes on a clipboard. “Unusual body form,” he said. “Pronounced supraorbital ridge. Very muscular, very broad shouldere
d. Short limbs. And—hello!—what is this, then?”

  Reuben shook his head. “I don’t know. It seems to be implanted in his skin.”

  “Very strange,” said Singh. He looked at the man’s face. “How do you feel?”

  “He doesn’t speak English,” said Reuben.

  “Ah,” said the Sikh. “Well, his bones will talk for him. Let’s get him into Radiology.”

  Reuben Montego paced back and forth in the emergency department, occasionally speaking to a passing doctor he happened to know. At last, Singh got word that the x-rays were ready. Reuben was hoping to be invited along, out of professional courtesy, and Singh did indeed beckon for him to follow.

  The injured man was still in the x-ray room, presumably in case Singh decided to order more pictures. He was seated now in his wheelchair, looking more frightened, Reuben thought, than even a small child usually did in a hospital. The radiology technician had clipped the man’s x-rays—a front view and a lateral shot—to a lighted wall panel, and Singh and Reuben moved over to examine them.

  “Will you look at that?” said Reuben softly.

  “Remarkable,” said Singh. “Remarkable.”

  The skull was long—much longer than a normal skull, with a rounded protrusion at the back, almost like a hair bun. The doubly arched browridge was prominent and the forehead low. The nasal cavity was gigantic, with strange triangular projections pointing into it from either side. The huge mandible, visible at the bottom of the frame, revealed what the beard had hidden: the complete lack of a chin. It also showed a gap between the last molar and the rest of the jaw.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Reuben.

  Singh’s brown eyes were wide. “I have,” he said. “I have.” He turned to look at the man, who was still sitting in the wheelchair, babbling gibberish. Then Singh consulted the ghostly gray images again. “It is impossible,” said the Sikh. “Impossible.”

  “What?”

  “It cannot be…”

  “What? Dr. Singh, for God’s sake—”

  Singh raised his hand. “I do not know how it can be thus, but…”

  “Yes? Yes?”