Hominids

“We’ve always assumed that Neanderthals evolved in response to Ice Age conditions,” said Mary. “And our best guess was that your large noses allowed you to humidify frigid air before drawing it into your lungs.”

“Our—the scientists who study ancient humans—believe the same thing,” said Ponter.

“The climate has warmed up a great deal, though, since your big noses evolved,” said Mary. “But you’ve retained that feature perhaps because it has the beneficial side effect of giving you a much better sense of smell than you would have had otherwise.”

“Does it?” said Ponter. “I mean, I can smell all of you, and all the different foods in the kitchen, and the flowers out back, and whatever acrid thing Reuben and Lou have been burning downstairs, but—”

“Ponter,” said Reuben, quickly, “we can’t smell you at all.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Oh, if I stuck my nose right into your armpit, I might smell something. But normally we humans can’t smell each other.”

“How do you find one another in the dark?”

“By voice,” said Mary.

“Very strange,” said Ponter.

“But you can do more than just detect a person’s presence, can’t you?” said Mary. “That time you looked at me. You could …” She swallowed but, well, Louise was another woman, and Reuben was a doctor. “You could tell I was having my period, couldn’t you?”

“Yes.”

Mary nodded. “Even women of Louise and my kind, if they live together long enough in the same house, can get their menstrual cycles synchronized—and we have lousy senses of smell. I guess it makes sense that whole cities of your women would be on the same cycle.”

“It never occurred to me that it might be another way,” said Ponter. “I thought it odd that you were menstruating but Lou was not.”

Louise frowned but said nothing.

“Look,” said Reuben, “does anybody want anything else? Ponter, another Coke?”

“Yes,” said Ponter. “Thank you.”

Reuben got up.

“You know that stuff’s got caffeine in it?” said Mary. “It’s addictive.”

“Do not worry,” said Ponter. “I am only drinking seven or eight cans a day.”

Louise laughed and went back to eating her salad.

Mary took another bite of her hamburger, circles of onion crunching beneath her teeth. “Wait a minute,” she said, once she’d swallowed. “That means your females don’t have hidden ovulation.”

“Well, it is hidden from view,” Ponter said.

“Yes, but … well, you know, I used to team-teach a course with the Women’s Studies department: The Biology of Sexual Power Relationships. We’d assumed that hidden ovulation was the key to females gaining constant protection and provisioning by males. You know: if you can’t tell when your female is fertile, you better be attentive all the time, lest you be cuckolded.”

Hak bleeped.

“Cuckolded,” repeated Mary. “That’s when a man is investing his energies providing for children that aren’t biologically his. But with hidden ovulation—”

Ponter’s laugh split the air; his massive chest and deep mouth gave him a deep, thunderous guffaw.

Mary and Louise looked at him, astonished. “What’s so fu

Ponter held up a hand; he was trying to stop laughing, but wasn’t succeeding yet. Tears had appeared at the corners of his sunken eyes, and his normally pale skin was looking quite red.

Mary, still seated at the table, put her hands on her hips—but immediately became self-conscious of her body language; hands on hips increased one’s apparent size, in order to intimidate. But Ponter was so much stouter and better muscled than any woman—or just about any man—that it was a ridiculous thing to be doing. Still, she demanded, “Well?”

“I am sorry,” said Ponter, regaining his control. He used his long thumb to wipe the tears from his eyes. “It is just that sometimes your people do have ridiculous ideas.” He smiled. “When you talk about hidden ovulation, you mean that human females do not have genital swelling when they are in heat, right?”

Mary nodded. “Chimps and bonobos do; so do gorillas and most other primates.”

“But humans did not stop having such swelling in order to hide ovulation,” said Ponter. “Genital swelling disappeared when it was no longer an effective signal. It disappeared when the climate got colder and humans started wearing clothing. That sort of visual display, based on engorging tissues with fluid, is energetically expensive; there was no value in maintaining it once we were covering our bodies with animal hides. But, at least for my people, ovulation was still obvious due to smell.”

“You can smell ovulation, as well as menstruation?” asked Reuben.

“The … chemicals … associated with them, yes.”

“Pheromones,” supplied Reuben.

Mary nodded slowly. “And so,” she said, as much to Ponter as to herself, “males could go off for weeks at a time without worrying about their females being impregnated by somebody else.”

“That is right,” said Ponter. “But there is more to it than that.”

“Yes?” said Mary.

“We say now that the reason our male ancestors—I think you have the same metaphor—‘headed for the hills’ was because of the, ah, unpleasantness of females during Last Five.”

“Last Five?” said Louise.

“The last five days of the month; the time leading up to the begi

“Oh,” said Reuben. “PMS. Premenstrual syndrome.”

“Yes,” said Ponter. “But, of course, that is not the real reason.” He shrugged a little. “My daughter Jasmel is studying pre-generation-one history; she explained it to me. What really happened was that men used to fight constantly over access to women. But, as Mare has noted, the only time access to women is evolutionarily important is during the part of each month when they might become pregnant. Since all women’s cycles were synchronized, men got along much better for most of the month if they retreated from females, only to return as a group when it was reproductively important that they do so. It was not female unpleasantness that led to the split; it was male violence.”

Mary nodded. It had been years since she’d co-taught that course on Sexual Power Relationships, but it seemed downright typical: men causing the problem and blaming women for it. Mary doubted she’d ever meet a female from Ponter’s world, but, at that moment, she felt real affinity with her Neanderthal sisters.

Chapter 37

“Healthy day, Daklar,” said Jasmel, coming through the door to the house. Although Jasmel Ket and Daklar Bolbay still shared a home, they had not spoken much since the dooslarm basadlarm.

“Healthy day,” repeated Bolbay, without warmth. “If you—” Her nostrils dilated. “You’re not alone.”

Adikor came through the door as well. “Healthy day,” he said.

Bolbay looked at Jasmel. “More treachery, child?”

“It’s not treachery,” Jasmel said. “It’s concern—for you, and for my father.”

“What do you want of me?” said Bolbay, looking through narrowed eyes at Adikor.

“The truth,” he said. “Just the truth.”

“About what?”

“About you. About why you are pursuing me.”

“I’m not the one under investigation,” said Bolbay.

“No,” agreed Adikor. “Not yet. But that may change.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I am prepared to have you served with documents of my own,” said Adikor.

“On what basis?”

“On the basis that you are unlawfully interfering with my life.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?” Adikor shrugged. “We’ll let an adjudicator decide that.”

“It’s a transparent attempt to stall the process that will lead to your sterilization,” said Bolbay. “Anyone can see that.”

“If it is—if it is that transparent, that flimsy—then an adjudicator will dismiss the matter … but not before I have had a chance to question you.”