Hominids

Mary squeezed him back hard—hard for her, as hard as she could, but presumably nothing like what a Neanderthal woman could have done.

And then she released him.

And he ran off toward the elevator building.

Chapter 44

Adikor, Jasmel, and Dern continued to stare at the monitor, at the scene taking place a few armspans—and an infinity—away.

“They’re so fragile-looking,” said Jasmel, frowning. “Their arms are like sticks.”

“Not that one,” said Dern, pointing. “She must be pregnant.”

Adikor squinted at the screen. “That’s not a woman,” he said. “It’s a man.”

“With a belly like that?” said Dern, incredulously. “And I thought I was fat! Just how much do these Gliksins eat?”

Adikor shrugged. He didn’t want to spend time talking; he just wanted to look, to try to soak it all in. Another form of humanity! And a technologically advanced one, at that. It was incredible. He’d love to compare notes with them on physics, on biology, and—

Biology.

Yes, that’s what he needed! The robot had been touched by several Gliksins now. Surely some of their cells had rubbed off onto its frame; surely some of their DNA could be recovered from it. That would be proof that Adjudicator Sard would have to accept! Gliksin DNA: proof that the world shown on the screen was real. But—

There was no guarantee that the portal would stay open much longer, or that it could ever be reopened again. But at least he would be exonerated, and Dab and Kelon would be spared mutilation.

“Reel the robot back in,” Adikor said.

Dern looked at him. “What? Why?”

“There’s probably some Gliksin DNA on it now. We don’t want to lose that if the portal closes.”

Dern nodded. Adikor watched him walk across the room, take hold of the fiber-optic cable, and give it a gentle tug. Adikor turned back to the square monitor. The Gliksin nearest the robot—a brown-ski

Dern gave another tug. The brown Gliksin was looking back over his shoulder now, presumably at another person. He shouted something, then he nodded as somebody shouted back at him. He then grabbed onto the bottom of the robot’s rising frame, now dangling most of the man’s height off the ground.

Another male Gliksin ran into the field of view. This one was shorter, with lighter skin—as light as Adikor’s own—but his eyes were … strange: dark, and half-hidden under unusual lids.

The brown Gliksin looked at the newcomer. The newcomer was shaking his head vigorously—but not at the brown one. No, he was looking directly up into the robot’s glass lens, and making a wild motion with his arms, holding both hands flat out, palms down, and swiping them back and forth in front of his chest. And he kept shouting a single syllable over and over again: “Wayt! Wayt! Wayt!”

Of course, thought Adikor, they, too, were anxious to have an artifact to prove what they’d seen; doubtless they didn’t want to give up the robot. He turned his head and shouted out to Dern. “Keep hoisting!”

Mary Vaughan finally caught up with Ponter at the far end of the elevator building, past the area where miners changed into their work clothes. Ponter was standing on the ramp leading down to the lift entrance—but the metal grating over the lift shaft was closed; the cage could have been anywhere, even down at the lowest drift, 7,400 feet below. Still, Ponter had evidently persuaded the operator to bring it up now—but it could be several minutes before it reached the surface.

Neither Ponter nor Mary had any authority here, and the mine’s safety rules were posted everywhere; Inco had an enviable record for accident prevention. Ponter had already put on safety boots and a hardhat. Mary walked away from the ramp and put on a hardhat and boots, as well, selected from a vast rack of such supplies. She then moved back to stand next to Ponter, who was tapping his left foot in impatience.

At last the lift cage arrived, and the door was hoisted. There was no one inside. Ponter and Mary entered, the operator here at the top sounded the buzzer five times—express descent with no stops—and the cab lurched into motion.

Now that they were going down, there was no way to communicate with the SNO control room—or anyone else, except the lift operator, and he could only be signaled with a buzzer. Mary had said little to Ponter on the hair-raising drive over, partly because she’d been trying to concentrate on keeping the vehicle under control, and party because her heart had been racing at least as fast as her car’s engine.

But now—

Now she had an extended time with nothing to do while the elevator dropped a mile and a quarter straight down. Ponter would probably run off as soon as the cage reached the 6,800-foot level, and she couldn’t blame him. Slowing so she could keep up would delay him by crucial minutes as he covered the three-quarters of a mile to the SNO cavity.

Mary watched as level after level flashed by. It was, after all, a fascinating spectacle that she’d never seen before, but …

But this might well be her final chance to talk to Ponter. On the one hand, the trip down seemed to be taking an enormous amount of time. On the other, hours, days—or maybe even years—wouldn’t be enough to say all the things Mary wanted to say.

She didn’t know where to begin, but she was sure she’d never forgive herself if she didn’t tell him now, didn’t make him understand. It wasn’t as if he were disappearing into prehistoric time, after all; he’d be going sideways, not backwards. Tomorrow would be tomorrow for him, too, and the tenth a

“Ponter,” she said. The word was soft, and the clattering of the lift was loud. Perhaps he didn’t hear. He was looking out the cage door, absently watching the dark rock speeding by as they plummeted farther and farther.

“Ponter,” Mary said again, more loudly.

He turned to her, and his eyebrow rolled up. Mary smiled. She’d found his quizzical expression so disconcerting when she’d first seen it, but now she was used to it. The differences between them were so much less than the similarities.

But, still, all along, all this time, there had been a gulf between them—a gulf caused not by his being a member of a different species, but rather by the simple fact of his sex. And more than that. It wasn’t just that he was male, but that he was so overwhelmingly male: muscled like Arnold Schwarzenegger; hairy all over; bearded; powerful, rough, and clumsy all at the same time.

“Ponter,” she said, uttering his name for a third time now. “There’s—there’s something I have to tell you.” She paused. Part of her thought it would be better not to give voice to this, to leave it, as she had so many other things, unspoken, unsaid. And, of course, there was a chance that by the time they reached the SNO chamber—still many minutes away, by lift and by foot—that whatever portal had magically appeared between his world and hers would be closed, and she would continue to see Ponter day in and day out, but with her having laid bare her soul, that ethereal essence that she believed they both had and that he was sure neither of them possessed.

“Yes?” said Ponter.

“You’d assumed,” said Mary, “and I’d assumed, that whatever fluke of physics had deposited you here was irreproducible—that you were stranded here forever.”