Hominids

He nodded slightly, his large face moving up and down in the semidarkness.

“We thought there was no way you could get back to Jasmel and Megameg,” said Mary. “No way to get back to Adikor. And though I know your heart belonged to him, to them, and always would, I also knew that you were resigning yourself to making a life in this world, on this Earth.”

Ponter nodded again, but his eyes shifted away from her. Perhaps he saw where this was going; perhaps he felt nothing more needed to be said.

But it had to be said. She had to make him understand—make him understand that it wasn’t him. It was her.

No, no, no. That was wrong. It wasn’t her, either. It was that faceless, evil man, that monster, that demon. That’s who had come between them.

“Just before we met,” said Mary, “on the day you arrived here in Sudbury, I was …”

She stopped. Her heart was pounding; she could feel it—but all she could hear was the clattering rumble of the lift.

The elevator passed the 1,200-foot level. She could see a miner out in the drift, waiting for a ride up, his harsh headlight beam lancing into the cage, no doubt briefly playing across her face and Ponter’s, a stranger intruding from outside.

Ponter said nothing; he just waited quietly for her to go on. And, at last, she did; “That night,” Mary said, “I was …”

She’d intended to say the word baldly, to pronounce it dispassionately, but she couldn’t even give it voice. “I was … hurt,” she said.

Ponter tilted his head, puzzled. “An injury? I am sorry.”

“No. I mean I was hurt–by a man.” She took a deep breath. “I was attacked, at York, on the campus, after dark”—pointless details delaying the word she knew she’d have to say. She dropped her gaze to the lift’s mud-covered metal floor. “I was raped.”

Hak bleeped—the Companion had the sense to do so at a great volume so that the sound could be heard over the noise of the elevator. Mary tried again. “I was assaulted. Sexually assaulted.”

She heard Ponter suck in air—even over the rumble of the lift, she heard his gasp. Mary lifted her head and sought out his golden eyes in the semidarkness. Her gaze flickered back and forth, left and right, from one of his eyes to the other, looking for his reaction, trying to gauge his thoughts.

“I am very sorry,” said Ponter, gently.

Mary assumed he—or Hak—meant “sorry” in the sense of sympathy, not contrition, but she said, because it was all that occurred to her to say, “It wasn’t your fault.”

“No,” said Ponter. It was now his turn to be at a loss for words. Finally, he said, “Were you hurt—physically, I mean?”

“Roughed up a little. Nothing major. But …”

“Yes,” said Ponter. “But.” He paused. “Do you know who did it?”

Mary shook her head.

“Surely the authorities have reviewed your alibi archive and—” He looked away, back at the rock wall flashing by. “Sorry.” He paused again. “So—so he will get away with this?” Ponter was speaking loudly, despite the delicacy of the matter, in order for Hak to pick up his voice over the racket around them. Mary could hear the fury, the outrage, in his words.

She exhaled and nodded slowly, sadly. “Probably.” She paused. “I—we didn’t talk about this, you and I. Maybe I’m presuming too much. In this world, rape is considered a horrible crime, a terrible crime. I don’t know—”

“It is the same on my world,” said Ponter. “A few animals do it—orangutans, for instance—but we are people, not animals. Of course, with the alibi archives, few are fool enough to attempt such an act, but when it is done, it is dealt with harshly.”

There was silence between them for a few moments. Ponter had his right arm half raised, as if he’d thought to reach out and touch her, to try to console her, but he looked down and, with an expression of surprise on his face, as if he were seeing a stranger’s limb, he lowered it.

But then Mary found herself reaching out and touching his thick forearm herself, gently, tentatively. And then her hand slid down the length of his arm and found his fingers, and his hand came up again, and her delicate digits intertwined with his massive ones.

“I wanted you to understand,” said Mary. “We grew very close while you were here. We talked about anything and everything. And, well, as I said, you thought you were never going home; you thought you would have to make a new life here.” She paused. “You never pushed, you never took advantage. By the end, I think, you were the only man on this entire planet that I was getting comfortable being alone with, but …”

Ponter closed his sausagelike fingers gently.

“It was too soon,” said Mary. “Don’t you see? I—I know you like me, and …” She paused. The corners of her eyes were stinging. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It hasn’t happened often in my life, but there have been times when men were interested in me, but, well—”

“But when that man,” Ponter said slowly, “is not like other men …”

Mary shook her head and looked up at him. “No, no. It wasn’t because of that; it wasn’t because of the way you look—”

She saw him stiffen slightly in the strobing light. She didn’t find him ugly—not anymore, not now. She found his face kind and thoughtful and compassionate and intelligent and, yes, dammit, yes—attractive. But what she’d said had come out all wrong, and now, in trying to explain so his feelings wouldn’t be bruised, so he wouldn’t be left wondering forevermore why she’d responded the way she had to his soft touch when they were stargazing, she’d ended up hurting him.

“I mean,” said Mary, “that there’s nothing wrong with your appearance. In fact, I find you quite”—she hesitated, although not from lack of conviction, but rather because so rarely in her life had she ever been so forward with any man—“handsome.”

Ponter made a sad little smile. “I am not, you know. Handsome, I mean. Not by the standards of my people.”

“I don’t care,” said Mary at once. “I don’t care at all. I mean, I can’t imagine you found me attractive physically, either. I’m …” She lowered her voice. “I’m what they call plain, I guess. I don’t turn a lot of heads, but—”

“I find you very striking,” said Ponter.

“If we’d had more time,” said Mary. “If I’d had more time, you know, to get over it”—not, Mary was sure, that she ever would—“things … things might have been different between us.” She lifted her shoulders a bit, a helpless shrug. “That’s all. I wanted you to know that. I wanted you to understand that I did—do—like you.”

A crazy thought ran through her head. Had things indeed been different—had she come up to Sudbury a whole person, instead of shattered inside, maybe now Ponter wouldn’t be rushing as fast as he could to return to his old life, his own world. Maybe …

No. No, that was too much. He had Adikor. He had children.

And, anyway, if things had been different, maybe she would be getting ready to go with him, through the portal, to his world. After all, she had no one here, and—

But things were not different. Things were precisely as they were.

The lift shuddered to a halt, and the buzzer made its raucous call, signaling the opening of the cage door.