Hominids

Chapter 45

Suddenly there was considerable commotion among the Gliksins. At first, Adikor couldn’t tell what was going on, but then he realized someone was coming down into the barrel-shaped chamber, descending the same long ladder they’d seen before. The person’s broad back was facing the robot’s eye; presumably, it was a Gliksin leader, come to make an assessment of this strange contraption, that—if the effect was mirrored on the other side—appeared to be attached to a cable that was protruding from thin air.

The Gliksins visible in the foreground were beckoning for the newcomer to approach. And he did, ru

Yes! Incredibly, wonderfully yes!

Adikor’s heart was pounding. It was Ponter! He was clad in the strange clothing of the Gliksins, and wearing one of those plastic turtle shells on top of his head, but there could be no doubt. Ponter Boddit was alive and well!

“Dern!” shouted Adikor. “Stop! Let the robot back down!”

The camera’s perspective started lowering on the screen, Jasmel gasped and clapped her hands together with glee. Adikor wiped tears from his eyes.

Ponter hurried over to the robot. He bent his head oddly, and it took Adikor a moment to realize what Ponter was likely doing: looking at the manufacturer’s contribution stamp on the robot’s frame, confirming for himself that this really was an artifact from his own world. Ponter then looked up into the robot’s camera lens, gri

“Hello,” said Ponter—the first word out of the cacophony that Adikor had understood. “Hello, my friends! I’d thought I’d lost you forever! Who’s looking at this, I wonder? Adikor, no doubt. How I’ve missed you!”

He paused, then two of the Gliksins spoke to him: one of the light-ski

Ponter turned back to the camera. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do now. I see the cable coming out of the air, but is it safe for me to cross back over? Can”—his voice caught for a moment—“can I come home?”

Adikor turned away from the screen and looked at Dern, who had returned to the control room. Dern lifted his shoulders. “The robot seemed to come through just fine.”

“You don’t know how long you’ll be able to keep the gate open,” said Jasmel, “or whether you’ll ever be able to establish it again if it closes. He should come through right now.”

Adikor nodded. “But how do we let him know that?”

Jasmel said decisively, “I know how.” She hurried down the steps onto the computing floor, then strode over to where the cable disappeared into the hole in the air. Jasmel placed her hand on the cable, then slid her grip along the cable’s length until her fingertips, then her whole fingers, then her hand, then her forearm disappeared. When everything up to her shoulder was projecting through, she shoved her head over into the other side, and simply shouted out—Adikor and Dern could hear it, but it came entirely from the speaker on the monitor; there was no sound at all coming from the computing floor—“Daddy! Come home!”

“Jasmel, sweetheart!” shouted Ponter, looking up. “I—”

“Come right now!” Jasmel replied. “There’s no telling how long we can keep this open. Just follow the cable—use that ladder, there, to get up here. The computing-room floor is about half an armspan below where my head is; you should have no trouble finding it.”

Jasmel then pulled her head back over to her side and ran over and up into the control room.

There was a flurry of activity visible on the monitor; it was clear no one was quite prepared for this. Two men went to get the ladder Jasmel had indicated. One of the men gave Ponter a great hug, which Ponter enthusiastically returned—it seemed that he hadn’t been mistreated by the Gliksins.

And now a yellow-haired woman had appeared next to Ponter; she hadn’t been there before, and she looked quite winded. She stood on her toes and pressed her lips against Ponter’s cheek; he smiled broadly in return.

The robot swiveled its camera under Dern’s command, and Adikor saw that the problem was more difficult than Jasmel had thought. Yes, the cable was protruding from a hole—but that hole was nowhere near any part of the cavern’s rocky walls. Rather, it was in the middle of the air, several body-lengths above the ground, and at least that far from the closest wall. There was nothing to lean the ladder against.

“Could he climb the cable?” asked Adikor.

Dern shrugged. “He outweighs the robot, I’m sure. It might hold him, but …”

But if it snapped, Ponter would crash down to the rock floor, possibly breaking his back.

“Can we get a stronger cable through to him?” asked Jasmel.

“If we had a stronger cable,” said Dern, nodding. “But I’ve no idea where to get one down here; I’d have to go up to my workshop on the surface, and that’d take too long.”

But the Gliksins, puny though they might be, were resourceful. Four of them were now holding the base of the ladder, steadying it with all their strength. It wasn’t leaning against anything, but they were shouting at Ponter, presumably urging him to try climbing it anyway.

Ponter ran over to the ladder, and was about to step onto the first rung, even though it was still none too steady. Suddenly, the yellow-haired woman ran up to him, and touched his arm. He turned, and his eyebrow rolled up his browridge in surprise. She pressed something into his other hand and stretched up to place her face against Ponter’s cheek again. He smiled once more, then began climbing the ladder the Gliksins were holding on to.

The ladder swung more and more the higher Ponter got, and Adikor’s heart jumped as it looked like it was going to come crashing down, but more Gliksins rushed to help, and the ladder was straightened again, and Ponter started reaching out with his hand, trying to grab the cable just shy of where it protruded from the midair hole. The ladder swung back, forth, left, right, and Ponter grabbed, missed, grabbed again, missed once more, and then—

Dern’s control box jerked forward slightly. Ponter had the cable!

Adikor, Jasmel, and Dern rushed down onto the computing floor. Jasmel and Dern had taken positions directly in front of the opening, and Adikor, looking to see if there was something he could do to help, moved behind the opening, and—

Adikor gasped.

He saw Ponter’s head appear from nowhere, and, from this rear angle, Adikor could see into his neck as if it had been chopped clean through by some massive blade. Dern and Jasmel were helping pull Ponter in now, but Adikor watched, stu

And he was through! All of him was through!

Adikor rushed around to Ponter and hugged him close, and Jasmel hugged her father, too. The three of them laughed and cried, and, finally, disengaging himself, Adikor said, “Welcome back! Welcome back!”

“Thank you,” said Ponter, smiling broadly.

Dern had politely moved a short distance away. Adikor caught sight of him. “Forgive us,” he said. “Ponter Boddit, this is Dern Kord, an engineer who has been helping us.”

“Healthy day,” said Ponter to Dern. Ponter began walking toward him, and—

“No!” shouted Dern.

But it was too late. Ponter had walked into the taut cable, and it had snapped in two, and the part that projected into the Gliksin world reeled out through the gateway, and the gateway disappeared with an electric blue flash.