Hybrids (16 page)

“But you’re not convinced,” said Ponter gently. “I don’t blame you. After all, I am no sociologist. My musings about the”—he, too, paused, clearly aware that this was a most delicate topic right now, but then he went on, also, apparently, unable to find a better word—“evil that religion has caused in your world are just that: musings, philosophical ramblings. I can’t prove my case; I doubt anyone could.”

Mary closed her eyes. She wanted to pray, to ask for guidance. But none had ever come in the past; there was no reason to think this time would be different. “Maybe,” she said at last, “we should simply leave it up to fate; let the genes fall where they may.”

Vissan’s voice was soft. “If this involved any other part of the body, I might agree with you, Mare. But we’re talking about a component of the brain that is demonstrably different between the two species of humanity. To simply throw together one allele from a Gliksin and another from a Barast, then just hope for the best hardly seems prudent.”

Mary frowned, but Vissan was right. If they were going to go ahead with having a hybrid child, a decision had to be made, one way or the other.

Ponter let go of Mary’s hand, but then started stroking its back. “It’s not,” he said, “as if we are choosing whether or not our daughter will have a soul. At most, we’re choosing whether or not she will
believe
she has a soul.”

“You do not have to decide this today,” said Vissan. “My intent, as I said, is only to walk you through the process of using the codon writer. You won’t want to produce the diploid chromosome set until it is time for it to be implanted in you, anyway, Mare.” She folded her hands. “But when that time comes, you
will
have to make this choice.”

“I think,” said Vissan, “that the two of you have some things to discuss. Perhaps I will take Mega, and we will go look at the stars.” Mega had roused from her nap. “Would you like that, Mega?”

“Sure!” said Mega.

Vissan got up from her chair, found her fur coat, wrapped Mega in a couple of oversized shirts, and they headed for the door.

Mary felt a cold wind on her face as the door swung open. She watched Vissan and Mega leave, the wooden door closing behind them.

“Mare…” said Ponter.

“No, no, let me think,” said Mary. “Just let me think for a few minutes.”

Ponter shrugged amiably, headed over to Vissan’s stone fireplace, and set about making a fire.

Mary got up off the vacuum box, and took Vissan’s vacated seat, resting her chin on her hand.

Herchin…

A
Homo sapiens
trait.

But a trivial one, completely unimportant.

Mary sighed. Except for the question of living arrangements, she didn’t care if they had a boy or a girl.

And she certainly didn’t care where their child parted her hair. Or what color her eyes were. Or whether she was muscled like a Neanderthal. Or what sort of sense of smell she had.

As long as she’s healthy…

That had been the mantra of parents for millennia.

Except in Veronica’s lab, Mary had never had a full-blown religious experience, but nonetheless she really did believe in God. Even now, knowing that her predisposition to such belief was hardwired into her brain, she still really did believe.

Did she want to deny their daughter the comfort that went with that belief? Did she want to prevent her from ever knowing the religious rapture that had eluded Mary outside of that lab but had apparently touched so many others?

She thought about this world she was in, and rhetoric from the newscasts of her youth welled up in her mind. Words she’d avoided until now.

Godless people.

Communists.

But, damn it all, the Neanderthal system
worked
. It worked better than the corrupt, morally bankrupt capitalism of her world—the world of Big Tobacco and Enron and WorldCom and all the others that had been exposed since, people driven by nothing but greed, taking obscene amounts for themselves while others ended up without even enough food to eat.

And it worked better than the religious institutions of her world—her own Church sheltering child abusers for decades, her religion and so many others oppressing women, religious fanatics flying planes into skyscrapers…

Ponter was making progress with the fire. Wisps of smoke were rising from the logs he’d placed atop the stones within the fireplace.

At last, when he’d fanned the flames to vigorous life, Mary got up from the chair and walked over to her man, still crouching by the hearth.

He looked up at her, and although the light from the fire threw his browridge and massive nose into sharp relief, he still looked loving and gentle. “I will accept whatever choice you make,” he said, rising to his feet.

Mary put her arms around his shoulders. “I—I wish I could think about this for a good long time.”

“There is
some
time,” said Ponter. “But a finite amount. If our child is to be part of generation 149, she must be conceived on schedule.”

Mary knew her voice sounded petulant. “Maybe she won’t be part of 149. Maybe we’ll have her the following year. Or the year after that.”

Ponter’s tone was soft. “I know that your people give birth every year. If our child will be principally raised in your world, then it does not matter when she is conceived. But if we wish her to be raised in whole or in part in this world, or ever really to have the option of fitting in to this society, then it really must be done on schedule.”

“It,” said Mary, pulling back, looking at Ponter.

Ponter’s eyebrow went up.

“
It,
” Mary repeated. “‘It must be done on schedule.’ Hardly sounds romantic.”

Ponter drew her close again. “We face a few…special challenges. But what could be more romantic than the child of people who are in love?”

Mary forced a smile. “You’re right, of course. Sorry.” She paused. “And you’re right that we should do it at the correct time.” Mary’s own birthday was late in the year; she knew what it was like to be even six months younger than some of the other kids on the school playground. She couldn’t imagine how devastating it would feel to be a year or two younger than everyone else. Yes, their daughter would be raised principally in Mary’s world, but when she was all grown up, she might choose to make her home in the Neanderthal universe—and she would never fit in here if she wasn’t part of a specific generation.

Ponter was quiet for a time. “Are you prepared to decide?”

Mary looked over Ponter’s shoulder, into the flames.

“My brother Bill married a Protestant,” she said at last. “Ho boy, was my mom upset about that! Bill and Dianne—that’s his wife—had to work out which religious traditions they were going to raise their children in. I only heard bits and pieces, and of course only from Bill’s point of view, but it was apparently a big battle. And now you’re asking me if I’m ready to decide whether or not my child should be pre-disposed to believing in God?”

Ponter said nothing; he just held her, and stroked her hair. If Ponter was dying to know what Mary’s decision was going to be, he gave no sign of it—and Mary was grateful to him for that. If he’d seemed anxious, she’d have known that he had a preferred choice, and that would have made it harder for her to sort through her feelings. As to
what
his preferred choice, if any, might be, still Mary couldn’t say. Her first thought was that he’d want his child to be like him, devoid of the…

She hated the term, but it had already percolated into the popular press, even before the bridge to the Neanderthal world had opened.

…devoid of the “God organ.”

Then again, Ponter was bright enough to know, despite everything they’d done here today, that you couldn’t order up a person the way you ordered a pizza: “Give me a number two, hold the onions.” Everything blended, making the whole. Perhaps he
wanted
his new daughter to have his mother’s faith? Indeed, perhaps this was the test he’d been waiting for of the personality sculptor’s hypothesis? Would his feelings toward a daughter who believed in an afterlife be different than his feelings toward Jasmel and Mega?

Mary would never ask him about it, not after the decision had been made. Once the appropriate genes were coded into the chromosomes of their child, there would be no point having regrets or reopening an old debate.

There was a scene in
Star Trek V
—the one William Shatner directed, the one in which Spock’s half brother Sybok went off on a search for God—that portrayed Spock’s own birth, in a cave, of all places, his human mother Amanda attended by a Vulcan midwife. When the infant Spock was presented to Sarek, his Vulcan father, Sarek said only two words, each filled with infinite disappointment: “
So human…
”

Mary shook her head at the memory. What the hell had Sarek expected to see? Why did he set out to have a hybrid child, and then act disappointed that it had characteristics of its mother’s species? Mary and Ponter were truly seeking the best of both worlds—and that meant
including
things.

“It’s not a defect,” said Mary, at last, not bothering to define “it.” “It’s not something
wrong
with the Gliksin brain. Being able to believe in God—if we want to, if we so choose—is part of who my people are.” She took Ponter’s hand. “I know what religion has caused—what
organized
religion has caused. And I even am starting to agree with you about the harm the mere belief in an afterlife has done in my world, too. So much of our inhumanity
does
seem related to believing that all injustices will eventually be righted in an existence yet to come. But, nonetheless, I want my daughter—
our
daughter—to at least potentially believe in those things.”

“Mare…” began Ponter.

She pulled away from him. “No. No, let me finish. Your people sterilize criminals, and say it’s just to maintain the health of the gene pool. But it’s more than that, isn’t it, at least when the criminals are male? You don’t just sterilize them by, for instance, performing a vasectomy. No, you
castrate
them—you remove that part of their anatomy that is responsible not just for aggression, but also for sexual desire, too.”

Ponter looked quite uncomfortable, Mary thought, but, then again, she supposed no man liked thinking about castration. She pressed on. “I stand here as one who has been raped, who has been a victim of the very worst that testosterone makes possible. But I also stand here as someone who has known all the joy of sex with a passionate male lover. Perhaps, maybe, in some circumstances, removing the testosterone-producing glands is appropriate. And perhaps even in some cases removing the God organ would be appropriate, too. But not at the beginning, not at the outset.”

Mary again looked at Ponter. “My Church has this notion of original sin: that all people are born tainted, carrying guilt and evil because of the actions of their ancestors. But I reject that. Veronica Shannon talked to us about behaviorism, Ponter—about the idea that you can inculcate any behavior, any response, into a human being. The mechanism—intermittent reinforcement versus consistent reinforcement—may differ slightly between Gliksins and Barasts, but the underlying concept is the same. Anew child, a new life, is nothing but potentials to be developed one way or another—and I want our child, our daughter, to have
all
the potentials she can and, through your love and mine as her parents, to become the best possible human being she can be.”

Ponter nodded. “Whatever you want is fine by me.”

“This,” said Mary. “This is what I want. A child who can believe in God.”

Mary, Ponter, and Mega spent the night at Vissan’s place, sleeping on the floor. The next day, with the codon writer wrapped in furs so that no one would notice it, the three of them had a travel cube come and take them to Kraldak Center, and from there they flew by helicopter to Saldak Center…just in time for the end of Two becoming One.

Ponter met up with Adikor, and the two of them boarded a hover-bus heading back out to male territory. Ponter, Mary knew, had another trip coming up tomorrow. That’s when he would accompany the contingent from the United Nations, including Jock Krieger, down to Donakat Island.

Mary’s heart was aching, and she was already counting the days until Two would become One again—not that she expected to still be living on this world at that point; she would have to return to the Synergy Group before then. But of course she’d return here for the holiday.

Mary felt extraordinarily jealous of Adikor. It was unfair, she knew, but the whole thing had left her feeling like the Other Woman, as if Ponter had snuck away for a rendezvous with an illicit lover, only to have to return to his real family.

Mary began the long, slow walk back to the house she shared with Bandra, carrying the fur-wrapped codon writer. Many other women were milling around, but none seemed sad. Those who were talking among themselves were laughing; those walking alone mostly had smiles on their broad faces—not smiles of greeting, but secret, personal smiles, smiles of remembering.

Mary felt like an idiot. What the hell was she doing here, in this world, with these people? Yes, she’d enjoyed her time with Ponter. The lovemaking had been just as fabulous as it always was, the conversation just as fascinating, and the trip with Ponter and Mega to meet Vissan had been wonderful in all sorts of ways. But it was another twenty-five days until she and Ponter could be together again!

A cloud of passenger pigeons temporarily blocked the sun. They were a migratory bird, Mary knew, shuttling between two homes, one in the north and the other in the south. Mary let out a long sigh and continued to walk. She knew why the female Neanderthals she was passing could smile. It wasn’t as though they were going back to a lonely existence. Rather, they were returning to their female lovers, to their children if they had any, to their families.

Mary lifted the collar of her mammoth-hair coat; a cold breeze had come up. She hated winter in Toronto—and suspected she’d hate it here even more. Toronto was so big, with so much industry, so many people, and so many cars, that it modified the local environment. North of the city—and south of the city, in Western New York—everything got hammered by snow. But in Toronto, there were only a few snowfalls each year, and usually no major ones before Christmas. Of course, she wasn’t in what corresponded to Toronto; Saldak was 400 kilometers farther north, where Sudbury was in Mary’s world, and Sudbury
did
get tons of snow. Saldak must get even more of it.

Mary shuddered, even though it wasn’t
that
cold yet. As she walked along, she thought about asking her Companion to tell her about winters here, but she suspected Christine would just confirm her worst fears.

At last she came to the distended, squat tree that formed the main structure of the house she shared with Bandra. Its leaves were falling off. Mary entered the house. She was wearing Neanderthal-style pants, with built-in shoes, but she’d instinctively reached down to try to remove her footwear as soon as she’d come through the door. She sighed again, wondering if she’d ever get used to this place.

Mary went into her bedroom, put down the codon writer, and came back into the living room. She could hear the sound of running water. Bandra must already be home, her man-mate perhaps having gone back to the Rim aboard an earlier hover-bus. The sound of the water must have masked the noise made by Mary entering, and since the door to the bathroom was closed—a nod to sanitation, not privacy, Mary knew—doubtless Bandra couldn’t smell Mary yet.

Mary went to the kitchen and got herself some fruit juice. She’d heard that the Neanderthals who worked in the south harvesting fruit shaved off all their head and body hair to help them better survive the warm temperatures. She tried to envision what Ponter would look like without hair. Mary had seen bodybuilders on TV, and for some reason they all had hairless chests and backs. Either they shaved them, or else the steroids they took had that effect. Anyway, she decided Ponter looked just fine the way he was.

Mary had expected Bandra to emerge from the bathroom by now, but she hadn’t—and Mary really needed to pee. By sheer necessity, she’d forced herself to overcome her privacy concerns about sharing one washroom. She walked over to the closed door and pushed it open with the flat of her hand.

Bandra was standing in front of the washbasin, hunched over, leaning into the square mirror above the sink.

“Excuse me,” said Mary. “I just need to—oh, my! Bandra, are you okay?”

It had taken a moment for Mary to see that there were splatters of blood on the polished granite washbasin; the red drops were difficult to make out against the pink stone.

Bandra didn’t turn around. Indeed, she seemed to be making an effort to hide her face. Mary loomed in.

“Bandra, what is it?” Mary reached up and took hold of Bandra’s shoulder. Had Bandra really wanted to, she could have stopped Mary from turning her around—she was certainly strong enough. But although she resisted a bit at first, she did allow Mary to turn her.

Mary felt herself sucking in air. The left side of Bandra’s face was bruised horribly, a yellow rim around a black-and-blue area perhaps ten centimeters across running from just above her browridge, down her wide, angled cheek to the corner of her mouth. There had been a central scab, half the diameter of the bruise, but Bandra had picked much of it away; that’s where the fresh blood was coming from.

“My God,” Mary said. “What happened to you?” Mary found a cloth—square, coarse—dipped it into the water, and helped Bandra clean the wound.

Tears were running down Bandra’s face now, falling from the deep wells of her eyes, detouring around her massive nose, flowing over her chinless jaw, and dropping onto the granite washbasin, diluting the blood there. “I—I never should have let you come here,” said Bandra softly.

“Me?” said Mary. “What did I do?”

But Bandra seemed lost in her own thoughts. “It’s not so bad,” she said, looking in the mirror.

Mary set down the washcloth and put one hand on each of Bandra’s broad shoulders. “Bandra, what happened?”

“I was trying to remove the scab,” said Bandra softly. “I thought maybe I could cover the bruise, and you wouldn’t notice, but…” She sniffled, and when a Neanderthal sniffled it was a loud, raucous sound.

“Who did this to you?” asked Mary.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Bandra.

“Of course it matters!” said Mary. “Who was it?”

Bandra rallied a little strength. “I took you into my home, Mare. You know we Barasts require very little privacy—but in this matter, I must insist upon it.”

Mary felt nauseous. “Bandra, I can’t stand by while you’re being hurt.”

Bandra picked up the washcloth and dabbed it against the side of her face a few times to see if the bleeding had stopped. It had, and she put the cloth back down. Mary led her out into the living room and got her to sit down on the couch. Mary sat next to her, took both of Bandra’s large hands, and looked into her wheat-colored eyes. “Take your time,” said Mary, “but you must tell me what happened.”

Bandra looked away. “It had been three months since he’d done it, so I thought he wouldn’t do it this time. I thought maybe…”

“Bandra, who hurt you?”

Bandra’s voice was almost inaudible, but Christine repeated the word loud enough for Mary to hear. “Harb.”

“Harb?” said Mary, startled. “Your man-mate?”

Bandra moved her head up and down a few millimeters.

“My…God,” said Mary. She took a deep breath, then nodded, as much to herself as to Bandra. “All right,” she said. “This is what we’re going to do: we’ll go to the authorities and report him.”

“
Tant
,” said Bandra.
No.

“Yes,” said Mary firmly. “This sort of thing happens on my world, too. But you don’t have to put up with it. We can get you help.”

“
Tant!
” said Bandra, more firmly.

“I know it will be difficult,” said Mary, “but we’ll go to the authorities together. I’ll be with you every step of the way. We’ll put an end to this.” She gestured at Bandra’s Companion. “There has to be a recording of what he did at the alibi archives, right? He can’t possibly get away with it.”

“I will not make an accusation against him. Without a victim’s accusation, no crime has been committed. That’s the law.”

“I know you think you love him, but you don’t have to stand for this. No woman does.”

“I don’t love him,” said Bandra. “
I hate him.
”

“All right, then,” said Mary. “Let’s do something about it. Come on, we’ll get you cleaned up and into some fresh clothes, and we’ll go see an adjudicator.”

“
Tant!
” said Bandra, slapping the flat of her hand against the table in front of her. It made such a loud sound, Mary thought the table was going to splinter into kindling. “
Tant!
” Bandra said again. But her tone wasn’t one of fear; rather, it was filled with conviction.

“But why not? Bandra, if you think it’s your duty to put up with—”

“You know
nothing
of our world,” said Bandra. “
Nothing
. I can’t go to an adjudicator with this.”

“Why not? Surely assault is a crime here, no?”

“Of course,” said Bandra.

“Even between those who are bonded, no?”

Bandra nodded.

“Then why not?”

“
Because of our children!
” snapped Bandra. “Because of Hapnar and Dranna.”

“What about them?” asked Mary. “Will Harb go after them, too? Was—was he an abusive father?”

“You see!” crowed Bandra. “You understand nothing.”

“Then
make
me understand, Bandra. Make me understand, or I will go to the adjudicator myself.”

“What is it to you?” asked Bandra.

Mary was taken aback by the question. Surely it was
every
woman’s business. Surely…

And then it hit her, like a meteor crashing from above. She hadn’t reported her own rape, and her department head, Qaiser Remtulla, had gone on to be Cornelius Ruskin’s next victim. She wanted to make up for that somehow, wanted to never again feel guilty about letting a crime against a woman go unreported.

“I’m just trying to help,” said Mary. “I care about you.”

“If you care, you will forget you ever saw me like this.”

“But—”

“You must promise! You must promise me.”

“But why, Bandra? You can’t let this go on.”

“I
have
to let this go on!” She clenched her massive fists and closed her eyes. “I have to let this go on.”

“Why? For God’s sake, Bandra…”

“It has nothing to do with your silly God,” said Bandra. “It has to do with reality.”

“What reality?”

Bandra looked away again, took a deep breath, then let it out. “The reality of our laws,” she said at last.

“What do you mean? Won’t they punish him for something like this?”

“Oh, yes,” said Bandra bitterly. “Yes, indeed.”

“Well, then?”

“Do you know what the punishment will be?” asked Bandra. “You are involved with Ponter Boddit. What punishment was threatened against his man-mate Adikor when Adikor was falsely accused of murdering Ponter?”

“They would have sterilized Adikor,” said Mary. “But Adikor didn’t deserve that, because he didn’t do anything. But Harb—”

“Do you think I care what happens to him?” said Bandra. “But they won’t just sterilize Harb. Violence can’t be tolerated in the gene pool. They will also sterilize everyone who shares fifty percent of his genetic material.”

“Oh, Christ,” said Mary softly. “Your daughters…”

“Exactly! Generation 149 will be conceived soon. My Hapnar will conceive her second child then, and my Dranna will conceive her first. But if I report Harb’s behavior…”

Mary felt like she’d been hit in the stomach. If Bandra reported Harb’s behavior, her daughters would be sterilized, as, she supposed, would any siblings Harb had, and his parents, if they were still alive…although she supposed Harb’s mother might be spared, since she was presumably postmenopausal. “I didn’t think Neanderthal men were like that,” she said softly. “I am so sorry, Bandra.”

Bandra lifted her massive shoulders a bit. “I’ve carried this burden for a long time. I’m used to it. And…”

“Yes?”

“And I thought it was over. He hadn’t hit me since my woman-mate left. But…”

“They never stop,” said Mary. “Not for good.” She could taste acid at the back of her throat. “There must be something you can do.” She paused, then: “Surely you can defend yourself. Surely that is legal. You could…”

“What?”

Mary looked at the moss-covered floor. “A Neanderthal can kill another Neanderthal with one well-placed punch.”

“Yes, indeed!” said Bandra. “Yes, indeed. So you see, he must love me—for if he did not, I would be dead.”

“Hitting is no way to show love,” said Mary, “but hitting back—hard—may be your only choice.”

“I can’t do that,” said Bandra. “If the decision was taken that I hadn’t needed to kill him, a violence judgment would be brought against me, and again my daughters would suffer, for they share half my genes as well.”

“A goddamned catch-22,” said Mary. She looked at Bandra. “Do you know that phrase?”

Bandra nodded. “A situation with no way out. But you’re wrong, Mare. There
is
a way out. Eventually I, or Harb, will die. Until then…” She lifted her hands, unclenched her fists, and turned her palms up in a gesture of futility.