Hybrids (17 page)

“But why don’t you just divorce him, or whatever you call it here? That’s supposed to be easy.”

“The legalities of what you call divorce are easy, but people still gossip, they still wonder. If I were to dissolve my union with Harb, people would question me and him about it. The truth might come out, and again my daughters would be at risk of sterilization.” She shook her head. “No, no, this way is better.”

Mary opened her arms and took Bandra into them, holding her, stroking her silver and orange hair.

This has to be absolutely galling for him
, thought Ponter Boddit, who was enjoying every beat of Councilor Bedros’s discomfort.

After all, it was Bedros who had ordered him and Ambassador Tukana Prat to return from Mare’s version of Earth as a prelude to shutting down the interuniversal portal. But not only had Ponter refused to return, Tukana Prat had convinced ten eminent Neanderthals—including Lonwis Trob—to cross over to the other reality.

And now Bedros had to greet the Gliksin contingent from that world. Ponter had been on hand down in the quantum-computing chamber as the delegates came through; it wouldn’t do if the closest thing the fractious Gliksins had to a world leader was cut in two by the portal flickering closed as he was walking down the Derkers tube.

Bedros hadn’t gone down into the depths of the Debral nickel mine today. Instead, he’d waited up on the surface for the amanuensis-high-warrior and the other United Nations officials to come up.

Which was what they had just done. It had taken two trips in the circular mineshaft elevator to get them all topside, but now they were here. Four silver-clad Exhibitionists were on hand as well, letting the public watch what was unfolding. The dark-skinned United Nations leader had come out of the elevator house first, followed by Ponter, then three men and two women with lighter skin, and then Jock Krieger, the tallest member of the group.

“Welcome to Jantar,” said Bedros. He’d obviously instructed his Companion not to translate the Barast name for their planet. For their part, the seven Gliksins had no Companions, not even temporary strap-on units. Apparently, there had been much debate about this, but that same bizarre “diplomatic immunity” Ponter had encountered before had led to them being exempted from having everything they said and did recorded at the alibi archives. Actually, if Ponter understood matters correctly, Jock really wasn’t entitled to this special treatment, but nonetheless he also wasn’t wearing a Companion.

“It is with great hopes for the future that we welcome you here,” continued Bedros. Ponter fought hard to suppress a smirk; Bedros had had to be coached by Tukana Prat—the ambassador who had flouted his authority—in what constituted an appropriate speech by Gliksin standards. He went on for what seemed like daytenths, and the amanuensis-high-warrior responded in kind.

Jock Krieger must have been a Barast at heart, thought Ponter. While the other Gliksins seemed to be enjoying the pomp, he was clearly ignoring it, looking around at the trees and hills, at every bird that flew by, at the blue sky overhead.

Finally, the speechmaking was over. Ponter sidled up to Jock, who was wearing a long beige coat tied at the waist by a beige sash, leather gloves, and a brimmed cap; the Gliksin contingent had waited down in the mine while their clothes were decontaminated. “Well, what do you think of our world?”

Jock shook his head slowly back and forth, and his voice was full of wonder. “It’s
beautiful
…”

The Voyeur in Bandra’s house was attached to the living-room wall, its surface gently following the curvature of the round room. The big square was divided into four smaller squares, each showing the perspective of one of the four Exhibitionists on hand at the Debral nickel mine as the delegation from the United Nations emerged. Bandra was in no shape to be seen in public today, and Mary and she stayed home, ostensibly to watch the arrival of other Gliksins on the Voyeur.

“Oh, look!” said Bandra. “There’s Ponter!”

Mary had been hoping to catch a glimpse of him—and, unfortunately, that seemed to be all she was going to get. The Exhibitionists weren’t interested in a fellow Barast. Their attention was on the group of Gliksins.

“So, who is who?” asked Bandra.

“That man there”—she had the usual Canadian fear of being thought a racist that prevented her from saying “the black man” or “the man with the dark skin,” even though that was the most obvious difference between Kofi Annan and the rest of the group—“is the secretary-general of the United Nations.”

“Which one?”

“That one. On the left, there.”

“The one with brown skin?”

“Um, yes.”

“So, he’s your world’s leader?”

“Well, no. No, not really. But he
is
the highest official at the UN.”

“Ah. And who is that tall one?”

“That’s Jock Krieger. He’s my boss.”

“He has—he looks…predatory.”

Mary considered this. She supposed Bandra was right. “A lean and hungry look.”

“Ooooh!” said Bandra, delighted. “Is that a saying?”

“It’s a line from a play.”

“Well, it fits him.” She nodded decisively. “I don’t like his bearing. There is no joy in his expression.” But then Bandra seemed to realize that she might be giving offense. “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t speak that way about your friend.”

“He’s not my friend,” said Mary. She adhered to the rule of thumb that a friend was someone to whose home you had been, or who had been to your home. “We just work together.”

“And look!” said Bandra. “He’s not wearing a Companion!”

Mary peered at the screen. “So he isn’t.” She surveyed other parts of the four images. “None of the Gliksins are.”

“How can that be?”

Mary frowned. “Diplomatic immunity, I guess. Which means…”

“Yes?”

Mary’s heart was pounding. “It usually means a diplomat can travel without having his luggage examined. If I can get the codon writer to Jock, he should be able to take it back to my world without difficulty.”

“Perfect,” said Bandra. “Oh, look! There’s Ponter again!”

The flight from Saldak to Donakat Island took two daytenths, which, Ponter knew, was much longer than the comparable journey would have taken in Mare’s world. He spent most of it thinking about Mare and about Vissan’s device that would let them conceive a baby, but Jock, who was sitting next to Ponter in the wide cabin of the helicopter, interrupted his reverie at one point. “You never developed airplanes?” he said.

“No,” said Ponter. “I have wondered about that myself. Certainly, many of my people have been fascinated by birds and flight, but I have seen the long—‘landing strips,’ do you call them?”

Jock nodded.

“I have seen the long landing strips that your airplanes require. I think only a species that was already used to clearing large tracts of land for farming would have considered it natural to do the same for runways, or even roadways.”

“I never thought about it that way,” said Jock.

“Well,” continued Ponter, “we certainly do not have roads the way you do. Most of us are—how would you put it? stay-at-home types. We do not travel much, and we prefer to have food right outside our doors.”

Jock looked around the helicopter. “Still, this is very comfortable. Lots of room between seats. We tend to cram people into planes—and trains and buses, too, for that matter.”

“Comfort is not the specific goal,” said Ponter. “Rather, it is to keep other people’s pheromones out of one’s nose. I have found it very difficult flying on your big airplanes, especially with the pressurized cabins. One of the reasons we do not fly nearly as high as you do is so that our cabins do not have to be sealed; we bring in fresh air constantly to avoid the build up of pheromones, and—” Ponter stopped talking, and tipped his head. “Ah, thank you, Hak.” He looked at Jock. “I had asked Hak to let me know when we were passing over the spot that corresponds to Rochester, New York. If you look out the window now…”

Jock pressed his face up against a square of glass. Ponter moved over and looked through another window. He could see the south shoreline of what he knew Jock called Lake Ontario.

“It’s just forest,” said Jock, astonished, turning back to Ponter.

Ponter nodded. “There are some hunting lodges, but no large-scale habitation.”

“It’s hard to even recognize the geography without the roads.”

“We will pass over one of the Finger Lakes shortly—our name for them is the same as yours; the imagery is obvious. You should have no trouble recognizing them.”

Jock looked out the window again, mesmerized.

The Exhibitionists didn’t get to fly south with the contingent from the United Nations, although Bandra said there would be others on hand when they arrived at Donakat Island. In the interim, Bandra told the Voyeur to shut off, and it did so. She then turned to Mary. “We didn’t speak much last night about…about my problem with Harb.”

Mary nodded. “Is that—is that why your woman-mate left?”

Bandra got up and tipped her head back, looking at the ceiling. Hundreds of birds were painted on it, representing dozens of species; each meticulously rendered by her. “Yes. She could not take seeing what he did to me. But…but in a way, it’s better that she’s gone.”

“Why?”

“It’s easier to hide one’s shame when no one else is around.”

Mary got up and put an arm on each of Bandra’s shoulders and stepped back a pace so that she could look her full in the face. “Listen to me, Bandra. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

Bandra managed a small nod. “I know, but…”

“But
nothing
. We will find a way out of this.”

“There is no way,” said Bandra, and she moved a hand up to wipe her eyes.

“There
must
be,” said Mary. “And we’ll find it. Together.”

“You don’t have to do this,” said Bandra softly, shaking her head.

“Yes, I do,” said Mary.

“Why?”

Mary shrugged a little. “Let’s just say I owe womankind one.”

“And here we are, ladies and gentleman,” said Councilor Bedros. “Donakat Island—what you call Manhattan.”

Jock couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He knew New York like the back of his hand—but this!

This was
gorgeous
.

They were flying over the South Bronx—except that it was old-growth forest, walnut, cedar, chestnut, maple, and oak, the leaves afire with autumn colors.

“Look!” shouted Kofi Annan. “Rikers Island!”

And indeed it was,
sans
penal colony, of course, and only a third the size of the artificially expanded island Jock knew. As the chopper went over it, Jock saw that there was no bridge leading south to Queens. Nor, of course, was there any airport off to the left, where LaGuardia was in his world. Instead, there was a harbor there. Jock was taken aback when he spotted what looked like an aircraft carrier—he hadn’t thought the Neanderthals had such things. He hated encouraging the Neanderthal next to him to begin his endless chatting again, but he had to know. “What’s that?”

“A ship,” said Ponter in a tone that made it sound as though the answer were obvious.

“I know it’s a ship,” replied Jock, miffed. “But why does it have that wide, flat top?”

“Those are solar collectors,” said Ponter, “to power its turbines.”

The pilot had clearly been told to meander in, giving them the grand tour. They were flying west now, over Wards Island, which was dotted around its periphery with buildings that looked like cottages.

The helicopter continued on. It was as if Central Park had expanded right across the width of Manhattan, from East River Drive to Henry Hudson Parkway.

“Donakat Island makes up the ‘Center’ of the city we call Pepraldak,” said Ponter. “In other words, it’s female territory. In Saldak, there are many kilometers of countryside separating the Rim from the Center. Pepraldak’s ‘Rim’ and ‘Center’ are simply separated by what you call the Hudson River.”

“So the men live in New Jersey?”

Ponter nodded.

“How do they get across? I don’t see any bridges.”

“Travel cubes can fly over water,” said Ponter, “so they use those in summer. In winter, the river freezes, and they simply walk over.”

“The Hudson River doesn’t freeze over.”

Ponter shrugged. “It does in this world. Your activities modify your climate more than you think.”

The chopper had now turned south, and was flying along the river. They quickly came to a slight jog in its course, meaning they must now be passing the untamed wilderness of Hoboken. Jock looked out to the left. The island was there, all right: hilly—didn’t Manhattan mean “Island of Hills”?—dotted with lakes…and utterly devoid of skyscrapers. There were clearings containing brick buildings, but none taller than four stories. Jock turned his attention back to the right side. What would have been Liberty State Park was all forest. Ellis Island was there, as was Liberty Island, but of course there was no statue on it. That was just as well, thought Jock; he didn’t really want to see a 150-foot-tall Neanderthal, although—

Jock could hear shouts going up from those around him as others spotted the same thing he just had. There were two right whales in Upper New York Bay; they must have swum up The Narrows from the Atlantic. Each was about forty feet long, with a dark gray back.

The chopper turned east, flying over water between Governors Island and Battery Park, then heading along the East River. Jock could see hundreds of arboriculture houses along the shoreline, and—“What’s that?”

“An observatory,” said Ponter. “I know you put your big telescopes in hemispherical enclosures, but we prefer these cubic structures.” Jock shook his head. Imagine it ever being dark enough in Greenwich Village to look at the stars!

“Is there much wildlife?” asked Jock.

“Oh, yes. Beavers, bears, wolves, foxes, raccoons, deer, otters—not to mention quail, partridge, swans, geese, turkeys, and of course millions of passenger pigeons.” Ponter paused. “It’s too bad it’s autumn; in the spring, you’d see roses and many other wildflowers.”

The chopper was quite low now as it continued up the East River, the blue waters roiling in the downdraft from the blades. They came to where the river bent to the north, and the pilot continued to follow its course for another couple of miles then brought the craft in for a landing on a wide open field of tall grass, surrounded by orchards of apple and pear trees. Councilor Bedros got out first, then Ponter and Adikor, then the secretary-general. Jock followed him, and the rest of the group followed Jock. The air was sweet and clean, crisp and cool; the sky overhead was a blue Jock knew from Arizona summers, but had never seen in the Big Apple.