Robert Sawyer - Hybrids

But it no longer bothered Mary when Ponter was with Louise. After all, it was Mary, not the French-Canadian, that the Neanderthal loved, and big boobs and full lips didn’t seem to be high on the Barast list of favored traits.

A moment later there was a knock on her door. Mary looked up. “Come in,” she called.

The door swung open, revealing Jock Krieger, tall, thin, with a gray pompadour that always made Mary think of Ronald Reagan. She wasn’t alone in that; Jock’s secret nickname among the same people who called Louise “LL” was “the Gipper.” Mary supposed they had a name for her, too, but she’d yet to overhear it.

“Hi, Mary,” said Jock in his deep, rough voice. “Do you have a moment?”

Mary blew out air. “I’ve got lots of them,” she said.

Jock nodded. “That’s what I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.” He came in and helped himself to a chair. “You’ve finished the work I hired you to do here: find an infallible method for distinguishing a Neanderthal from one of us.” Indeed she had-and it had turned out to be pig-simple: Homo sapiens had twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, while Homo neanderthalensis had twenty-four.

Mary felt her pulse accelerating. She’d known this dream job, with its hefty consulting fee, was too good to last. “A victim of my own genius,” she said, trying to make a joke of it. “But, you know, I can’t go back to York University-not this academic year. A couple of sessional instructors”- one of whom is an absolute bloody monster — “have taken over my course work.”

Jock raised a hand. “Oh, I don’t want you to go back to York. But I do want you to leave here. Ponter’s heading home soon, isn’t he?”

Mary nodded. “He only came over to attend some meetings at the UN, and, of course, to bring Lonwis up here to Rochester.”

“Well, why don’t you accompany him when he goes back? The Neanderthals are being very generous about sharing what they know about genetics and biotechnology, but there’s always more to learn. I’d like you to make an extended trip to the Neanderthal world-maybe a month-and learn as much as you can about their biotechnology.”

Mary felt her heart pounding with excitement. “I’d love to do that.”

“Good. I’m not sure what you’ll do about living arrangements over there, but…”

“I’ve been staying with Ponter’s man-mate’s woman-mate.”

“Ponter’s man-mate’s woman-mate…” repeated Jock.

“That’s right. Ponter is bonded to a man named Adikor-you know, the guy who co-created their quantum computer with him. Adikor, meanwhile, is simultaneously bonded to a woman, a chemist named Lurt. And when Two aren’t One-when the male and female Neanderthals are living separate lives-it’s Lurt that I stay with.”

“Ah,” said Jock, shaking his head. “And I thought the Y amp;R had confusing family relationships.”

“Oh, those are easy,” said Mary with a smile. “Jack Abbott used to be married to Nikki, who was born Nikki Reed. That was after she was married to Victor Newman-for the first two times, that is, but before the third time. But now Jack is married to…”

Jock held up a hand. “Okay, okay!”

“Anyway, like I said, Ponter’s man-mate’s woman-mate is a chemist named Lurt-and the Neanderthals consider genetics to be a branch of chemistry, which, of course, it really is, if you think about it. So she’ll be able to introduce me to all the right people.”

“Excellent. If you’re willing to head over to the other side, we could certainly use this information.”

“Willing?” said Mary, trying to contain her excitement. “Is the Pope Catholic?”

“Last time I checked,” said Jock with a small smile.

“ And, as you will see, it is only our future-the future of Homo sapiens- that I will be addressing tonight. And not just because I can only speak as the American president. No, there is more to it than that. For, in this matter, our future and that of the Neanderthals are not intertwined…”

Cornelius Ruskin was afraid the vivid nightmares would never end: that goddamned caveman coming at him, throwing him down, mutilating him. He awoke each morning soaked with sweat.

Cornelius had spent most of the day after the horrid discovery painfully lying in bed, hugging himself. The phone had rung on several occasions, at least one of which was doubtless somebody calling from York University to find out where the hell he was. But he couldn’t bring himself to speak to anyone then.

Late that night, he’d called the genetics department and left a message on Qaiser Remtulla’s voice mail. He’d always hated that woman, and hated her even more now that this had been done to him. But he managed to keep his tone calm, saying that he was ill and wouldn’t be back in for several days.

Cornelius watched carefully for blood in his urine. Every morning, he felt around the wound for seepage, and took his own temperature repeatedly, to assure himself that he didn’t have a fever-which he didn’t, despite his frequent hot flashes.

He still had trouble believing it, was still overwhelmed by the very idea. There was pain, but it diminished day by day, and codeine tablets helped-thank God they were available over the counter here in Canada; he always had some 222s on hand, and had initially been taking five at a time, but now had himself down to the normal dose of two.

Beyond taking painkillers, though, Cornelius had no idea what to do. He certainly couldn’t go see his doctor-or any doctor, for that matter. There was no way his injury could be kept secret if he did that; someone would be bound to talk. And Ponter Boddit had been right: Cornelius couldn’t risk that.

Finally, when he at last managed to summon enough energy, Cornelius went to his computer. It was an old no-name 90 MHz Pentium that he’d had since his grad-student days. The machine was adequate for word processing and e-mail, but he usually saved web surfing for when he was at work: York had high-speed lines, while all he could afford for home was a dial-up account with a local ISP. But he needed answers now, and so he suffered through the maddeningly slow page-loading.

It took twenty minutes, but he finally found what he was looking for. Ponter had returned to this Earth wearing a medical belt that included among its tools a cauterizing laser scalpel. That device had been used to save the Neanderthal’s life when he’d been shot outside the United Nations. Surely that was how he had Cornelius felt all his muscles contracting as he thought yet again of what had been done to him.

His scrotum had been slit open, presumably by the laser, and Cornelius closed his eyes and swallowed hard, trying to keep stomach acid from climbing his esophagus again.

Somehow-possibly even with his bare hands-Ponter had then wrenched Cornelius’s testicles from his body. And then the laser must have been used again, searing his flesh shut.

Cornelius had frantically searched his entire apartment for his balls, in hopes that they could be reimplanted. But after a couple of hours, tears of anger and frustration streaming down his face, he’d had to face reality. Ponter had either flushed them down the toilet, or had disappeared into the night with them. Either way, they were gone for good.

Cornelius was furious. What he’d done had been so wonderfully appropriate: those women-Mary Vaughan and Qaiser Remtulla-had stood in his way. They’d gotten their positions, and their tenure, simply because they were female. He was the one with a Ph. D. from Oxford, for God’s sake, but he’d been passed over for promotion as York “corrected historical gender imbalances” among its various faculties. He’d been shafted by that, so he’d shown them-the department head, that Paki bitch; and Vaughan, who had the job he should have had-what it was really like to get the shaft.