Robert Sawyer - Hybrids

Damn it, thought Cornelius, feeling once more between his legs. His scrotum was badly swollen-but empty.

God damn it.

Jock Krieger went back to his office, which was on the ground floor of the Synergy Group mansion. His large window faced south toward the marina, instead of north toward Lake Ontario; the mansion was on an east-west spit of land in the Rochester community of Seabreeze.

Jock’s Ph. D. was in game theory; he’d studied under John Nash at Princeton, and had spent three decades at the RAND Corporation. RAND had been the perfect place for Jock. Funded by the Air Force, it had been the principal U.S.-government think tank in the Cold War, carrying out studies of nuclear conflict. To this day, when Jock heard the initialsM.D., he thought of a megadeath — one million civilian casualties-rather than a medical doctor.

The Pentagon had been furious about the way the initial encounter with Neanderthal Prime-the first Neanderthal to slip into this reality from that one-had gone. The story of a modern caveman appearing in a nickel mine in Northern Ontario had seemed pure tabloid stuff, akin to alien encounters, Bigfoot sightings, and so on. By the time the U.S. government-or the Canadian one, for that matter-was taking things seriously, Neanderthal Prime was out and about among the general public, making it impossible to contain and control the situation.

And so money had suddenly appeared-some from the INS, but most from the DoD-to create the Synergy Group. That had been some politician’s name for it; Jock would have called it “Barast Encounter-Repetition Emergency Task-force,” or BERET. But the name-and that silly two-worlds-uniting logo-had been set before he was tapped to lead the organization.

Still, it had been no accident that a game theorist had been selected. It was clear that if contact ever did reopen, the Neanderthals and the humans-Jock still reserved that word, at least privately, for real people-would have different interests, and figuring out the most advantageous outcome that could be reasonably expected in such situations was what game theory was all about.

“Jock?”

Jock usually kept his door open-that was good management, wasn’t it? An open-door policy? Still, he was startled to see a Neanderthal face-broad, browridged, bearded-peeking around the jamb. “Yes, Ponter?”

“Lonwis Trob brought along some communiques from New York City.” Lonwis and the nine other famous Neanderthals, plus the Neanderthal ambassador, Tukana Prat, had been spending most of their time at the United Nations. “Are you aware of the Corresponding-Points trip?”

Jock shook his head.

“Well,” said Ponter, “you know there are plans to open a bigger, permanent, ground-level portal between our worlds. Apparently your United Nations has taken the decision that the portal should be between United Nations headquarters and the corresponding point on my world.”

Jock frowned. Why the hell was he getting intelligence reports from a bloody Neanderthal? Then again, he hadn’t yet checked his own e-mail today; maybe it was there. Of course, he’d known that the New York City option was being considered. It was a no-brainer, as far as Jock was concerned: obviously the new portal should be on U.S. soil, and putting it at United Nations Plaza-technically international territory-would appease the rest of the world.

“Lonwis says,” continued Ponter, “that they are planning to take a group of United Nations officials over to the other side- my side. Adikor and I are going to go down to Donakat Island-our version of Manhattan-with them, to survey the site; there are considerable issues related to shielding any large-size quantum computer from solar, cosmic, and terrestrial radiation, lest decoherence occur.”

“Yes? So?”

“Well, so, I thought perhaps you might like to come along? You run this institute devoted to establishing good relations with my world, but you have not yet seen it.”

Jock was taken aback. He found having two Neanderthals here at Synergy just now rather creepy; they looked so much like trolls. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go somewhere where he’d be surrounded by them. “When’s this trip happening?”

“After the next Two becoming One.”

“Ah, yes,” said Jock, trying to keep up a pleasant facade. “I believe our Louise’s phrase for that is, ‘Par- tay! ’ ”

“There is much more to it than that,” said Ponter, “although you will not get to see it on this proposed trip. Anyway, will you join us?”

“I’ve got a lot of work to do,” said Jock.

Ponter smiled that sickening foot-wide smile of his. “It is my kind that is supposed to lack the desire to see beyond the next hill, not yours. You should visit the world you are dealing with.”

Ponter came up to Mary’s office and closed the door behind him. He took Mary in his massive arms, and they hugged tightly. Then he licked her face, and she kissed his. But at last they let each other go, and Ponter’s voice was heavy. “You know I have to return to my world soon.”

Mary tried to nod solemnly, but she apparently was unable to completely suppress her grin. “Why are you smiling?” asked Ponter.

“Jock has asked me to go with you!”

“Really?” said Ponter. “That is wonderful!” He paused. “But of course…”

Mary nodded and raised a hand. “I know, I know. We will only see each other four days a month.” Males and females lived largely separate lives on Ponter’s world, with females inhabiting the city centers, and males making their homes out at the rims. “But at least we’ll be in the same world-and I’ll have something useful to do. Jock wants me to study Neanderthal biotechnology for a month, learn all that I can.”

“Excellent,” said Ponter. “The more cultural exchange, the better.” He looked briefly out the window at Lake Ontario, perhaps envisioning the trip he would soon have to take. “We must head up to Sudbury, then.”

“It’s still ten days until Two become One, isn’t it?”

Ponter didn’t have to check his Companion; of course he knew the figure. His own woman-mate, Klast, had succumbed to leukemia two years ago, but it was only when Two were One that he got to see his daughters. He nodded. “And after that, I am to head down south again, but in my world-to the site that corresponds to United Nations headquarters.” Ponter never said “UN”; the Neanderthals had never developed a phonetic alphabet, and so the notion of referring to something by initials was completely foreign to them. “The new portal is to be built there.”

“Ah,” said Mary.

Ponter raised a hand. “I won’t leave for Donakat until this next Two becoming One is over, of course, and I’ll be back long before Two become One once again.”

Mary felt some of her enthusiasm draining from her. She’d known intellectually that even if she was in the Neanderthal world, twenty-five days would normally pass between times when she could be in Ponter’s arms, but it was a hard concept to get used to. She wished there was a solution, somewhere, in some world, that would see her and Ponter always together.

“If you are going back,” said Ponter, “then we can travel to the portal together. I was going to get a lift with Lou, but…”

“Louise? Is she going over, too?”

“No, no. But she is going to Sudbury the day after tomorrow to visit Reuben.” Louise Benoit and Reuben Montego had become lovers while they were quarantined together, and their relationship had continued afterward. “Say,” said Ponter, “if all four of us are going to be in Sudbury at the same time, perhaps we can have a meal together. I have been craving Reuben’s barbecues…”

Mary Vaughan currently had two homes on her version of Earth: she had been renting a unit at Bristol Harbour Village here in upstate New York, and she owned a condominium apartment in Richmond Hill, just north of Toronto. It was to that latter home that she and Ponter were now heading-a three-and-a-half-hour drive from Synergy Group headquarters. Along the way, once they’d gotten off the New York State Thruway in Buffalo, they’d stopped for KFC-Kentucky Fried Chicken. Ponter thought it was the greatest food ever-a sentiment Mary didn’t disagree with, much to her waistline’s detriment. Spices were a product of warm climates, designed to mask the taste of meat that was off; Ponter’s people, who lived in high latitudes, didn’t use much in the way of seasonings, and the combination of eleven different herbs and spices was unlike anything he’d ever had before.