Robert Sawyer - Hybrids

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.

“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.

“ It is time, my fellow Homo sapiens, that we go to Mars…”

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.