Hominids (20 page)

“Please,” said Mary. “Please. I’ll scream …”

Ponter took another shuddering step forward, and then—

And then—

And then Mary did scream.
“Help! Help!”

Ponter was now slumping to the carpeted floor. His brow above the ridge was slick with perspiration, and his skin had turned an ashen color. Mary knelt down next to him. His chest was moving up and down rapidly, and he’d started to gasp.

“Help!”
she yelled again.

She heard the glass door sliding open. Reuben dashed in. “What’s—oh, God!”

He hurried over to the downed Ponter. Louise arrived a few seconds later. Reuben felt Ponter’s pulse.

“Ponter is sick,” said Hak, using its female voice.

“Yes,” said Reuben, nodding. “Do you know what’s wrong with him?”

“No,” said Hak. “His pulse is elevated, his breathing shallow. His body temperature is 39.”

Mary was startled for a moment to hear the implant citing what she presumed was a Celsius figure, in which case it was in the fever range—but, then again, it
was
a logical temperature scale for any ten-fingered being to develop.

“Does he have allergies?” asked Reuben.

Hak bleeped.

“Allergies,” said Reuben. “Foods or things in the environment that normal people are unaffected by, but cause sickness in him.”

“No,” said Hak.

“Was he ill before he left your world?”

“Ill?” repeated Hak.

“Sick. Not well.”

“No.”

Reuben looked at an intricately carved wooden clock, sitting on one of his bookshelves. “It’s been about fifty-one hours since he arrived here. Christ, Christ, Christ.”

“What is it?” asked Mary.

“God, I am an idiot,” said Reuben, rising. He hurried off to another room in the house and returned with a worn brown-leather medical bag, which he opened up. He extracted a wooden tongue depressor and a small flashlight. “Ponter,” he said firmly, “open mouth.”

Ponter’s golden eyes were half-covered by his lids now, but he did what Reuben asked. Evidently, Ponter had never been examined in quite this way before; he resisted the placing of the wooden spatula on his tongue. But, perhaps calmed by some words from Hak that only he could hear, he soon stopped struggling, and Reuben shined the light inside the Neanderthal’s cavernous mouth.

“His tonsils and other tissues are highly inflamed,” said Reuben. He looked at Mary, then at Louise. “It’s an infection of some sort.”

“But either you, Professor Vaughan, or I have been with him just about all the time he’s been here,” said Louise, “and we’re not sick.”

“Exactly,”
snapped Reuben. “Whatever he’s got, he probably got here—and it’s something the three of us have natural immunity to, but he doesn’t.” The doctor rummaged in his case, found a vial of pills. “Louise,” he said, without turning around, “get a glass of water, please.”

Louise hurried off to the kitchen.

“I’m going to give him some industrial-strength aspirin,” said Reuben to Hak, or to Mary—she wasn’t sure which. “It should bring down his fever.”

Louise returned with a tumbler full of water. Reuben took it from her. He pushed two pills past Ponter’s lips. “Hak, tell him to swallow the pills.”

Mary was unsure whether the Companion understood Reuben’s words, or merely guessed at his intention, but a moment later Ponter did indeed swallow the tablets, and, with his own large hand steadied by Reuben’s, managed to chase them down with some water, although much of it ran down his chinless jaw, dampening his blond beard.

But he didn’t splutter at all, Mary noted. A Neanderthal couldn’t choke; that was the plus side of not being able to make as many sounds. The mouth cavity was laid out so that neither liquid nor food could go down the wrong way. Reuben helped pour more water into Ponter, emptying the glass.

Damn it
, thought Mary.
God damn it.

How could they have been so stupid? When Cortez and his conquistadors had come to Central America, they’d brought diseases to which the Aztecs had no immunity—and yet the Aztecs and the Spaniards had only been separated for a few thousand years, time enough for pathogens to develop in one part of the planet that those in the other couldn’t defend against. Ponter’s world had been separated from this one for at least twenty-seven thousand years; diseases
had
to have evolved here that he would have no resistance to.

And … and … and …

Mary shuddered.

And vice versa, too, of course.

The same thought had clearly occurred to Reuben. He hurried to his feet, crossed the room, and picked up the teal one-piece phone Mary had used earlier.

“Hello, operator,” he said into the phone. “My name is Dr. Reuben K. Montego, and this is a medical emergency. I need you to connect me with the Laboratory Centre for Disease Control at Health Canada in Ottawa. Yes, that’s right—whoever’s in charge of infectious-disease control there …”

Adikor Huld’s
dooslarm basadlarm
was temporarily halted, ostensibly for the evening meal, but also because Adjudicator Sard clearly wanted to give him a chance to calm down, to regain composure, and to consult with others about how he might undo the damage of his violent outburst earlier in the day.

When the
dooslarm basadlarm
started back up, Adikor sat again on the stool. He wondered what genius had thought of having the accused sit on a stool while others circled about him? Perhaps Jasmel knew; she was studying history, after all, and such proceedings were ancient in their origins.

Bolbay strode into the center of the chamber. “I now wish for us to move to the alibi-archive pavilion,” she said, facing the adjudicator.

Sard glanced at the timepiece mounted on the ceiling, clearly concerned about how long all this was taking. “You’ve already established that Scholar Huld’s alibi archive can’t possibly show anything leading up to Ponter Boddit’s disappearance.” She scowled. “I’m
sure
”—she said this in a tone that would brook no argument—“that Scholar Huld and whoever is going to speak on his behalf will agree that this is true without you having to drag us over there to prove it.”

Bolbay nodded respectfully. “Indeed, Adjudicator. But it isn’t Scholar Huld’s alibi cube I wish to have unlocked. It is Ponter Boddit’s.”

“It won’t show anything of his disappearance, either,” said Sard, sounding exasperated, “and for the same reason: the thousand armspans of rock blocking its transmissions.”

“Quite true, Adjudicator,” said Bolbay. “But it is not Scholar Boddit’s disappearance that I wish to review. Rather, I want to show you events dating from 254 months ago.”

“Two hundred and fifty-four!” exclaimed the adjudicator. “How could something that long past possibly be germane to these proceedings?”

“If you will indulge me,” said Bolbay, “I think you will see that it has great bearing.”

Adikor was tapping above his browridge with a cocked thumb, thinking. Two-and-a-half hundredmonths: that was a little over nineteen years. He’d known Ponter back then; they were both 145s, and had entered the Academy simultaneously. But what event from that far back could—

Adikor found himself on his feet. “Worthy Adjudicator, I object to this.”

Sard looked at him. “Object?” she said, startled to hear such a thing during a legal proceeding. “On what basis? Bolbay isn’t proposing to unlock your alibi archive—only Scholar Boddit’s. And since he
is
missing, then opening his archive is something Bolbay, as
tabant
of his closest living relatives, has a right to request.”

Adikor was angry with himself. Sard might have indeed denied Bolbay’s request, if he’d just kept his mouth shut. But now she was no doubt curious about what it was that Adikor wanted to keep hidden.

“Very well,” said Sard, making her decision. She looked out at the crowd of spectators. “You people will have to stay here, until I decide whether this is something that needs to be seen publicly.” She shifted her gaze. “Scholar Boddit’s immediate family, Scholar Huld, and whoever will be speaking on behalf of him may join us, assuming none of them are Exhibitionists.” And, at last, her eyes fell on Bolbay. “All right, Bolbay. This better be worth my time.”

Sard, Bolbay, Adikor, Jasmel, and Megameg, holding Jasmel’s hand, made their way down the wide, moss-covered corridor to the alibi pavilion. Bolbay apparently couldn’t resist a dig at Adikor as they walked along. “No one to speak on your behalf, eh?” she said.

For once, Adikor did manage to keep his mouth shut.

There weren’t many people still alive who had been born before the introduction of the Companions: those few from generation 140 and even fewer from 139 who hadn’t yet died. For everyone else, a Companion had been part of their lives since just after birth, when the initial infant-sized implant was installed. The celebration of the thousandth month since the beginning of the Alibi Era would happen shortly; great festivities were planned worldwide.

Even just here in Saldak, there were tens of thousands who had been born and had already died since the first Companion was installed; that initial implant had been put into the forearm of its own creator, Lonwis Trob. The great alibi-archive pavilion, here, next to the Gray Council building, was divided into two wings. The one on the south abutted an outcropping of ancient rock; it would be extraordinarily difficult to expand that wing, and so it was used to store the active alibi cubes of those now alive, a number that was pretty much a constant. The north wing, although currently no bigger than the south, could expand for a great distance, as required; when someone died, his or her alibi cube was disconnected from the receiver array and brought there.

Adikor wondered which wing Ponter’s cube was being stored in now. Technically, the adjudicator had yet to rule that murder had occurred. He hoped it was the wing of the living; he wasn’t sure if he could maintain his composure if he had to face Ponter’s cube on the other side.

Adikor had been to the archives before. The north wing, the wing of the dead, had a separate room, with an open archway leading into it, for each generation. The first one was tiny, holding a single cube, that of Walder Shar, the only member of generation 131 to still be alive in Saldak when the Companions were introduced. The next four rooms were successively bigger, housing cubes from members of generations 132, 133, 134, and 135, each ten years older than its predecessor. Starting with generation 136, all the rooms were the same size, although very few cubes had yet been transferred over from generations after 144, almost all of whose members were still alive.

The south wing had but a single room, with 30,000 receptacles for alibi cubes. Although originally there had been great order in the south wing, with the initial collection of cubes sorted by generation and, within each generation, subdivided by sex, much of that had been lost over time. Children were all born in orderly lots, but people died at a wide range of ages, and so cubes from subsequent generations had been plugged into vacant receptacles wherever they happened to be.

That made finding a particular cube out of more than 25,000—the population of Saldak—impossible without a directory. Adjudicator Sard presented herself to the Keeper of Alibis, a portly woman of generation 143.

“Healthy day, Adjudicator,” said the woman, sitting on a saddle-seat behind a kidney-shaped table.

“Healthy day,” said Sard. “I wish to access the alibi archive of Ponter Boddit, a physicist from generation 145.”

The woman nodded and spoke into a computer. The machine’s square screen displayed a series of numbers. “Follow me,” she said. Sard and the others did just that.

For all her bulk, the keeper had a sprightly step. She led them down a series of corridors, the walls of which were lined with niches, each containing an alibi cube, a block of reconstituted granite about the size of a person’s head. “Here we are,” said the woman. “Receptacle number 16,321: Ponter Boddit.”

The adjudicator nodded, then turned her wrinkled wrist with its own Companion to face the glowing blue eye on Ponter’s cube. “I, Komel Sard, adjudicator, hereby order the unlocking of alibi receptacle 16,321, for just and appropriate legal inquiries. Timestamp.”

The eye on the receptacle turned yellow. The adjudicator stepped out of the way, and the archivist held up her Companion. “I, Mabla Dabdalb, Keeper of Alibis, hereby concur with the unlocking of receptacle 16,321, for just and appropriate legal inquiries. Timestamp.” The eye turned red, and a tone sounded.

“There you are, Adjudicator. You can use the projector in room twelve.”

“Thank you,” said Sard, and they marched back up to the front. Dabdalb pointed out the room she’d assigned them, and Sard, Bolbay, Adikor, Jasmel, and Megameg walked over to it and went inside.

The room was large and square, with a small gallery of saddle-seats against one wall. Everyone sat down, except for Bolbay, who moved over to the wall-mounted control console. It was only within this building that the alibi archives could be accessed; to protect against unauthorized viewing, the archive pavilion was completely isolated from the planetary information network, and had no outside telecommunications lines. Although it was sometimes inconvenient to have to physically come to the archives to access one’s own recordings, the isolation was considered an appropriate safeguard.

Bolbay looked at the small group that had assembled here. “All right,” she said. “I’m going to call up the events of 146/128/11.”

Adikor nodded in resignation. He wasn’t sure about the eleventh day, but the 128th moon since the birth of generation 146 sounded right.

The room darkened and an almost invisible sphere, like a soap bubble, appeared to float in front of them. Bolbay evidently felt the default size wasn’t dramatic enough for her purposes: Adikor could hear her snapping control buds out, and the sphere’s diameter grew until it was more than an armspan across. She plucked more controls, and the sphere filled with three smaller spheres packed together, each tinged with a slightly different color. Then those spheres subdivided into three more each, and those ones subdivided again, and on and on, like sped-up video of some alien cell undergoing mitosis. As the overall sphere filled with progressively smaller and smaller spheres, those smaller spheres took on more and more colors, until, finally, the process stopped, and an image of a young man standing in a positive-pressure thinking room at the Science Academy filled the viewing sphere, as though it were a three-dimensional sculpture made of beads.