“You’re going into the Center?” said the driver, a 143 with a bald stripe running back over his head, where his part had widened.
“Yes.”
“You know it’s Last Five?”
“I do.”
The driver chuckled. “Well, I won’t be waiting around for you.”
“I know,” said Adikor. “Let’s go.”
The driver nodded and operated the controls. The cube had good sound-deadening; Adikor could barely hear the fans. He settled in for the ride. They passed a couple of other cubes, both of which had male passengers. Adikor thought that drivers probably felt quite useful; he himself had never operated a travel cube, but maybe that was a job he’d enjoy …
“What’s your contribution?” asked the driver in an easy tone, making conversation.
Adikor continued to look out the cube’s walls at the scenery going by. “I’m a physicist.”
“Here?” said the driver, sounding incredulous.
“We have a facility down in one of the mineshafts.”
“Oh, yeah,” replied the driver. “I’ve heard about that. Fancy computers, right?”
A goose was flying by overhead, its white cheeks stark against its black neck and head. Adikor tracked it with his eyes. “Right.”
“How’s that going?”
Being accused of a crime changed your perspective on everything, Adikor realized. Under normal circumstances, he might have just said “Fine,” rather than go into the whole sorry mess. But even the driver might be called for questioning at some point: “Yes, Adjudicator, I drove Scholar Huld, and when I asked him how things were going at his computing facility, he said ‘fine.’ Ponter Boddit was dead, but he didn’t show any remorse at all.”
Adikor took a deep breath, then measured his words carefully. “There was an accident yesterday. My partner was killed.”
“Oh,” said the driver. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
The landscape was barren at this point: ancient granite outcrops and low brush. “Me, too,” Adikor said.
They continued on in silence. There was no way he could be found guilty of murder; surely the adjudicator would rule that if there was no body, there was no proof that Ponter was dead, let alone that he had fallen victim to foul play.
But if—
If he were convicted of murder, then—
Then what? Certainly he’d be stripped of his property, and all of it would be given to Ponter’s woman-mate and children, but … but, no, no, Klast had been dead for twenty months now.
But beyond taking his property, what else?
Surely … surely not that.
And yet, for murder, what other penalty could they prescribe? It seemed inhumane, but it had been invoked whenever necessary since the first generation.
Surely, though, he was worrying for nothing. Daklar Bolbay was obviously inconsolable over the loss of Ponter—for Ponter had been the man-mate of Daklar’s own woman-mate; they had both been bonded to Klast, and her death must have hit Bolbay as hard as it had Ponter. And now she had lost Ponter as well! Yes, Adikor could see how her mental state might be temporarily unbalanced by this double loss. Doubtless after a day or two, Bolbay would come to her senses, withdrawing the accusation and offering an apology.
And Adikor would graciously accept the apology; what else could he do?
But if she didn’t drop the charge? If Adikor had to proceed with this nonsense all the way to a full tribunal? What then? Why, he’d have to—
The driver broke Adikor’s contemplation by speaking again. “We’re almost to the Center. Do you have an exact address?”
“North side, Milbon Square.”
Adikor could see the driver’s head move up and down as he nodded acknowledgment.
They were indeed approaching the Center: the open lands were giving way to stands of aspen and birch, and clusters of buildings made of cultured trees and gray brick. It was almost noon, and the clouds of earlier in the day had vanished.
As they continued in, Adikor saw first one, and then another, and then several more, walking along: the most beautiful creatures in all the world.
One of a pair of them caught sight of the travel cube, and pointed at Adikor. It wasn’t all that unusual for a man to be coming into the Center at sometime other than the four days during which Two became One, but it was noteworthy during Last Five, the final days of the month.
Adikor tried to ignore the stares of the women as the driver took him in deeper.
No, he thought. No, they couldn’t find him guilty. There was no body!
And yet, if they did …
Adikor squirmed in his seat as the cube flew on. He could feel his scrotum contracting, as if its contents wanted to climb into his torso, out of harm’s way.
Chapter 12
Reuben Montego was delighted that Mary Vaughan was on her way up from Toronto. Part of him was hoping that she could prove genetically that Ponter wasn’t a Neanderthal, that she could show he was just a plain old garden-variety human being. That would restore some rationality to the situation; after a fitful night’s sleep, Reuben realized that it really was easier to swallow the idea that some nut had had himself altered to look like a Neanderthal, rather than that he actually was one. Perhaps Ponter was indeed a member of some weird cult, as Reuben had first thought. If he’d worn a series of tight helmets while growing up, each of which had their interiors sculpted to look like a Neanderthal head, his own skull could have grown into that shape. And at some point, he’d obviously had that submaxillary surgery to give his lower jaw the same prehistoric cast …
Yes, it could have happened that way, thought Reuben.
There was no point going directly to the Sudbury airport; it would still be a couple of hours before Professor Vaughan arrived. Reuben headed to St. Joseph’s Health Centre to see how Ponter was doing.
The first thing he noticed when he entered the hospital room were the dark semicircles beneath Ponter’s deep-set eyes. Reuben was delighted that he himself was not subject to such signs of fatigue. His parents, back in Kingston (Jamaica, that is, not Ontario—although he’d lived briefly for a time there, too) hadn’t been able to tell when he’d stayed up half the night reading comic books.
Perhaps, thought Reuben, Dr. Singh should have prescribed a sedative for Ponter. Even if he really was a Neanderthal, almost certainly any that worked on regular humans would be effective on him, too. But, then again, if it had been his call to make, Reuben might have erred on the side of caution himself.
In any event, Ponter was now sitting up in bed, eating a late breakfast a nurse had just brought him. He had looked at the tray for a time after its arrival, as though something was missing. He’d finally wrapped his right hand in the white linen napkin, and was using that covered hand to eat with, picking up strips of bacon one at a time. He only used cutlery for the scrambled eggs, and for those he employed the spoon rather than the fork.
Ponter set the toast back down after sniffing it. He also disdained the contents of the little box of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, although he did seem to enjoy puzzling out the complex perforations to open it up into a self-contained bowl. After a tentative sip, he drained the small plastic cup of orange juice in a single gulp, but he seemed to want nothing to do with either the coffee or the 250-milliliter carton of partially skimmed milk.
Reuben went to the bathroom to get Ponter a cup of water—and he stopped dead in his tracks.
Ponter was from somewhere else. He had to be. Oh, it was common enough for a person to forget to flush the toilet, but …
But Ponter not only hadn’t flushed—he had wiped himself with the long, thin “Sanitized for Your Protection” loop, instead of with the toilet paper. No one from anywhere in the developed world could possibly make that mistake. And Ponter was indeed from a technological culture; there was that intriguing implant on the inside of his left wrist.