“Oh,” said Reuben, now rummaging in the fridge for things to make a salad. “But what about Neanderthals burying their dead with stuff the dear departed might need in the afterlife? Surely that’s a sign of religion.”
“Well, it would be,” said Mary, “if Neanderthals had really done that. But sites occupied for generations accumulate garbage: bones, old stone tools, and so on. The few examples we thought we had of grave goods at Neanderthal burials turned out to be stuff that had just accidentally been buried with the corpse.”
Reuben was pulling leaves off a head of iceberg lettuce now. “Ah, but doesn’t burial in and of itself imply a belief in the afterlife?”
Mary looked around for something else she could do to help, but there really didn’t seem to be anything. “It might,” she said, “or it might just be a case of trying to keep things neat. Lots of Neanderthal corpses are found in tightly wrapped fetal positions. That could be ceremony, or it could just be a desire on the part of the poor slob who had to dig the grave to make the hole as small as possible. Dead bodies attract scavengers, after all, and they get to stinking if you leave them out in the sun.”
Reuben was now chopping up celery. “But … but I read about Neanderthals being, well, the first flower children.”
Mary laughed. “Ah, yes. Shanidar Cave, in Iraq—where Neanderthal bodies were found covered with fossil pollen.”
“That’s right,” said Reuben, nodding. “As if they’d been buried wearing flower garlands, or something.”
“Sorry, but that’s been discredited, too. The pollen was just an accidental intrusion into the grave, brought there by burrowing rodents or groundwater percolating through the sediment.”
“But—wait a minute! What about the Neanderthal flute! That was front-page news all over the world.”
“Yeah,” said Mary. “Ivan Turk found that in Slovenia: a hollowed-out bear bone with four holes in it.”
“Right, right. A flute!”
“’Fraid not,” said Mary, leaning against the side-by-side fridge now. “It turns out that the bone was pierced by carnivore gnawing—probably by a wolf. And, yes, in typical newspaper fashion, that revelation did not make the front page.”
“That’s for sure. This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“I was there at the Paleoanthropology Society meeting in Seattle in ’98, when Nowell and Chase presented their paper discrediting the flute.” Mary paused. “No, it really does look like right until the very end, Neanderthals—at least on this version of Earth—had nothing that we’d call religion, or even culture for that matter. Oh, some of the very last specimens show a little variety in the things they did, but most paleoanthropologists think they were just imitating Cro-Magnons who lived nearby; Cro-Magnons were indisputably our direct ancestors.”
“Speaking of Cro-Magnons,” said Reuben, “what about crossbreeding between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons? Didn’t I read that fossils of a hybrid child had been found in, what, oh, maybe 1998?”
“Yeah, Erik Trinkaus is big on that specimen; it’s from Portugal. But, look, he’s a physical anthropologist, and I’m a geneticist. He bases his case entirely on the skeleton of a child that, to him, shows hybrid characteristics. But he doesn’t have the skull—and the skull is the only truly diagnostic part of a Neanderthal. To me, it just looks like a stocky kid.”
“Hmm,” said Reuben. “But, you know, I’ve seen guys who look a fair bit like Ponter, in features if not in coloring. Some Eastern Europeans, for instance, have big noses and prominent browridges. Are you saying those guys don’t have Neanderthal genes in them?”
Mary shrugged. “I know some paleoanthropologists who would argue that they do. But, really, the jury is still out on whether our kind of humans and Neanderthals even could crossbreed.”
“Well,” said Reuben, “if you keep spending so much time with Ponter, maybe you’ll answer that one for us someday.”
Reuben was close enough that she was able to swat him on the arm with an open hand. “Stop that!” she said. She looked into the living room, so that Reuben wouldn’t see the grin growing across her face.
Jasmel Ket showed up at Adikor’s house around noon. Adikor was surprised but pleased to see her. “Healthy day,” he said.
“The same to you,” replied Jasmel, bending down to scratch Pabo’s head.
“Will you have food?” asked Adikor. “Meat? Juice?”
“No, I’m fine,” said Jasmel. “But I’ve been reading more of the law. Have you considered a counterclaim?”
“A counterclaim?” repeated Adikor. “Against whom?”
“Daklar Bolbay.”
Adikor ushered Jasmel into the living room. He took a chair, and she took another. “On what possible charge?” said Adikor. “She has done nothing to me.”
“She has interfered with your grieving for the loss of your man-mate …”
“Yes,” said Adikor. “But surely that is not a crime.”
“Isn’t it?” said Jasmel. “What does the Code of Civilization say about disturbing the life of another?”
“It says a lot of things,” said Adikor.
“The part I’m thinking of is, ‘Frivolous actions against another cannot be countenanced; civilization works because we only invoke its power over the individual in egregious cases.’”
“Well, she’s accused me of murder. There’s no more egregious crime.”
“But she has no real evidence against you,” said Jasmel. “That makes her action frivolous—or, at least, it might in the eyes of an adjudicator.”
Adikor shook his head. “I can’t see Sard being impressed by that argument.”
“Ah, but Sard cannot hear the counterclaim; that’s the law. You’d speak in front of a different adjudicator.”
“Really? Maybe it is worth trying. But … but my goal isn’t to prolong these proceedings. It’s to get them over with, to get this rotting judicial scrutiny lifted so I can get back down to the lab.”
“Oh, I agree you shouldn’t really pursue a counterclaim. But the suggestion that you might could perhaps help you get your answer.”
“Answer? About what?”
“About why Daklar is pursuing you like this.”
“Do you know why?” asked Adikor.
Jasmel looked down. “I didn’t, not until today, but …”
“But what?”
“It’s not for me to say. If you’re going to hear it at all, it will have to be directly from Daklar.”
Chapter 36
Reuben, Louise, Ponter, and Mary sat around the table in Reuben’s kitchen. Everyone but Louise was eating hamburgers; Louise was picking at a plate of salad.
Apparently, in Ponter’s world, people ate with gloved hands. Ponter didn’t like using cutlery, but the hamburger seemed a good compromise. He didn’t eat the bun, but instead used it to manipulate the meat, constantly squeezing the patty forward and biting off the part that protruded from the disks of bread.
“So, Ponter,” said Louise, making conversation, “do you live alone? Back in your world, I mean.”
Ponter shook his head. “No. I lived with Adikor.”
“Adikor,” repeated Mary. “I thought he was the person you worked with?”
“Yes,” said Ponter. “But he is also my partner.”
“Your business partner, you mean,” said Mary.
“Well, that too, I suppose. But he is my ‘partner’; that is the word we use. We share a home.”
“Ah,” said Mary. “A roommate.”
“Yes.”
“You share household expenses and chores.”
“Yes. And meals and a bed and …”
Mary was angry with herself for the way her heart fluttered. She knew lots of gay men; she was just used to them coming out of the closet, not popping through a transdimensional portal.