Mary again looked at Ponter. “My Church has this notion of original sin: that all people are born tainted, carrying guilt and evil because of the actions of their ancestors. But I reject that. Veronica Shannon talked to us about behaviorism, Ponter—about the idea that you can inculcate any behavior, any response, into a human being. The mechanism—intermittent reinforcement versus consistent reinforcement—may differ slightly between Gliksins and Barasts, but the underlying concept is the same. Anew child, a new life, is nothing but potentials to be developed one way or another—and I want our child, our daughter, to have all the potentials she can and, through your love and mine as her parents, to become the best possible human being she can be.”
Ponter nodded. “Whatever you want is fine by me.”
“This,” said Mary. “This is what I want. A child who can believe in God.”
Chapter Twenty-six
“And so I stand here today to usher in the next phase. It is time, my friends, for at least some of us to move on, to leave our version of Earth and take the next giant leap…”
Mary, Ponter, and Mega spent the night at Vissan’s place, sleeping on the floor. The next day, with the codon writer wrapped in furs so that no one would notice it, the three of them had a travel cube come and take them to Kraldak Center, and from there they flew by helicopter to Saldak Center…just in time for the end of Two becoming One.
Ponter met up with Adikor, and the two of them boarded a hover-bus heading back out to male territory. Ponter, Mary knew, had another trip coming up tomorrow. That’s when he would accompany the contingent from the United Nations, including Jock Krieger, down to Donakat Island.
Mary’s heart was aching, and she was already counting the days until Two would become One again—not that she expected to still be living on this world at that point; she would have to return to the Synergy Group before then. But of course she’d return here for the holiday.
Mary felt extraordinarily jealous of Adikor. It was unfair, she knew, but the whole thing had left her feeling like the Other Woman, as if Ponter had snuck away for a rendezvous with an illicit lover, only to have to return to his real family.
Mary began the long, slow walk back to the house she shared with Bandra, carrying the fur-wrapped codon writer. Many other women were milling around, but none seemed sad. Those who were talking among themselves were laughing; those walking alone mostly had smiles on their broad faces—not smiles of greeting, but secret, personal smiles, smiles of remembering.
Mary felt like an idiot. What the hell was she doing here, in this world, with these people? Yes, she’d enjoyed her time with Ponter. The lovemaking had been just as fabulous as it always was, the conversation just as fascinating, and the trip with Ponter and Mega to meet Vissan had been wonderful in all sorts of ways. But it was another twenty-five days until she and Ponter could be together again!
A cloud of passenger pigeons temporarily blocked the sun. They were a migratory bird, Mary knew, shuttling between two homes, one in the north and the other in the south. Mary let out a long sigh and continued to walk. She knew why the female Neanderthals she was passing could smile. It wasn’t as though they were going back to a lonely existence. Rather, they were returning to their female lovers, to their children if they had any, to their families.
Mary lifted the collar of her mammoth-hair coat; a cold breeze had come up. She hated winter in Toronto—and suspected she’d hate it here even more. Toronto was so big, with so much industry, so many people, and so many cars, that it modified the local environment. North of the city—and south of the city, in Western New York—everything got hammered by snow. But in Toronto, there were only a few snowfalls each year, and usually no major ones before Christmas. Of course, she wasn’t in what corresponded to Toronto; Saldak was 400 kilometers farther north, where Sudbury was in Mary’s world, and Sudbury did get tons of snow. Saldak must get even more of it.
Mary shuddered, even though it wasn’t that cold yet. As she walked along, she thought about asking her Companion to tell her about winters here, but she suspected Christine would just confirm her worst fears.
At last she came to the distended, squat tree that formed the main structure of the house she shared with Bandra. Its leaves were falling off. Mary entered the house. She was wearing Neanderthal-style pants, with built-in shoes, but she’d instinctively reached down to try to remove her footwear as soon as she’d come through the door. She sighed again, wondering if she’d ever get used to this place.
Mary went into her bedroom, put down the codon writer, and came back into the living room. She could hear the sound of running water. Bandra must already be home, her man-mate perhaps having gone back to the Rim aboard an earlier hover-bus. The sound of the water must have masked the noise made by Mary entering, and since the door to the bathroom was closed—a nod to sanitation, not privacy, Mary knew—doubtless Bandra couldn’t smell Mary yet.
Mary went to the kitchen and got herself some fruit juice. She’d heard that the Neanderthals who worked in the south harvesting fruit shaved off all their head and body hair to help them better survive the warm temperatures. She tried to envision what Ponter would look like without hair. Mary had seen bodybuilders on TV, and for some reason they all had hairless chests and backs. Either they shaved them, or else the steroids they took had that effect. Anyway, she decided Ponter looked just fine the way he was.
Mary had expected Bandra to emerge from the bathroom by now, but she hadn’t—and Mary really needed to pee. By sheer necessity, she’d forced herself to overcome her privacy concerns about sharing one washroom. She walked over to the closed door and pushed it open with the flat of her hand.
Bandra was standing in front of the washbasin, hunched over, leaning into the square mirror above the sink.
“Excuse me,” said Mary. “I just need to—oh, my! Bandra, are you okay?”
It had taken a moment for Mary to see that there were splatters of blood on the polished granite washbasin; the red drops were difficult to make out against the pink stone.
Bandra didn’t turn around. Indeed, she seemed to be making an effort to hide her face. Mary loomed in.
“Bandra, what is it?” Mary reached up and took hold of Bandra’s shoulder. Had Bandra really wanted to, she could have stopped Mary from turning her around—she was certainly strong enough. But although she resisted a bit at first, she did allow Mary to turn her.
Mary felt herself sucking in air. The left side of Bandra’s face was bruised horribly, a yellow rim around a black-and-blue area perhaps ten centimeters across running from just above her browridge, down her wide, angled cheek to the corner of her mouth. There had been a central scab, half the diameter of the bruise, but Bandra had picked much of it away; that’s where the fresh blood was coming from.
“My God,” Mary said. “What happened to you?” Mary found a cloth—square, coarse—dipped it into the water, and helped Bandra clean the wound.
Tears were running down Bandra’s face now, falling from the deep wells of her eyes, detouring around her massive nose, flowing over her chinless jaw, and dropping onto the granite washbasin, diluting the blood there. “I—I never should have let you come here,” said Bandra softly.
“Me?” said Mary. “What did I do?”
But Bandra seemed lost in her own thoughts. “It’s not so bad,” she said, looking in the mirror.
Mary set down the washcloth and put one hand on each of Bandra’s broad shoulders. “Bandra, what happened?”