“Medical emergency!” snapped Reuben Montego. His shaved black head glistened in the harsh lights of the giant building. “We’re going straight down to the 6800-foot level.”
The elevator technician nodded. “Right you are, Doc.”
Mary knew that the cage had been waiting here on the surface in response to a call Reuben had made from his office. The three of them hurried inside, and the technician, who would stay up top, pulled down the heavy cage door. He then gave five blasts on the buzzer—express descent with no stops. The elevator began its drop down a shaft five times as deep as each of the World Trade Center towers had been tall—until, of course, some male Homo sapiens had destroyed them…
On the way in, Mary, Louise, and Reuben had grabbed hardhats and mining coats from the racks in the changing area. They struggled to get them on as the elevator made its noisy descent.
“What sort of police force do they have on the other side?” asked Reuben in his deep, Jamaican-accented voice.
“Hardly any,” said Mary, half shouting to be heard above the racket. And it should stay that way, she thought: a world free of crime and violence.
“So it’s up to us?” said Reuben.
“I’m afraid so,” said Mary.
“What about taking some of the Canadian Forces guys with us?” asked Louise.
“We still don’t know who’s behind this,” said Mary. “It could be Jock acting alone—or it could go all the way to the DND and the Pentagon.”
Louise looked at Reuben, and Mary saw him draw her close. If they were half as scared as Mary felt, she couldn’t blame them for wanting to hold each other. Mary moved over to the far side of the mud-covered lift and made a show of watching the levels go by, so that Reuben and Louise could have a few minutes to themselves.
“My English vocabulary is clearly still wanting,” said Christine’s voice through Mary’s cochlear implants. “What does juh-tahm mean?”
Mary hadn’t made out a thing; evidently the Companion’s microphones were more discerning. She whispered so that the others wouldn’t be able to hear her. “That’s not English, it’s French: ‘Je t’aime.’ It means ‘I love you.’ Louise told me Reuben always switches to French to say that.”
“Ah,” said Christine. They continued down, until the lift finally shuddered to a halt. Reuben hoisted the door, revealing the mining drift, heading off into the distance.
“What time did he go through?” demanded Mary, once they’d finally reached the staging area to the portal, built on a platform in the barrel-shaped six-story-tall Sudbury Neutrino Observatory chamber.
A Canadian Forces man looked up, eyebrows lifted. “Who?”
“Jock Krieger,” said Mary. “From the Synergy Group.”
The man—blond, light-skinned—consulted a clipboard. “We had a John Kevin Krieger go through about three hours ago.”
“That’s him,” said Mary. “Did he have anything with him?”
“Forgive me, Dr. Vaughan,” began the officer, “but I really don’t think I’m supposed to divulge—”
Reuben moved forward and showed him an ID card. “I’m Dr. Montego, the mine-site physician here, and this is a medical emergency. Krieger may be highly infectious.”
“I should call my superior,” said the soldier.
“Do that,” snapped Reuben. “But first tell us what he was carrying.”
The man frowned, thinking. “One of those overnight bags that rolls on wheels.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes, a metal box, about the size of a shoebox.”
Reuben looked at Mary. “Damn,” she said.
“Was the box put through decontamination?” asked Louise. “Of course,” said the soldier, his tone defensive. “Nothing goes through without being decontaminated.”
“Good,” said Mary. “Let us through.”
“Can I see your identification?”
Mary and Louise slapped their passports down. “All right?” said Mary. “Now, let us through.”
“What about him?” said the soldier, pointing at Reuben.
“Damn it, man, I just showed you my Inco card,” said Reuben. “I don’t have my passport with me.”
“I’m not supposed to—”
“For Pete’s sake!” said Mary. “This is an emergency!”
The soldier nodded. “All right,” he said at last. “All right, go ahead.”
Mary ran on, leading the way to the Derkers tube. As soon as she got to its mouth, she continued on through, and—
Blue fire.
Static electricity.
Another world.
Mary could hear two sets of footfalls behind her, so she didn’t look back to see if Louise and Reuben were following as she hurried out of the tube. A burly male Neanderthal technician looked up, astonished. Probably no one had ever come running out of the portal before.
The Neanderthal was one Mary knew on sight. He clearly recognized her, too, but, to Mary’s astonishment, he was making a beeline to tackle Reuben, who was just behind Mary.
Mary suddenly realized what was going on: the Neanderthal thought Louise and Reuben were chasing Mary, not following her. “No!” shouted Mary. “No, they’re with me! Let them pass!”
Her own shouting meant that Christine had to wait until she’d finished her exclamation before translating the words, lest her external speaker—capable of a healthy volume, but nowhere near as loud as a shouting human—be drowned out. Mary listened to the Neanderthal words that came from her forearm: “Rak! Ta sooparb nolant, rak! Derpant helk! ”
By about halfway through the translation, the Neanderthal technician tried to abort his run, but he slipped on the polished granite computing-chamber floor and went sliding into Reuben, sending the M.D. flying. Louise tumbled over the Neanderthal, somersaulting onto her back.
Mary reached down and helped Louise up. Reuben was getting to his feet, too.
“Lupal! ” called the Neanderthal. Sorry!
Mary headed up the half flight of stairs into the control room, passing another startled Neanderthal, then continued on toward the drift that connected the quantum-computing facility to the rest of the nickel mine.
“Wait!” shouted the second Neanderthal. “You have to go through decontamination!”
“There’s no time,” Mary shouted back. “This is an emergency, and—”
But Reuben interrupted her. “No, Mary, he’s right. Remember how sick Ponter got when he first came to our side? We’re trying to prevent a plague, not start one.”
Mary swore. “All right,” she said. She looked at Reuben and Louise, the black Jamaican-Canadian with the shaved head and the pale Québecois with the long brunette hair. They’d doubtless seen each other naked many times, but neither had seen Mary that way. “Strip down,” she said decisively. “Everything off, including watches and jewelry.”
Louise and Reuben were used to decontamination procedures from working at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, which had been kept in clean-room conditions until Ponter’s original arrival destroyed the detector. Still, they each hesitated for a moment. Mary started undoing her blouse. “Come on,” she said. “There’s no time to waste.”
Reuben and Louise began removing their clothing.
“Just leave your clothes here,” said Mary as she tossed her panties into a round hamper. “We can pick up Neanderthal clothing in the next room.”
Mary, now totally nude, entered the cylindrical decontamination chamber. It had been designed to comfortably hold one adult Neanderthal, but at Mary’s insistence, all three of them piled into it, in order to save time. Mary was too nervous to be embarrassed as Louise’s backside pressed against her own, or as Reuben, who had ended up facing toward Mary, was pressed face first against her breasts.