She knew that voice, a voice she’d once longed to hear again, but right now, for this moment, for as long as she could make it last, she wanted nothing but silence.
But the moment was fading fast. And after a few more seconds, the door to the chamber opened, and light—fluorescent, harsh, artificial—spilled in from outside. Veronica Shannon came in, followed by Ponter. The young woman removed the helmet from Mary’s head.
Ponter loomed closer and he brought up a short, broad thumb, and wiped Mary’s cheek with it. He then moved his hand away and showed her that his thumb was wet. “Are you okay?” he said again.
Mary hadn’t been aware of the tears until now. “I’m fine,” she said. And then, realizing that “fine” wasn’t anywhere near sufficient for how she felt, she added, “I’m terrific.”
“The tears…?” said Ponter. “Did you…did you experience something?”
Mary nodded.
“What was it?” Ponter asked.
Mary took a deep breath and looked at Veronica. As much as she had taken a liking to the young woman, Mary didn’t want to share what had happened with this pragmatist, this atheist, who would dismiss it as just the result of suppressed activity in her parietal lobe.
“I…” Mary began, and then she swallowed and tried again. “That’s a remarkable device you have there, Veronica.”
Veronica grinned broadly. “Isn’t it, though?” She turned to Ponter. “Are you ready to try it?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “If I can gain insight into what Mary feels…”
Veronica proffered the helmet to Ponter, and she immediately realized there was a problem. The helmet was designed to accommodate a standard Homo sapienshead with a high forehead, a head that was short front to back, a head with no or negligible browridges, a head, not to put too fine a point on it, that housed a smaller brain.
“It looks like it’s going to be a tight fit,” said Veronica.
“Let me try,” said Ponter. He took the thing, turned it upside down, and looked inside, as if gauging its capacity.
“Maybe if you think humble thoughts,” said Ponter’s Companion, Hak, through its external speaker. Ponter scowled at his left forearm, but Mary laughed. The idea of bigheadedness apparently crossed species lines.
Finally, Ponter decided to make the attempt. He turned the helmet right-way up and pushed it down over his head, wincing as he did so. It was indeed a tight fit, but there was lining inside, and with a final massive push, Ponter got the foam to compress sufficiently to accommodate his occipital bun.
Veronica stood in front of Ponter, appraising him like one of those clerks at LensCrafters fitting new glasses, then adjusted the orientation of the helmet slightly. “That’s fine,” she said at last. “Now, again, as I told Mary, this won’t hurt, and if you want me to stop early, just say so.”
Ponter nodded, but winced again as he did so; the back of the helmet was digging into his thick neck muscles.
Veronica turned to the wall rack full of equipment. She frowned at an oscilloscope display, and adjusted a dial beneath it. “There’s some sort of interference,” she said.
Ponter looked puzzled for a moment, then: “Ah, my cochlear implants. They let my Companion communicate silently with me, when need be.”
“Can you shut them off?”
“Yes,” said Ponter. He flipped open the faceplate on his Companion and made an adjustment to the revealed control buds.
Veronica nodded. “That’s the ticket; the interference is gone.” She looked at Ponter and smiled encouragingly. “Okay, Ponter. Have a seat.”
Mary got out of the way, and Ponter sat down on the padded chair, his broad back to her.
Veronica left the test chamber and motioned for Mary to follow. The chamber had a massive steel door on it, and Veronica had to exert herself to get it to swing shut; Mary noted that someone labeled the door “Veronica’s Closet.” Once it was closed, Veronica moved over to a PC and started darting her mouse pointer about, clicking buttons. Mary watched, fascinated, and after a moment she said, “Well? Is he experiencing anything?”
Veronica lifted her narrow shoulders slightly. “There’s no way to tell, unless he says something.” She pointed at one of the speakers hooked up to the PC. “His mike is open.”
Mary looked at the chamber’s closed door. Part of her hoped Ponter wouldexperience exactly what she had. Even if he dismissed it as an illusion—as doubtless he would—at least he’d be able to understand what had happened to her in there, and what had happened to so many people who had felt the presence of something holy throughout Homo sapienshistory.
Of course, maybe he’d be experiencing an extraterrestrial presence. Funny, that: she and Ponter had talked about so many things, but somehow whether or not he believed in aliens had never come up. Maybe to Ponter, to the Neanderthals, the idea of life on other worlds was as silly as the notion of a god. After all, there was a complete absence of credible evidence for extraterrestrial life, at least in Mary’s version of reality. Ponter’s people would say, therefore, that believing in such beings was yet another ridiculous leap of faith…
Mary continued to stare at the sealed door. Surely religion was more than just a neuronal trick, a microelectric self-delusion. Surely it—
“Okay,” said Veronica. “I’m shutting off the current.” She moved over to the steel door and managed to get it open. “You can come out now.”
Ponter’s first order of business was removing the tight-fitting helmet. He brought his massive hands up to each side of his head and gave what appeared to be a mighty push. The contraption came off, and he handed it to Veronica, then set about rubbing his browridge, as if trying to restore whatever circulation might normally be there.
“Well?” said Mary, when she could wait no longer.
Ponter opened Hak’s faceplate and adjusted some controls, presumably reactivating his cochlear implants.
“ Well?” repeated Mary.
Ponter shook his head, and for a heartbeat, Mary hoped it was just a further attempt to restore circulation. “Nothing,” he said.
Mary was surprised by how depressed that single word made her feel.
“Nothing?” repeated Veronica, who, for her part, seemed elated by the announcement. “Are you sure?”
Ponter nodded.
“No visual phenomena?” continued Veronica. “No feeling that something was there with you? No sensation of being watched?”
“Nothing at all. Just me, alone with my thoughts.”
“What were you thinking about?” asked Mary. It was possible, after all, that Ponter wouldn’t recognize a religious moment.
“I was thinking about the midday meal,” said Ponter, “wondering what we were going to have. And about the weather, and how soon winter will be here.” He looked at Mary and must have seen the disappointment on her face. “Oh, and you!” said Ponter, quickly, apparently trying to alleviate her pain. “I thought about you, of course!”
Mary smiled wanly and looked away. Surely one test of one Neanderthal didn’t prove anything. Still…
Still, it was provocative that she, a Homo sapiens, had had the deluxe, full-blown experience, and that he, a Homo neanderthalensis, had experienced…
The phrasing came unbidden to her mind, but it was the sad truth.
Ponter Boddit had experienced not a blessed thing.
Chapter Eight
“It was that questing spirit that led our ancient ancestors to spread throughout the Old World…”
Veronica Shannon was pacing back and forth in her lab. Mary was sitting on one of the office’s two identical chairs; Ponter had found his chair’s width between its metal arms too narrow for his bulk, and so had perched his rear on the edge of Veronica’s surprisingly tidy desk.
“Do you know anything about psychology, Ponter?” asked Veronica, her hands clasped behind her narrow back.
“Some,” Ponter said. “I studied it when I was learning about computer science at the Academy. It was—what would you call it?—something I had to study along with artificial intelligence.”