Humans

Chapter Twenty-eight

Ponter was sitting in a pew. As she approached, Mary was surprised to see that he had an open book in his lap and was flipping through the pages. “Ponter?” she said.

He looked up. “How did it go?” he asked.

“Fine.”

“Do you feel better?”

“Somewhat. But there’s still more I have to do.”

“Whatever is required,” said Ponter. “I will help in any way I can.”

“Are you reading the Bible?” asked Mary, astonished, as she looked at the open book.

“Then I have guessed correctly!” said Ponter. “This is your religion’s central text.”

“Yes,” said Mary. “But…but I thought you couldn’t read English.”

“I cannot. Nor can Hak, yet. But Hak is more than capable of recording the images on each page of this book, so that when he does acquire that capability, he can translate it for me.”

“I can get you a talking Bible, you know—either one that uses an electronic device to speak the words, or tapes of an actor reading the words. There’s a great set that James Earl Jones did…”

“I was unaware of such alternatives,” said Ponter, simply.

“I didn’t know you wanted to read the Bible. I, ah, didn’t think it would be of any interest to you.”

“It is important to you,” said Ponter. “Therefore, it is important to me.”

Mary smiled. “I am so lucky to have found you,” she said.

Ponter tried to make a joke of it. “I am easy to spot in a crowd,” he said.

Still smiling, Mary shook her head. “You are indeed.” She looked up at the crucifix above the pulpit, and crossed herself once more. “But, come on, we should get going.”

“Where to now?” asked Ponter.

Mary took a deep breath. “The police station.”

“‘It’s important to you,’” repeated Selgan. “‘Therefore, it’s important to me.’”

Ponter looked at the personality sculptor. “That’s what I said, yes.”

“And was that truly your only motivation in consulting this book?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, was this not the book that contained the supposed historical accounts you mentioned earlier? Was this not the book that held their principal evidence for a life after death?”

“I honestly don’t know,” said Ponter. “It was quite a massive book—not overly thick, but the symbols in it were small, and the paper used was the thinnest I’d yet encountered. It will be quite some time before it is translated.”

“And yet you were moved to examine it?”

“Well, there were many copies in the room I was waiting for Mare in. One in front of each position on the benches, it seemed.”

“Have you consulted an audio version, as Mare suggested?”

Ponter shook his head.

“And so you still wonder about this supposed proof?”

“I am curious, yes.”

“How curious?” asked Selgan. “How important is this issue to you?”

Ponter shrugged. “You accused me before of having a closed mind. But I don’t. If there is truth in this outlandish claim, I want to know it.”

“Why?”

“Just out of curiosity.”

“Is that all?” asked Selgan.

“Of course,” replied Ponter. “Of course.”

The desk sergeant was looking Ponter up and down. “If any of you Neanderthals ever want a new job,” he said, “we could use a hundred of you on the force.” They were at 31 Division headquarters on Norfinch Drive, only a few blocks from York.

Ponter smiled awkwardly, and Mary laughed a little. The cop was indeed one of the strongest-looking Homo sapiens males Mary had seen in a long time, but there was no doubt who her money would be on in a fight.

“Now, ma’am, what can I do for you?”

“There was a rape last week at York University,” said Mary. “It was reported in the campus newspaper, the Excalibur, and so I assume someone reported it here, as well.”

“That’d be Detective Hobbes’s department,” said the cop. He shouted to somebody else. “Hey, Johnny, can you see if Hobbes is in?”

The other cop shouted back an acknowledgment, and a few moments later, a plainclothes officer—a white man with red hair, perhaps thirty—came forward. “Wassup?” he said. And then, realizing who Ponter was, “Holy cow!”

Ponter smiled wanly.

“The lady here would like to talk to you about the rape at York last week.”

Hobbes gestured down the corridor. “This way,” he said. Mary and Ponter followed him back to a small interrogation room, lit by fluorescent panels in the ceiling. “Hang on a sec; let me get the file.” He returned a moment later with a manila file folder, which he placed on the desk in front of him. He sat down, and then his eyes went wide. “My God,” he said to Ponter, “it wasn’t you, was it? Christ, I’ll have to get in touch with Ottawa…”

“No,” said Mary sharply. “No, it was not Ponter.”

“Do you know who it was?” asked Hobbes.

“No,” said Mary, “but…”

“Yes?”

“But I was also raped at York. Near the same building—the life-sciences building.”

“When?”

“Friday, August 2nd. About 9:30 or 9:35.”

“At night?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about it.”

Mary tried to bring all her scientific detachment to the task, but by the end of it she had tears running down her cheeks. This apparently wasn’t abnormal for the interrogation room; a box of tissues was at hand, and Hobbes offered them to Mary.

She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. Hobbes made a few more notes on sheets inside the file folder. “All right,” he said. “I’ll let—”

Just then, there was a knock at the door. Hobbes got up and opened it. A uniformed cop was there, and he began to speak to Hobbes in hushed tones.

Suddenly, to Mary’s astonishment, Ponter scooped up the file folder from the desk, and flipped through the pages within it. Hobbes wheeled around, perhaps at a sign from the other cop. “Hey!” he shouted. “You’re not allowed to look at that.”

“My apologies,” said Ponter. “Do not worry, though. I cannot read your language.”

Ponter proffered the folder, and Hobbes grabbed it back.

“What likelihood is there that you will catch the criminal?” asked Ponter.

Hobbes was silent for a moment. “Honestly? I don’t know. We’ve got two reported crimes now, two rapes in pretty much the same location within weeks of each other. We’ll work with the campus police to keep a tighter eye on things. Who knows? We might get lucky.”

Lucky, thought Mary. He meant yet another person might be attacked.

“Still…” continued Hobbes.

“Yes?”

“Well, if he’s part of the York community, he has to know it’s been written up in the campus paper.”

“You do not anticipate success,” said Ponter, simply.

“We will do what we can,” said Hobbes.

Ponter nodded.

Ponter and Mary returned to her car. She’d left the windows down a bit this time, but it was still hot inside. She turned the key and activated the air conditioner.

“So?” she said.

“Yes?” said Ponter.

“You scanned the file. Anything interesting?”

“I cannot tell.”

“Is there any way to show me what Hak saw?”

“Not here,” said Ponter. “He is recording, of course, and we have added storage capacity to him, so that everything he sees here will be saved. But until we can upload his recordings into my alibi archive in Saldak, there is no way for us to view them, although Hak can describe them.”

Mary looked down at Ponter’s forearm. “Well, Hak?” she said.

The Companion spoke through its external speaker. “There were eleven sheets of white paper in the folder. The ratio between the page height and width was 0.77 to 1. Six of the pages seemed to be preprinted forms, with spaces in which some text had been written in by hand. I am no expert on such things, but it seemed to be the same script Enforcer Hobbes was using to make his notes, although the ink was a different color.”

“But you can’t tell me what the forms said?” asked Mary.

“I could describe it to you. You read from left to right, correct?” Mary nodded. “The first word on the first page began with a symbol made by a vertical line topped by a horizontal line. The second symbol was a circle. The third—”

“How many total symbols are there in the report?”

“Fifty-two thousand, four hundred and twelve,” said Hak.

Mary frowned. “Too many to work through a character at a time, even if I taught you the alphabet.” She shrugged. “Well, I’ll be curious to see what it says when we get to your world.” She looked at the dashboard clock. “Anyway, it’s a long trip to Sudbury. We’d better get cracking.”