Hybrids

Chapter Eighteen

Finally, it was time! Two had become One again. Mary and dozens of other females were waiting in an open field for the men to show up. Lurt was there, along with young Dab, her son by Adikor. Jasmel, Ponter’s elder daughter, was there, too, but she was really waiting, Mary knew, for her own man-mate, Tryon. Mega, Ponter’s younger daughter, was also there, and Mary stood next to her, holding her small hand. Mary was relieved that there was no sign of Daklar Bolbay, young Mega’s guardian; that woman had made enough trouble for Mary, Ponter, and Adikor as it was.

At last the right hover-bus arrived. Ponter and Adikor came out, and Mary rushed to her man. They hugged and licked each other’s faces. Ponter then hugged both his daughters, and lifted Mega up on his shoulders. Adikor, meanwhile, had already disappeared with his woman-mate and son.

Ponter had brought the trapezoidal suitcase he usually took on trips to the other Earth. Mary carried it, while he carried Mega.

They had agreed in another chat over linked Companions to go looking for Vissan on the third of the four days of the Two-becoming-One holiday, since the forecast was for rain in Saldak then but clear skies in Kraldak.

And so on this morning, Mary, Ponter, and Mega had a fabulous time together. Although it was getting chilly, and the trees had all changed color, the air was still crisp and clean. After lunch, Mega had gone off to play with friends, and Mary and Ponter retired to the house Mary shared with Bandra. Neanderthals were open about sex, but Mary still wasn’t comfortable making love knowing that there was anyone else at home. Fortunately, Bandra had said she would be away until evening with her own man-mate, Harb. And so Ponter and Mary had the run of the place.

The sex, as always, was fabulous, with Mary climaxing repeatedly. When they were done, they bathed together, each lovingly cleaning the other. Then they lay on the pile of cushions, just chatting and holding each other. Mary wasn’t used to the sound of Ponter speaking with contractions, but of course he was, since Christine was now doing the translating instead of Hak.

Mary and Ponter spent most of the afternoon cuddling and touching and talking and walking, just enjoying each other’s company. They took in a short comedic play—the Neanderthals loved live theater. Electric fans at the back of the stage blew the performers’ pheromones onto the audience while clearing the audience’s own out of the room.

Then they enjoyed a Neanderthal board game called partanlar that was something like a cross between chess and checkers: the playing pieces were all identical, but how they could move depended upon which squares on the hundred-position grid they landed upon.

Later, they ate at a restaurant run by two old women whose man-mates were no more, enjoying delicious venison, wonderful salads of pine nuts and fern leaves, fried tubers, and boiled duck’s eggs. There, they sat side by side on a padded couch in the restaurant’s rear, wearing Neanderthal dining gloves and taking turns feeding each other.

“I love you,” said Mary, nestling against Ponter.

“And I love you,” Ponter replied. “I love you so very much.”

“I wish…I wish Two could always be One,” said Mary.

“When I am with you, I wish it would never end, either,” said Ponter, stroking Mary’s hair.

“But it must,” said Mary with a sigh. “I don’t know that I’ll ever fit in here.”

“There are no perfect solutions,” said Ponter, “but you could…”

Mary sat up and turned to face him. “What?”

“You could go back to your world.”

Mary felt her heart sink. “Ponter, I—”

“For twenty-five days a month. And you come back here when Two become One. I promise that each time you do, I will give you the four most loving, fun-filled, passionately sexual days possible.”

“I—” Mary frowned. She’d been looking for a solution that would see the two of them together constantly. But it did seem as if that wasn’t possible. Still: “The commute between Toronto and Sudbury would be awkward,” said Mary, “not to mention the decontamination procedures going each way, but…”

“You forget who you are,” said Ponter.

“I…I beg your pardon?”

“You are Mare Vaughan.”

“Yes?”

“You are the Mare Vaughan. Any academy—excuse me, any university —would love to have you on staff.”

“Well, and that’s another problem. I can’t possibly get four days off in a row every month.”

“Again, you underestimate yourself.”

“How?”

“Do I understand your academic schedules correctly? You are in session for eight months a year.”

“September to April, yes. Autumn to spring.”

“So four or five occurrences of Two becoming One will happen when you’re not obligated to the university. Of the remaining eight, a goodly number will partially fall on those first and last days of your seven-day clusters during which you do not work.”

“Still…”

“Still, there would be days you would have to miss being at the university.”

“Exactly. And no one is going to understand that—”

“Forgive me, beloved, but everyone is going to understand. Even before this visit, but especially now, you know more not just about the genetics of Neanderthals than any other Gliksin, but you also know more of what Neanderthals know of genetics than any other Gliksin. You would be an asset to any university, and if a few accommodations have to be made to your special needs, I’m sure that could be arranged.”

“I think you’re underestimating the difficulties.”

“Am I? The way to find out is to try.”

Mary pursed her lips, thinking. He was right; it certainly couldn’t hurt to ask. “Still, it takes most of a day to get from Toronto to Sudbury, especially once you add the time getting down to the portal onto the car trip. Four days could easily become six.”

“If you went back to living in Toronto, yes. But why not make your contribution at Laurentian University in Sudbury? They already know you there from the work you did during my first visit to your world.”

“Laurentian,” said Mary, tasting the word, tasting the idea. It was a lovely, small university, with a first-rate genetics department, and it did all that fascinating forensic work—

Forensics.

The rape. The goddamned rape.

Mary doubted she’d ever be comfortable working at Toronto’s York University again. Not only would she have to face Cornelius Ruskin, but she would also have to work side by side with Qaiser Remtulla, the other woman who had been raped by Ruskin, a rape that might have been prevented if Mary had reported the attack on herself. Every time she thought of Qaiser, Mary was wracked with guilt; working with her would be devastating—and working with Cornelius would be terrifying.

There was a certain elegance to what Ponter was proposing.

Teaching genetics at Laurentian…

Living just a short drive from the Creighton Mine, the threshold to the original interuniversal portal…

And spending even just four days a month with Ponter would be more wonderful, more fabulous, than a 24/7 relationship with any other man she could imagine…

“But what…what about generation 149? What about our child? I couldn’t bear to see my baby only once a month.”

“In our culture, children live with their female parents.”

“But only until they’re ten, if they’re male. Then, like Dab will soon, they go live with their fathers. I wouldn’t be able to let my child leave me after only a decade.”

Ponter nodded. “Whatever solution we find to allowing us to have a child will require manipulation of chromosomes. Surely, in that process, it’s a trivial matter to make sure our child is female. Such a child would live with her mother until she reached her two-hundred-and-twenty-fifth month—over eighteen of your years. Isn’t that a typical age for children to stay with their parents, even in your world?”

Mary’s head was spinning. “You are a brilliant man, Scholar Boddit,” she said, at last.

“I do my best, Scholar Vaughan.”

“It’s not a perfect solution.”

“Such things are rare,” said Ponter.

Mary thought about that, then snuggled closer to Ponter and gave the left side of his face a long, slow lick. “You know,” she said, pressing her face into his furry cheek, “it might just work.”