Neanderthal Parallax 3 - Hybrids by Robert J. Sawyer

Author:Robert J. Sawyer [Sawyer, Robert J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780765349064
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: 2004-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-four

“ If the dangers posed by the collapsing of this Earth’s magnetic field teaches us anything, it is that humanity is too precious to have but a single home—that keeping all our eggs in one basket is folly…”

Ponter called the travel-cube driver and told him to head back to Kraldak; they would summon another cube later in the day to take them home.

Mary and Mega stayed back in the cabin, while Vissan and Ponter went off hunting. Mega showed Mary how her new toy worked; Mary paraphrased part of Kipling’s The Jungle Book for Mega; and Mega taught Mary to sing a short Neanderthal song. It was a kick spending time with Mega—and Mary knew it would be even more wonderful to have a child of her own.

Finally, Vissan and Ponter returned with a pheasant they’d caught for dinner, which Vissan proceeded to cook while Ponter made a salad. It turned out there were solar panels on the roof of Vissan’s cabin, and she had a vacuum box for storing food, an electric heater, some luciferin lamps, and more; friends had given her farewell gifts when she’d chosen to leave structured Neanderthal society. All in all, Mary thought it actually might not be that bad a life, as long as one had plenty to read. Vissan showed Mary her datapad, and how she could recharge it from the solar array on the cabin’s roof. “I have some four billion words of text stored on this,” she said. “My access to new works has been cut off, of course—but that’s all right; the new stuff is all garbage, anyway. But the classics!” Vissan hugged the little device to her chest. “How I love reading the classics!”

Mary smiled. Vissan sounded just like Colm, extolling the virtues of Shakespeare and his contemporaries; she’d had to keep her Harlequin romances out of his sight, lest an argument ensue.

The dinner was delicious, Mary had to admit—or maybe, she reflected, she was just famished after all the hiking she’d done that day.

The codon writer had been moved to the floor during dinner, but once they’d finished eating, Vissan lifted it back up onto the table. Mega curled up in a corner and had a nap, while the three adults sat around the table: Vissan on the one chair, Ponter on the end of a log, and Mary, facing the cyclopean mammoth skull, perched atop the vacuum box.

“All right,” said Vissan, peering at the display. “It’s finished sequencing.” Mary was looking at Vissan, rather than the square screen, since, with a few exceptions that she’d picked up along the way, she couldn’t understand the glyphs it was showing. But Vissan was oblivious to that, and pointed at the screen. “As you can see, it’s made a list of the 50,000 active genes in your deoxyribonucleic acid, Mare, and the 50,000 in Ponter’s.”

“Fifty thousand?” said Mary. “I thought there were only 35,000 active genes in human DNA. That’s our latest count.”

Vissan frowned. “Ah, well, you’re missing out on…I’m not sure what you call it.

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