Following Dr. Singh’s instructions, Reuben Montego, Louise Benoit, and Ponter made it safely down to Reuben’s car, which he’d moved to the staff garage. Reuben had a wine-colored SUV, the paint chipped from the gravel roads at the Inco site. Ponter got into the backseat and lay down, covering his head with an opened section of today’s Sudbury Star. Louise-who had walked to the hospital-sat up front with Reuben. She’d accepted Reuben’s invitation to join him and Ponter at his place for dinner; he’d said he’d give her a lift back home later in the evening.
They drove along, CJMX-FM playing softly on the car’s stereo; the current song was Geri Halliwell’s rendition of “It’s Raining Men.” “So,” said Reuben, looking over at Louise, “make me a believer. Why do you think Ponter came from a parallel universe?”
Louise pursed her full lips for a moment-God, thought Reuben, she really is lovely-then: “How much physics do you know?”
“Me?” said Reuben. “Stuff from high school. Oh, and I bought a copy of A Brief History of Time when Stephen Hawking came to Sudbury, but I didn’t get very far into it.”
[166] “All right,” said Louise, as Reuben made a right-hand turn, “let me ask you a question. If you shoot a single photon at a barrier with two vertical slits in it, and a piece of photographic paper on the other side shows interference patterns, what happened?”
“I don’t know,” said Reuben, truthfully.
“Well,” Louise said, “one interpretation is that the single photon turned into a wave of energy, and, as it hit the wall with the slits, each slit created a new wave front, and you got classical interference, with crests and troughs either amplifying each other or canceling each other out.”
Her words rang a vague bell in Reuben’s mind. “All right.”
“Well, as I said, that’s one interpretation. Another is that the universe actually splits, briefly becoming two universes. In one, the photon-still a particle-went through the left slit, and in the other, the photon went through the right slit. And, because it doesn’t make any conceivable difference which slit the photon went through in this or the other universe, the two universes collapse back into one, with the interference pattern being the result of the universes rejoining.”
Reuben nodded, but only because that seemed the right thing to do.
“So,” said Louise, “we have an experimental physical basis for possibly believing in the temporary existence of parallel universes-those interference patterns really do show up, even if you only send one photon toward a pair of slits. But what if the two universes didn’t collapse back into one? What if, after splitting, they continued to go their separate ways?”
“Yes?” said Reuben, trying to follow.
“Well,” said Louise, “imagine the universe splitting into two, who knows, tens of thousands of years ago, back when there were two species of humanity living side by side: our ancestors, which were the Cro-Magnons” (Reuben noted she pronounced it just as a French-speaker should, with no g sound), “and Ponter’s ancestors, ancient Neanderthals. I don’t know how long the two kinds coexisted, but “From 100,000 years ago until maybe 27,000 years ago,” said Reuben.
Louise made an impressed face, clearly surprised that Reuben had this tidbit at hand.
Reuben shrugged. “We’ve got a geneticist up from Toronto named Mary Vaughan. She told me.”
“Ah. Okay, well, at some point during that time, perhaps a split occurred, and the two universes continued to diverge. In one, our ancestors became dominant. And in the other, Neanderthals went on to become dominant, creating their own civilization and language.”
Reuben felt his head swimming. “But… but then how did the two universes come back into contact?”
“Je ne sais pas,” said Louise, shaking her head.
They exited Sudbury, heading down a country road to the misnamed town of Lively, near where the mine was actually located.
“Ponter,” said Reuben. “You can probably get up now; we won’t be stuck in traffic anymore.”
Ponter didn’t move.
Reuben realized he’d been too complex. “Ponter, up,” he said.
He heard the sound of newspaper rustling and saw Ponter’s massive head emerge in the rearview mirror. “Up,” confirmed Ponter.
“Tonight,” said Reuben, “you will stay at my house, understand?”
After a pause, presumably in which a translation was rendered, Ponter said, “Yes.”
Hak spoke up. “Ponter must have food.”
“Yes,” said Reuben. “Yes, we eat soon.”
They continued to Reuben’s home, arriving there about twenty minutes later. It was a modern two-story house on a couple of acres of land just outside Lively. Ponter, Louise, and Reuben headed indoors, with Ponter watching in fascination as Reuben unlocked the front door then bolted and chained it shut from the inside once they were within.
Ponter smiled. “Cool,” he said, with delight.
At first, Reuben thought he was complimenting him on his decor, but then he realized Ponter meant it literally. He was evidently quite pleased to find Reuben’s house to be air conditioned.
“Well,” said Reuben, smiling at Louise and Ponter, “welcome to my humble abode. Make yourselves comfortable.”
Louise looked around. “You’re not married?” she asked.
Reuben wondered at the question; the first, best interpretation was that she was checking on his availability. The second, more likely, interpretation was she had suddenly realized that she had gone out into the country with a man she hardly knew, and was now alone with him and a Neanderthal in an empty house. And the third interpretation, Reuben realized, as he took stock of his own messy living room, with magazines scattered here and there and a plate with the remnants of a pizza crust sitting on the coffee table, was that obviously Reuben lived alone; no woman would have put up with such a mess.
“No,” said Reuben. “I was, but…”
Louise nodded. “You’ve got good taste,” she said, looking at the furnishings, a mixture of Caribbean and Canadian, with lots of dark stained wood.
“My wife did,” said Reuben. “I haven’t changed it much since we split.”
“Ah,” said Louise. “Can I help you with dinner?”
“No, I thought I’d just put on some steaks. I’ve got a barbecue out back.”
“I’m a vegetarian,” said Louise.
“Oh. Um, I could grill you some vegetables-and, um, a potato?”
“That would be great,” said Louise.
“Okay,” said Reuben. “You keep Ponter company.” He headed off to the bathroom to wash his hands.
Working on the deck behind the house, Reuben could see Louise and Ponter having an increasingly animated conversation. Presumably, Hak was picking up more words as they went along. Finally, when the steaks were done, Reuben tapped on the glass to get Louise’s and Ponter’s attention, and waved for them to come on out.
A moment later, they did so. “Dr. Montego,” said Louise, excitedly, “Ponter is a physicist!”
“He is?” said Reuben.
“Yes. Yes, indeed. I haven’t got all the details yet, but he’s definitely a physicist-and, I think, actually a quantum physicist.”
“How did you determine that?” asked Reuben.
“He said he thinks about the way things work, and I said-guessing he might be an engineer-did he mean big things, and he said, no, no, little things, things too small to be seen. And I drew some diagrams-basic physics stuff-and he recognized them, and said that’s what he did.”
Reuben looked at Ponter with renewed admiration. The low forehead and the prominent browridge made him look, well, a little dim, but-a physicist! A scientist! “Well, well, well,” said Reuben. He motioned for them to sit at a circular deck table with an umbrella, and he transferred steaks and grilled veggies he’d wrapped in aluminum foil to plates and set them on the table.
Ponter smiled his wide smile. This, clearly, was real food to him! But then he looked around again, just as Reuben had seen him do this morning, as if something were missing.
Reuben used his knife to slice a piece off his steak, and brought it to his mouth.
Ponter, awkwardly, mimicked what Reuben had done, although he sliced off a much bigger piece.
After Ponter had finished chewing, he made some sounds that must have been words in his language. They were immediately followed by a male voice Reuben hadn’t heard before. “Good,” it said. “Good food.” The voice seemed to have come from Ponter’s implant.
Reuben raised his eyebrows in surprise, and Louise explained. “I was getting confused talking to them, trying to keep straight what was the implant speaking on its own, and what was the implant translating for Ponter. It’s now using a male voice for Ponter’s translated words, and a female voice for its own words.”
“Simpler this way,” said Hak’s familiar female voice.
“Yes,” said Reuben, “it certainly is.”
Louise gingerly used her long fingers to unwrap the foil around her grilled veggies. “Well,” she said, “let’s see what else we can find out.”
And for the next hour Reuben and Louise talked with Ponter and Hak. But by then, the mosquitoes were out in abundance. Reuben lit a citronella candle to drive them away, but the smell made Ponter gag. Reuben extinguished the candle, and they went back into his living room, Ponter sitting in a big easy chair, Louise at one end of the couch with her long legs tucked underneath her body, and Reuben at the other end.
They continued talking for another three hours, slowly piecing together what had happened. And, once the full story had emerged, Reuben sank back into the couch, absolutely amazed.