By early afternoon, Reuben Montego had good news to report. He’d been talking by phone and e-mail with various experts at LCDC headquarters and the CDC, as well as the hot lab in Winnipeg. “You’ve surely noticed that Ponter doesn’t seem to like grain or dairy products,” said Reuben, sitting now in his living room and drinking the strong-smelling Ethiopian coffee Mary had discovered he liked.
“Tes,” said Mary, feeling much more comfortable after her shower, even if she did have to put on the same clothes she’d worn the day before. “He loves meat and fresh fruit. But he doesn’t seem to have much interest in traditional from-the-ground crops, bread, or milk.”
“Right,” said Reuben. “And the people I’ve been talking to tell me that’s very positive for us.”
“Why?” asked Mary. She couldn’t abide Reuben’s coffee-although they’d asked for some Maxwell House, and, yes, some chocolate milk, to be delivered later that day, along with more clothes. For the moment, she was getting her caffeine from one of his cans of Coke.
“Because,” said Reuben, “it suggests that Ponter doesn’t come from an agricultural society. What I’ve gathered from Hak more or less confirms that. Ponter’s version of Earth seems to have a much lower population than this one. Consequently, they don’t practice farming or animal husbandry, at least not on anything like the scales we’ve been for the last few thousand years.”
“I would have thought that you needed those things to support any sort of civilization, no matter what the population,” said Mary.
Reuben nodded. “I’m looking forward to when Ponter can answer questions about that. Anyway, I’m told that most serious diseases that affect us started in domesticated animals, and then transferred to people. Measles, tuberculosis, and smallpox all came from cattle; the flu came from pigs and ducks; and whooping cough came from pigs and dogs.”
Mary frowned. Out the window, she could see a helicopter flying by; more reporters. “That’s right, now that I think about it.”
“And,” continued Reuben, “plaguelike diseases only evolve in areas of high population density, where there are plenty of potential victims. In areas of low density, such disease germs apparently aren’t evolutionarily viable; they kill their own hosts, then have nowhere else to go.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s right, too,” said Mary.
“It’s probably too simplistic to say that if Ponter doesn’t come from an agricultural society, then he must come from a hunting-and-gathering one,” said Reuben. “But, still, that does seem the best model, at least from our world, of what Hak has tried to describe. Hunter-gatherer societies do have much lower population densities, and also much less disease.”
Mary nodded.
Reuben continued: “I’m told it’s the same principle as with the first European explorers and the Natives here in the Americas. The explorers all came from agricultural, high-density societies, and were lousy with plague germs. The natives were all from low-density societies, with little or no animal husbandry; they didn’t have plague germs of their own, or any of the diseases that transfer from livestock to humans. That’s why the devastation only went one way.”
“I thought syphilis was brought back to the Old World from the New,” said Mary.
“Well, yes, there’s some evidence for that,” said Reuben. “But although syphilis perhaps originated in North America, it wasn’t sexually transmitted here. It was only when it got back to Europe that it took up that opportunistic means of transmission and became a major cause of death. In fact, the endemic, nonvenereal form of syphilis still exists, although now its mostly only found among Bedouin tribes.”
“Really?”
“Yes. So, rather than syphilis being a counterexample of the generally one-way course of epidemic disease, it confirms that the development of epidemics requires social conditions typical of overcrowded civilization.”
Mary digested this for a moment. “So that means you, Louise, and I are probably going to be okay, right?”
“That seems the most probable interpretation: Ponter is suffering from something he got here, but likely has brought nothing over from his side that we have to worry about.”
“But what about him? Is Ponter going to be all right?” Reuben shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve given him enough broad-spectrum antibiotics to kill most known bacterial infections, Gram-negative and Gram-positive. Viral infections don’t respond to antibiotics, though, and there’s no such thing as a broad-spectrum antiviral. Unless we actually get evidence that he’s got a specific viral condition, pumping random antivirals into him will probably do more harm than good.” He sounded as frustrated as Mary felt. “There’s really nothing else for us to do now but wait and see.”
The Exhibitionists swarmed onto the Council-chamber floor, surrounding Adikor Huld and shouting questions at him, like spears being shoved into an ambushed mammoth. “Are you surprised by Adjudicator Sard’s ruling?” asked Lulasm.
“Who are you going to have speak on your behalf in front of the tribunal?” demanded Hawst.
“You’ve got a son from generation 148; is he old enough to understand what might happen to you-and to him?” said an Exhibitionist whose name Adikor didn’t know, a 147 who presumably had a younger audience watching him over their Voyeurs.
Exhibitionists shouted questions at poor Jasmel, too. “Jasmel Ket, how are relations between you and Daklar Bolbay now?” “Do you really believe your father might still be alive?” “If the tribunal does hand down a murder conviction against Scholar Huld, how will you feel about having defended a guilty person?”
Adikor felt anger growing within him, but he fought, fought, fought to conceal it. He knew the Companion-broadcasts from the Exhibitionists were being monitored by countless people.
For her part, Jasmel was refusing to respond at all, and the Exhibitionists at last left her alone. Eventually, those grilling Adikor had their fill, and they filed out of the chamber, leaving him and Jasmel alone in the vast room. Jasmel met Adikor’s eyes for a moment, then looked away. Adikor wasn’t sure what to say to her; he’d been adept at reading her father’s moods, but Jasmel had much of Klast in her, too. Finally, to fill the silence between them, Adikor said, “I know you did the best you could.”
Jasmel looked now at the ceiling, with its painted auroras and centrally mounted timepiece. Then she lowered her gaze, facing Adikor. “Did you do it?” she asked.
“What?” Adikor’s heart pounded. “No, of course not. I love your father.”
Jasmel closed her eyes. “I never knew it was you who had tried to kill him before.”
“I wasn’t trying to kill him. I was just angry, that’s all. I thought you understood that; I thought-”
“You thought because I continued to speak on your behalf that I wasn’t troubled by what I saw? That was my father! I saw him spitting out his own teeth!”
“It was long ago,” said Adikor, softly. “I, ah, I didn’t remember it as quite so… so bloody. I am sorry you had to see that.” He paused. “Jasmel, don’t you understand? I love your father; I owe everything that I am to him. After that… incident… he could have pressed charges; he could have had me sterilized. But he didn’t. He understood that I had-have-a sickness, an inability sometimes to control my anger. I owe that I am still whole to him; I owe that I have a son, Dab, to him. My overwhelming feeling toward your father is gratitude. I would never hurt him. I couldn’t.”
“Maybe you got tired of being in his debt.”
“There was no debt. You’re still young, Jasmel, and you haven’t yet bonded, but soon you will, I know. There is no debt between people who are in love; there is only total forgiveness, and going forward.”
“People don’t change,” said Jasmel.
“Yes, they do. I did. And your father knew that.”
Jasmel was quiet for a long time, then: “Who are you going to have speak for you this time?”
Adikor had just ignored the question when it had been shouted at him by the Exhibitionists. But now he gave it serious thought. “Lurt is the natural choice,” he said. “She’s a 145, old enough that the adjudicators should respect her. And she said she’d do anything to help.”
“I hope…” said Jasmel. She continued again a moment later. “I hope she does well for you.”
“Thank you. What are you going to do now?”
Jasmel looked directly at Adikor. “For now-for right now-I just need to get away from here… and from you.”
She turned and walked out of the massive Council chamber, leaving Adikor all alone.
Robert J. Sawyer
Neanderthal Parallax 1 — Hominids