Factoring Humanity

Cash nodded, as if he had no intention of disputing this. “The current monetary award that accompanies a Nobel Prize is the equivalent of 3.7 million Canadian dollars; I’m empowered to offer you that as a signing bonus.”

“This is crazy,” said Kyle.

“No, Professor Graves. It’s just business.”

“I’ll have to think about this.”

“Of course, of course. Talk it over with your wife Heather.”

Kyle felt his heart jump at the mention of Heather’s name.

Cash smiled a cold smile and held it for several seconds.

“You know my wife?” asked Kyle.

“Not personally, no. But I’ve read full dossiers on both of you. I know she’s two years younger than you; I know you were married September twelfth, nineteen ninety-five; I know you’re currently separated; I know where she works. And, of course, I know all about Rebecca, too.” He smiled again. “Do get back to us quickly, Professor.”

And with that, he was gone.

Heather, floating in psychospace, fought for equilibrium, for sanity, for logic.

It was all so overwhelming, all so incredible.

But how to proceed?

She took a calming breath and decided to try the obvious approach.

“Show me Kyle.”

Nothing happened.

“Kyle Graves,” she said again.

Still nothing.

“Brian Kyle Graves.”

No luck.

Of course not. That would have been too easy

She tried concentrating on his face, on mental pictures of him.

Bupkes.

She sighed.

Seven billion choices. Even if she could figure out how to access someone, she could spend the rest of her life trying hexagons at random.

The intuitively obvious next step would simply be to move closer to the mosaic, to touch one of the six-sided jewels. She swam with cupped palms, moving herself forward, toward the curving wall of glowing lights.

She could perceive the individual hexagons, even though she was still a goodly distance away from them, even though there were so many that she shouldn’t be able to discern the separate components at all.

A trick of perception.

A way of dealing with the information.

She drew closer, and yet it seemed she wasn’t getting closer at all. The hexagons in the center of her vision shrank proportionately as she came nearer; those outside the center of her vision were a spectral blur.

She drifted, or flew, or was pulled through space, closing the distance.

Closer and closer still.

And, at last, she was at the wall.

Each honeycomb cell was now perhaps a centimeter and a half across, no bigger than a keycap, as if the whole thing was a vast keyboard. As she watched, each of the hexagonal caps drew away slightly, forming a concave surface, inviting the touch of her fingers.

Heather, bunched up in the Centauri construct, inhaled deeply.

Heather, in psychospace, felt a tingling in her projected index finger, as if it were full of energy, waiting to discharge. She moved the finger closer, half-expecting a spark to bridge the gap between her invisible digit and the nearest hexagonal key. But the energy continued to build within her, without release.

Five centimeters, now.

And now four.

Three.

And two.

One.

And, finally…

Contact.

24

Kyle and Stone were having lunch at The Water Hole; during the day, the Tiffany lamps were turned off and the windows were uncovered, making it into more of a restaurant than a bar — although the fare still tended toward pub grub.

“President Pitcairn came to see me today,” said Kyle, working his way through a ploughman’s lunch of bread, cheese, and pickles. “He’s all hyped about the quantum-computing work I’m doing.”

“Pitcairn,” said Stone dismissively. “Guy’s a Neanderthal.” He paused. “Well, not really, of course — but he looks like one, beetle brow and all.”

“Maybe he has some Neanderthal blood in him,” said Kyle. “Isn’t that the theory? That Homo sapiens sapiens in Eastern Europe crossbred with Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, so that at least some modern humans carry Neanderthal genes?”

“Where have you been, Kyle? In a cave?” Stone snorted at his own wit. “We’ve had snippets of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA for about twenty years, and we recovered a full set of Neanderthal nuclear DNA about eighteen months ago — The Nature of Things did a whole episode about it.”

“Well, like you said, no one watches the same shows anymore.”

Stone harrumphed. “Anyway, that debate’s been solved. There wasn’t ever any such thing as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis — that is, Neanderthal man wasn’t a subspecies of the same species we belong to. Rather, they really were something else: Homo neanderthalensis, a completely different species. Oh, maybe — just maybe — a human and a Neanderthal could have produced a child, but that child would have almost certainly been sterile, like a mule.