Hybrids by Robert J. Sawyer Read Free Book Online

portal, which they quickly succeeded in doing.
    Meanwhile, the magnetic field on this version of Earth had started acting up, apparently as a prelude to a pole reversal. The Neanderthal Earth had recently undergone its own reversal—and the whole thing had happened extraordinarily fast, with their field collapse beginning just twenty-five years ago and the flipping and re-establishing of the field completed just fifteen years later.
    Mary, still haunted by her rape, left York University to join Jock Krieger’s newly formed Synergy Group. But on a return trip to Toronto, Ponter identified Mary’s rapist; Cornelius Ruskin, it turned out, had also raped Qaiser Remtulla, Mary’s department head at York.
    “An amazing few months indeed,” said Mary. She smiled at Reuben and then at Louise; they were
such
a good-looking couple. Ponter was seated next to her; she would have taken his hand if it weren’t wrapped in a bloody glove. But Reuben and Louise had no such impediment; Reuben squeezed Louise’s hand, and beamed at her, the love obvious on his face.
    The four of them chatted animatedly, first over their main courses, then over a dessert of fruit cocktail, and finally over coffee (for the three
Homo sapiens
) and Coca-Cola (for Ponter). Mary was enjoying every minute of it—but also feeling a little sadness, regretting that evenings like these, having dinner with Ponter and their friends, would be few and far between; Ponter’s culture just didn’t work that way.
    “Oh, by the way,” said Reuben, taking a sip of his coffee, “a friend of mine at Laurentian has been bugging me to introduce you to her.” Laurentian University, in Sudbury, was where Mary had done her studies on Ponter’s DNA, proving he was a Neanderthal.
    Ponter lifted his one continuous eyebrow. “Oh?”
    “Her name’s Veronica Shannon, and she’s a postdoc in the Neuroscience Research Group there.”
    Ponter clearly expected Reuben to say more, but when he didn’t, he prodded with the Neanderthal word for yes. “
Ka?
”
    “Sorry,” said Reuben. “I’m just not quite sure how to phrase all this. I don’t suppose you know who Michael Persinger is?”
    “I do,” said Louise. “I read the article about him in
Saturday Night
.”
    Reuben nodded. “Yeah, there was a cover story about him there. And he’s also been written up in
Wired
and
The Skeptical Inquirer
and
Maclean’s
and
Scientific American
and
Discover
.”
    “Who is he?” asked Ponter.
    Reuben put down his fork. “Persinger’s an American draft dodger—from the good old days when the cross-border brain drain flowed in the other direction. He’s been at Laurentian for years, and invented a device there that can induce religious experiences in people, through magnetic stimulation of their brains.”
    “Oh,
that
guy,” said Mary, rolling her eyes.
    “You sound dubious,” said Reuben.
    “I
am
dubious,” said Mary. “What a load of hooey.”
    “I’ve done it myself,” said Reuben. “Not with Persinger—but with my friend Veronica, who has developed a second-generation system, based on Persinger’s research.”
    “And did you see God?” asked Mary derisively.
    “You might say that, yes. They’ve really got something there.” He looked at Ponter. “And that’s where you come in, big fella. Veronica wants to try her equipment on you.”
    “Why?” asked Ponter.
    “Why?” repeated Reuben, as if the answer were obvious. “Because our world is abuzz over this notion that your people never developed religion. Not just that you had it and then outgrew it, but that in your whole history no one ever even conceived of the notions of God or an afterlife.”
    “Such notions would—how do you phrase it?—‘fly in the face’ of observed reality,” said Ponter. He looked over at Mary. “Forgive me, Mare. I know you believe in these things, but…”
    Mary nodded. “But you don’t.”
    “Well,” continued Reuben, “Persinger’s group believes they’ve