“Protists or protoctists,” said Mary, “depending on who you ask.”

“Yes. Well, each emerged separately from the primordial prebiologic world.”

“You have proof of that?” said Mary. “We generally hold that life only emerged once on this world, some four billion years ago.”

“But the four types of life are so different…” said Ponter. And then he shrugged. “Well, you are the geneticist, notI. The point of this trip is to meet our experts in such matters, so you should ask one of them about this. One of you—I do not know which—has a lot to learn from the other.”

Mary never ceased to be amazed at how Neanderthal science and her own brand of the stuff differed on so many fundamental matters. But she didn’t want to lose track of the more important issue that—

The more important issue. Interesting, thought Mary, that she considered a moral conundrum more important than a basic scientific truth. “We were talking about the end of evolution. You’re saying that your kind continues to evolve because it consciously weeds out bad genes.”

“‘Weeds out’?” repeated Ponter, frowning. “Ah—an agricultural metaphor. I think I understand. Yes, you are right. We continue to improve our gene pool by getting rid of undesirable traits.”

Mary stepped over a large muddy puddle. “I could almost buy that—but you do it not just by sterilizing criminals, but also their close relatives, too.”

“Of course. Otherwise, the genes might persist.”

Mary shook her head. “And I just can’t abide that.” Hak bleeped. “Abide, ” repeated Mary. “Tolerate. Stand.”

“Why not?”

“Because…because it’s wrong. Individuals have rights.”

“Of course they do,” said Ponter, “but so do species. We are protecting and improving the Barast species.”

Mary tried not to shudder, but Ponter must have detected it regardless. “You react negatively to what I just said.”

“Well,” said Mary, “it’s just that so often in our past, people here have made the same claim. Back in the 1940s, Adolf Hitler set out to purge our gene pool of Jews.”

Ponter tipped his head slightly, perhaps listening to Hak remind him through his cochlear implants of who the Jews were. Mary imagined the little computer saying, “You know, the ones who weren’t gullible enough to believe in that Jesus story.”

“Why did he want to do that?” asked Ponter.

“Because he hated the Jews, pure and simple,” said Mary. “Don’t you see? Giving someone the power to decide who lives and who dies, or who breeds and who doesn’t, is just playing God.”

“‘Playing God,’” repeated Ponter, as if the phrase was appealingly oddball. “Obviously, such a notion would never occur to us.”

“But the potential for corruption, for unfairness…”

Ponter spread his arms. “And yet you kill certain criminals.”

“We don’t,” said Mary. “That is, Canadians don’t. But Americans do, in some states.”

“So I have learned,” said Ponter. “And, more than that, I have learned there is a racial component to this.” He looked at Mary. “Your various races intrigue me, you know. My people are northern-adapted, so we tend to stay in approximately the same latitudes, no matter where we are in terms of longitude, which I guess is why we all look pretty much alike. Am I correct in understanding that darker skin is an adaptation to more equatorial climes?”

Mary nodded.

“And the—what do you call them? On the eyes of those such as Paul Kiriyama?”

It took a moment for Mary to remember who Paul Kiriyama was—the grad student who, along with Louise Benoît, had saved Ponter from drowning in the heavy-water tank up ahead at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory. Then it took another moment for her to remember the name for what Ponter was referring to. “You mean the skin that covers part of Asian eyes? Epicanthic folds.”

“Yes. Epicanthic folds. I presume these are to help shield the eyes from glare, but my people have browridges that accomplish much the same thing, so, again, it is a trait we never developed.”

Mary nodded slowly, more to herself than to Ponter. “There’s been a lot of speculation, you know, on the Internet and in newspapers, about what happened to your other races. People assume that—well, that with your belief in purging the gene pool, that you wiped them out.”

“There never were any other races. Although we do have some scientists in what you call Africa and Central America, they are hardly permanent residents there.” He raised a hand. “And without races, we obviously have never had racial discrimination. But you do: here, racial characteristics correlate with the likelihood of execution for serious crimes, is that not correct?”

“Blacks are more frequently sentenced to death than are whites, yes.” Mary decided not to add, Especially when they kill a white.

“Perhaps because we never had such divisions, the idea of sterilizing a segment of humanity on an arbitrary basis never occurred to us.”

A couple of miners were approaching them, going the other way. They openly stared at Ponter—although the sight of a woman down here was probably almost as rare, Mary thought. Once they had passed, Mary continued. “But surely, even without visible races, there must have been a desire to favor those who are closely related to you over those who are not. That’s kin selection, and it exists throughout the animal kingdom. I can’t imagine that Neanderthals are exempt.”

“Exempt? Perhaps not. But remember that our family relations are more…elaborate, shall we say, than yours, or, for that matter, than most other animals. We have a never-ending family chain of man-mates and woman-mates, and because of our system of Two becoming One only temporarily, we do not have the difficulty in determining paternity that concerns your kind so much.” He paused, then smiled. “Anyway, as to the price of tea in China, my people find your notion of execution or decades of imprisonment to be more cruel than our sterilization and judicial scrutiny.”

It took Mary a moment to remember what “judicial scrutiny” was: the process of viewing the transmissions made by a Companion implant, so that everything an individual said and did could be monitored as it happened. “I don’t know,” said Mary. “I mean, like I said in the car, I practice birth control, which is something that my religion forbids, so I can’t claim that I’m morally opposed to anything that might interfere with conception. But…but to prevent innocent people from reproducing seems wrong.”

“You would accept the sterilization of the actual perpetrator, but not his or her siblings, parents, and offspring, as an alternative to execution or imprisonment?”

“Perhaps. I don’t know. Under certain circumstances, maybe. If the convicted person so chose.”

Ponter’s golden eyes went wide. “You would let the guilty party choose its punishment?”

Mary felt her heart flutter. Was the choice of “its” Hak’s attempt to render the gender-neutral personal pronoun that existed in the Barast language but not in English, or was it Ponter again dehumanizing a criminal? “Under many circumstances, I would give the criminal a choice of a range of appropriate punishments, yes,” she said, thinking back to Father Caldicott giving her a choice of penances when she’d made her last confession.

“But certainly in some cases,” said Ponter, “only one punishment is suitable. For instance, in…”

Ponter stopped cold. “What?” said Mary.

“No, nothing.”

Mary frowned. “You’re talking about rape.”

Ponter was silent for a long time, looking down at the muddy tunnel floor as he walked along. At first, Mary thought she’d offended him by suggesting he’d be so insensitive as to bring up that uncomfortable topic again, but his next words, when he finally did speak, startled her even more. “Actually,” he said, “I am not just talking about rape in general.” He looked at her, then back at the ground, a mishmash of boot prints illuminated by the beam from the headlight on his hardhat. “I am talking about your rape.”