Mary was astonished at first, then she realized what he was doing: Ponter was using the bookcase as a scratching post. An image of a contented Baloo from Disney’s Jungle Book came to her mind. She tried to suppress a grin. Her own back itched often enough—and, she thought briefly, it had been a long time since she’d had anyone to scratch it for her. If Ponter’s back was indeed hairy, it probably itched with great regularity. Apparently, rooms in his world had dedicated scratching devices of some sort.

She wondered if it would be polite to offer to scratch his back for him—and that thought made her pause. She’d assumed she’d never want to touch, or be touched, by a man again. There was nothing necessarily sexual about back scratching, but, then again, the literature Keisha had given her confirmed what she already knew: that there was nothing sexual about rape, either. Still, she had no idea what constituted appropriate behavior between a man and a woman in Ponter’s society; she might offend him greatly, or …

Get over yourself, girl.

Doubtless she no more appeared attractive to Ponter than Ponter did to her. He scratched for a few moments longer, then stepped away from the massive bookcase. He gestured with an open palm at it, as if inviting Mary to take a turn.

She worried about damaging the wood or knocking stuff off the shelves, but everything seemed to have survived Ponter’s vigorous movements.

“Thanks,” said Mary. She crossed the room, moving behind a glass-topped coffee table, and placed her back against the bookcase’s corner. She shimmied a bit against the wood. It actually did feel nice, although the clasp of her bra kept catching as it passed over the angle.

“Good, yes?” said Ponter.

Mary smiled. “Yes.”

Just then, the phone rang. Ponter looked at it, and so did Mary. It rang again. “Certain not for I,” said Ponter.

Mary laughed and moved over to an end table, which had a teal one-piece phone sitting on it. She picked it up. “Montego residence.”

“Is Professor Mary Vaughan there, by any chance?” said a man’s voice.

“Um, speaking.”

“Great! My name is Sanjit. I’m a producer for ©Discovery, Ca, the nightly science-news program on Discovery Channel Canada.”

“Wow,” said Mary. “That’s a great show.”

“Thanks. We’ve been following this stuff about a Neanderthal turning up in Sudbury. Frankly, we didn’t believe it at first, but, well, a wire-service report just came through that you had authenticated the specimen’s DNA.”

“Yes,” said Mary. “He does indeed have Neanderthal DNA.”

“What about the—the man himself? He’s not a fake?”

“No,” said Mary. “He’s the genuine article.”

“Wow. Well, look, we’d love to have you on the show tomorrow. We’re owned by CTV, so we can send someone over from our local affiliate and do an interview between you up there and Jay Ingram, one of our hosts, down here in Toronto.”

“Um,” said Mary, “well, sure. I guess.”

“Great,” said Sanjit. “Now, let me just take you through what we’d like to talk about.”

Mary turned and looked out the living-room window; she could see Louise and Reuben fussing over the barbecue. “All right.”

“First, let me see if I’ve got your own history right. You’re a full professor at York, right?”

“Yes, in genetics.”

“Tenured?”

“Yes.”

“And your Ph.D. is in …?”

“Molecular biology, actually.”

“Now, in 1996, you went to Germany to collect DNA from the Neanderthal type specimen there, is that correct?”

Mary glanced over at Ponter, to see if he was offended that she was talking on the phone. He gave her an indulgent smile, so she continued. “Yes.”

“Tell me about that,” said Sanjit.

In all, the pre-interview must have taken twenty minutes. She heard Louise and Reuben pop in and out of the kitchen a couple of times, and Reuben stuck his head in the living room at one point to see whether Mary was okay; she held her hand over the phone’s microphone and told him what was going on. He smiled and went back to his cooking. At last Sanjit finished with his questions, and they finalized the arrangements for taping the interview. Mary put down the phone and turned back to Ponter. “Sorry about that,” she said.

But Ponter was lurching toward her, one arm outstretched. She realized in an instant what an idiot she’d been; he’d maneuvered her over here, next to the bookcases, away from the door. With one shove from that massive arm, she’d be away from the window, too, invisible to Reuben and Louise outside.

“Please,” said Mary. “Please. I’ll scream …”

Ponter took another shuddering step forward, and then—

And then—

And then Mary did scream. “Help! Help!”

Ponter was now slumping to the carpeted floor. His brow above the ridge was slick with perspiration, and his skin had turned an ashen color. Mary knelt down next to him. His chest was moving up and down rapidly, and he’d started to gasp.

“Help!” she yelled again.

She heard the glass door sliding open. Reuben dashed in. “What’s—oh, God!”

He hurried over to the downed Ponter. Louise arrived a few seconds later. Reuben felt Ponter’s pulse.

“Ponter is sick,” said Hak, using its female voice.

“Yes,” said Reuben, nodding. “Do you know what’s wrong with him?”

“No,” said Hak. “His pulse is elevated, his breathing shallow. His body temperature is 39.”

Mary was startled for a moment to hear the implant citing what she presumed was a Celsius figure, in which case it was in the fever range—but, then again, it was a logical temperature scale for any ten-fingered being to develop.

“Does he have allergies?” asked Reuben.

Hak bleeped.

“Allergies,” said Reuben. “Foods or things in the environment that normal people are unaffected by, but cause sickness in him.”

“No,” said Hak.

“Was he ill before he left your world?”

“Ill?” repeated Hak.

“Sick. Not well.”

“No.”

Reuben looked at an intricately carved wooden clock, sitting on one of his bookshelves. “It’s been about fifty-one hours since he arrived here. Christ, Christ, Christ.”

“What is it?” asked Mary.

“God, I am an idiot,” said Reuben, rising. He hurried off to another room in the house and returned with a worn brown-leather medical bag, which he opened up. He extracted a wooden tongue depressor and a small flashlight. “Ponter,” he said firmly, “open mouth.”

Ponter’s golden eyes were half-covered by his lids now, but he did what Reuben asked. Evidently, Ponter had never been examined in quite this way before; he resisted the placing of the wooden spatula on his tongue. But, perhaps calmed by some words from Hak that only he could hear, he soon stopped struggling, and Reuben shined the light inside the Neanderthal’s cavernous mouth.

“His tonsils and other tissues are highly inflamed,” said Reuben. He looked at Mary, then at Louise. “It’s an infection of some sort.”

“But either you, Professor Vaughan, or I have been with him just about all the time he’s been here,” said Louise, “and we’re not sick.”

“Exactly,” snapped Reuben. “Whatever he’s got, he probably got here—and it’s something the three of us have natural immunity to, but he doesn’t.” The doctor rummaged in his case, found a vial of pills. “Louise,” he said, without turning around, “get a glass of water, please.”

Louise hurried off to the kitchen.

“I’m going to give him some industrial-strength aspirin,” said Reuben to Hak, or to Mary—she wasn’t sure which. “It should bring down his fever.”

Louise returned with a tumbler full of water. Reuben took it from her. He pushed two pills past Ponter’s lips. “Hak, tell him to swallow the pills.”

Mary was unsure whether the Companion understood Reuben’s words, or merely guessed at his intention, but a moment later Ponter did indeed swallow the tablets, and, with his own large hand steadied by Reuben’s, managed to chase them down with some water, although much of it ran down his chinless jaw, dampening his blond beard.