“But of course you don’t understand Ram Odin’s plan yet, do you,” said Deborah. “He’s not asking for a favor here. He’s bound to be offering Father a trade.”

“What do we have to trade?” Noxon thought of the jewels, but here on Earth they would immediately be recognized as memory crystals. Incredibly valuable, but also extremely dangerous.

“You,” said Deborah. “He’s offering you. To take Father back to see for himself whether his hypotheses about Homo erectus are true or not.”

“Oh,” said Noxon. “Of course. I could do that.”

“Then let’s go tell them that the deal is on.” Deborah held out her hand. Noxon took it. She led him out of the room and down a hall, to Professor Wheaton’s study, where Ram Odin was napping on a sofa and Wheaton was typing into a computer.

“Oh, are you done?” asked Wheaton. “Is it set?”

“He’s agreed to take you back in time to see for yourself,” said Deborah. “Of course, you can’t write any scholarly papers on it.”

“But at least from then on my guesses will all be right.”

“They always have been, Father,” said Deborah.

Wheaton held out his hand to Noxon. They shook.

“You mean the two of you were waiting for us?” asked Noxon.

“Ram explained things very quickly, and we agreed that if you could convince Deborah and make the deal, we’d be set.”

“But Ram never told me that’s what I was supposed to do.”

“And I never told Deborah,” said Wheaton. “But . . . two smart young people, drawn together by shared experiences and mutual curiosity—that’s a negotiation that has gone on only a few billion times in human history.”

“We didn’t agree to mate and make babies,” said Deborah testily.

“No hurry,” said Wheaton. “Timeshaping will do for now.”

Chapter 21: Neanderthals

CHAPTER 21

Neanderthals

“All I care about is Erectus,” said Wheaton. “But yes, of course I’d like a chance to look at Neanderthals. They are ancestral to all post-African humans.”

“You’re curious about everything,” said Ram. “You always have been.”

“But I wouldn’t waste my time going back to meet—whomever. Galileo. Jesus.”

“Maybe you would,” said Noxon, “if you could pass through the Wall and acquire their languages. So you could converse normally with them.”

Wheaton barked out a laugh. “I might at that. People always forget the language barrier when they imagine having dinner with some ancient celebrity. Socrates! What a miserable dinner that would be. Fifteen minutes in, he’d expose me as a fool, and I’m not sure I’m ready for that much brutal self-discovery.”

“Which is why you would choose him,” said Ram. “And why you’re willing to make our trial run with Neanderthals. Because that was your first college thesis.”

“I do want to know if bullfighting and bull-leaping are Sapient reenactments of Neanderthal hunting techniques.”