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earlier: she touched his hand. “Gladly,” she said.

Chapter Four
    “Let me begin by noting this isn’t about us versus them. It isn’t about who is better,
Homo sapiens
or
Homo neanderthalensis.
It isn’t about who is brighter, Gliksin or Barast. Rather, it’s about finding our own strengths and our own best natures, and doing those things of which we can be most proud…”
    As soon as her lunch with Colm was over, Mary picked up Ponter from her condo in Richmond Hill. He’d been contentedly watching a classic
Star Trek
rerun on Space: The Imagination Station. They were all new to Ponter, of course, but Mary recognized the episode at once, the histrionic classic “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield,” with guest stars Frank Gorshin and Lou Antonio chewing up the scenery with their faces made up to be precisely half black and half white.
    They got into Mary’s car, and headed out on the five-hour drive up to Reuben Montego’s place—a journey that would get them there just in time for dinner.
    As they motored along highway 400, Mary found herself pumping her horn and waving. Louise’s black Ford Explorer with the vanity plate D2O—the formula for heavy water—had just passed them. Louise waved through her rear window and sped on ahead.
    “I believe she is exceeding the limitation imposed on velocity,” said Ponter.
    Mary nodded. “But I bet she’s really good at talking her way out of tickets.”

    Hours passed; kilometers rolled by. Shania Twain and Martina McBride had been replaced first by Faith Hill and then by Susan Aglukark.
    “Perhaps I’m not the best spokesperson for Catholicism,” said Mary in response to a comment from Ponter. “Maybe I should introduce you to Father Caldicott.”
    “What makes him a better spokesperson than you?” asked Ponter, taking his attention off the road—racing along highways was still very much a novel experience for him—to look at Mary.
    “Well, he’s ordained.” Mary had developed a little hand signal—a slight lifting of her left hand—to forestall Hak, Ponter’s Companion, bleeping at words she knew he wasn’t familiar with. “He’s had holy orders conferred upon him; he’s been made a priest. That is, he’s clergy.”
    “I am sorry,” said Ponter. “I am still not getting it.”
    “There are two classes in a religion,” said Mary. “The clergy and the laity.”
    Ponter smiled. “It surely is a coincidence that both of those are words I cannot pronounce.”
    Mary smiled back at him; she’d gotten to quite like Ponter’s sense of the ironic. “Anyway,” she continued, “the clergy are those who are specially trained to perform religious functions. The laity are just regular people, like me.”
    “But you have told me religion is a system of beliefs, ethics, and moral codes.”
    “Yes.”
    “Surely all members have equal access to those things.”
    Mary blinked. “Sure, but, well, see, much of the—the source material is open to interpretation.”
    “For instance?”
    Mary frowned. “For instance, whether Mary—the biblical one, Jesus’ mother—remained a virgin for her entire life. See, there are references in the Bible to Jesus’ brethren—‘brethren’ is an old-fashioned word for brothers.”
    Ponter nodded, although Mary suspected that if Hak had translated “brethren” at all, he’d already done it as “brothers,” so Ponter had probably heard her say something nonsensical like, “‘Brothers’ is an old-fashioned word for brothers.”
    “And this is an important question?”
    “No, I suppose not. But there are other issues, matters of moral consequence, that are.”
    They were passing Parry Sound now. “Like what?” asked Ponter.
    “Abortion, for instance.”
    “Abortion…the termination of a fetus?”
    “Yes.”
    “What are the moral issues?”
    “Well, is it right to do that? To kill an unborn child?”
    “Why would you want to?” asked Ponter.
    “Well, if the pregnancy was