Humans by Robert J. Sawyer

at the Gliksins far below, with what, he knew, must be a massive grin on his face. He spoke a few words, and Hak provided the translation in the loudest volume its external speaker could muster. “Would one of you be kind enough to fetch a ladder?”

Chapter Ten
    There actually was a suitable ladder on Ponter’s side of the portal—but it would be very awkward to get it through the narrow confines of the computing center. So he waited while the Gliksins got one from the far side of the neutrino-detector chamber. It looked like the same ladder Ponter had climbed up when he’d come back home.
    It took a few tries, but finally the ladder was propped up against the open end of the Derkers tube protruding out of what Ponter knew must look to the Gliksins like thin air.
    Behind him, Ponter could see Dern and Adikor using power tools to affix their end of the Derkers tube to the granite floor of the quantum-computing chamber.
    Once the ladder was in place, Ponter retreated down the tube and let Adikor and Dern come along to where Ponter had been. They took a moment to stare out at the fascinating spectacle of the neutrino-detector chamber and the alien beings below, then got to work, struggling with ropes, lashing the ladder’s top to the mouth of the Derkers tube. Ponter could hear Adikor muttering, “Incredible, incredible,” over and over again as he worked.
    Adikor and Dern then returned to their side of the tube, and Ponter and Ambassador Prat walked its length. Ponter turned around and backed down the ladder, descending carefully to the neutrino-detector chamber’s floor. As he got close to the bottom, he felt Gliksin hands on his arms, helping him down. He got one foot then another onto the chamber’s floor, and turned around.
    “Welcome back!” said one of the Gliksins, his words translated into Ponter’s cochlear implants by Hak.
    “Thank you,” said Ponter. He looked at the faces surrounding him, but didn’t recognize anyone. That wasn’t surprising; even if they’d called someone he knew the moment they’d seen the probe, that person would still be in transit from the surface.
    Ponter moved away from the ladder and tipped his head up to look at the mouth of the tube. He waved at Ambassador Prat and shouted out, “Come on down!”
    The ambassador turned around and made her way down the ladder.
    “Hey, look!” said one of the Gliksins. “It’s a lady Neanderthal!”
    “She is Tukana Prat,” said Ponter. “Our ambassador to your world.”
    Tukana reached the ground and turned around. She slapped her hands together, removing the dust that had transferred to her palms from the ladder. A Gliksin—one of the two dark-skinned men—stepped forward. He looked rather at a loss for what to do, then, after a moment, he bowed at Tukana and said, “Welcome to Canada, ma’am.”
    The problem with relying on Hak for translations was that everything had to be filtered through its sense of humor. “We had planned to ask you to take us to your ladder,” said Hak, through his external speaker, “but I see you have already done that.”
    Ponter could follow enough of the Gliksin language to realize what was going on. He slapped his left forearm. “Ouch!” said Hak into Ponter’s cochlear implants. Then, through his speaker, he said, “Sorry. I mean, ‘Take us to your leader.’”
    The dark-skinned man who had stepped forward said, “Well, I’m Gus Hornby; I’m the head engineer here. And we’ve already called Doctor Mah in Ottawa—she’s SNO’s director. She could be here later today, if need be.”
    “Is Mare Vaughan around?” asked Ponter.
    “Mare? Oh—Mary. Professor Vaughan. No, she’s gone.”
    “Lou Benoît?”
    “You mean Louise? She’s gone, too.”
    “Reuben Montego, then.”
    “The doctor? Sure, we can get him down here.”
    “Actually,” said Ponter, with Hak translating, “we would prefer to go up to see him.”
    “Um, sure,” said Hornby. He looked up at the tunnel