The Margarets

by Sheri S. Tepper

  I Am Margaret and Mar-agern on Fajnard

  On Fajnard, when I, Margaret, woke in the morning, warm between Gloriana and Bamber Joy, I sat up to confront a younger self who was crouched at my feet, staring intently into my face.

  “Margy?” I said.

  “Mar-agern,” said the other, in my—our voice. “Who’re you?”

  I looked around. Rei, the Ghoss, was rolled in blankets, sound asleep next to the wall. Maniacal and Mirabel had already gone, probably back to Howkel’s house. Gloriana and Bamber still slept. Among all these sleepers, my other self had wakened and found herself duplicated. She was younger, thinner, and more muscular than I. Her skin was darkened by the sun, her hair bleached almost white and cut very short. Her hands were a laborer’s hands, hard and somewhat gnarled.

  “We,” I said carefully, slowly, “are both Margaret. I don’t know how, or why. We both left Earth at the same age, we both had the same parents. I assume we will both remember the same things, up until the time we left Earth.”

  The Mar-agern one of us thought. What thing might two of us have shared? Well, one at least this other would not have forgotten. “Who was my…our lover?”

  “Bryan,” I answered. “He volunteered to go to Tercis if I would marry him. I accepted his offer.”

  “I refused him,” Mar-agern said. “I didn’t think it was fair to him.”

  “Neither did I,” I replied, “but I accepted and spent my life trying to make it up to him.”

  “I was shipped as a bondslave, here, to Fajnard. Among the Frossians.”

  “We speak Frossian,” I said. “Fairly well.”

  “I speak it a good deal better than fairly well,” said Mar-agern, her lips curving into a wry smile. “I’m also quite an expert on umoxen.”

  “I know nothing about them,” I confessed. “You seem to be younger than I am.”

  “They told us about that,” said Mar-agern. “It’s the wormholes. Different ones take different amounts of time. Some even go back in time, getting there.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Tercis is one of those.”

  We sat for a while, staring at one another, wondering.

  Gloriana rolled over, and said, “Good morning, Grandma.” Then, to Mar-agern, “You never were my grandma, so I’ll just call you by your name. Good morning, Mar-agern.”

  “Mar-agern,” said Bamber, sitting up and yawning. “The Gibbekot gave you a mother-mind, did you know that?”

  “Know what?” Mar-agern asked in surprise.

  “You don’t know yet?” came a voice from above—Falija. She had been curled up on a rock shelf some distance above our heads, and we had not seen her until that moment. “Well, there will be a book here, somewhere. Glory, I think it’s over there in that pile of things by the wall.”

  Gloriana went to find it, brought it back, and handed it to me, and I looked Mar-agern in the face as I read the first page. “‘Our word for insight is Ghoss.’”

  While I read to Mar-agern, Bamber and Gloriana chopped kindling, raked the ashes from the coals, added splints of firewood, and blew the flames to life before hanging a pot of water on the spit above it. Rei, awakened by the noise, got up, folded up his blankets, went around the corner, and emerged moments later with his hair combed and his face washed. By the time the three of them had breakfast cooked, I had finished the first reading of the book, and Mar-agern was reading it again to herself, myself, on the ledge outside the cave entrance.

  “Will it be as hard for her as it was for you?” Gloriana asked Falija.

  “Probably not,” Falija said, bounding from stone to stone down the wall. “She’s spent a lot of time with the Ghoss, and they’ve got mother-memories, though theirs go back only to the time they received them from the Gentherans.”

  Outside, Mar-agern laid the book aside, put both arms around her knees, and rocked to and fro, making an unpleasant grating sound in her throat.

  “On the other hand,” said Falija from behind me, “I suppose it might be harder.”

  “Take her this,” said Rei, handing Gloriana a mug of tea. “The Gibbekot who brought the mother-mind said it might help.”

  Gloriana took the tea to Mar-agern and coaxed her into drinking some of it before sitting beside her to talk about nothing in particular until Mar-agern stopped rocking and moaning. Falija came out, sat down on Mar-agern’s other side, and said, in her own language, “You’re doing very well. Much better than I did.”

  Mar-agern responded in the same language, “Really! I feel like a plether sat on me!”

  Gloriana sniffed, saying, “Well, if you two are going to converse privately, I’ll just have a bite more breakfast,” as she returned to the cave.

  I greeted her with a question. “I don’t suppose I’m just dreaming, am I?”

  “Sorry, Grandma. No. She’s really you. And she isn’t. She doesn’t know me or anything about me, so she isn’t Grandma. But she’s like you, like a sister, maybe.”

  “Our…mission? Our quest? Is she part of it?”

  “Falija thinks she has to be. Remember, she said something last night…that there had to be seven of you.”

  I felt myself turn pale, and I whispered, mostly to myself, “Seven. I can’t believe it. Where could they be? Who would they be?” And even then, I knew who they would be. There had always been seven of me, of us.

  “Maybe where we’re going,” Gloriana answered. “Where the way-gate goes, to Thairy.”

  “And the way-gate is where?”

  “Rei says Maniacal told him where it was before they left early this morning. Not far from here.”

  I said nothing more, just put my nose in my cup of tea and kept it there, using the fragrant steam as a barrier between myself and whatever was going to happen next. Eventually, I said, “Gloriana, I thought you told me Falija’s people sought you out by name. How did I get involved?”

  Bamber Joy looked up from his pack. “Probably Gloriana was just the door that led to you. She’d be more willing to take on a pet cat than you would, Grandma. She’d be more open to strangeness than you would. If whoever set this up wanted to get to you, they could do it best by going through Gloriana.”

  “Falija didn’t even ask me to come along,” I said.

  Gloriana grinned. “Falija is smart. She knew you’d offer. If you hadn’t, she’d have made some reason you should. Something inside would have rung a bell or set off an alarm, and she’d have made sure you were with us. Are you scared or something?”

  “Scared. Yes. Not frightened out of my wits, as I was yesterday, but quite apprehensive. Aren’t you?”

  Gloriana shook her head. “I don’t see why! We escaped from Ned and Walter. We avoided the gizzardile. We met Howkel’s people, and that was fun. So far nothing awful has happened.”

  I shook my head, drawing a deep breath. “Child, if someone set this up, all this weirdness and marvel, believe me, they weren’t doing it just so we could meet the Howkel family, amusing though they may be! The reason has to be a big reason, and big reasons in my limited experience almost always mean very big risks. I remain apprehensive. Now, I’m going to wash my face, then I think we’d better be going. If my other half wants to go, that is. She may not, you know.”

  Indeed, Mar-agern did not.

  “I know nothing about this,” Mar-agern said. “Rei said we were going to Gibbekot country.”

  “I am Gibbekot,” Falija said firmly. “I was sent to gather you people up and solve a great riddle. You wouldn’t be here, right in our way, if you weren’t meant to come with us!”

  “I don’t see that at all,” Mar-agern said, with a shrug. “As a matter of fact, I can’t think at all! My head is suddenly full of things I seem to know without ever having known them. It’s very difficult, very strange.”

  Falija frowned for some time before saying, “Mar-agern. Let us sit out there on the ledge in the sun and talk. There are things you need to know, stories you need to hear. Then, when we have talked, you will be more comfo
rtable with your situation. It really is a far better one than you were in just a few days ago, marked for death, as Rei says.”

  Rei, who had been outside for a while, came in to add his own point of view. “By all means talk with the Gibbekot, Mar-Mar, but the Ghoss say the Gibbekot here on Fajnard want you to go with the travelers. They have omens of consequentiality.”

  While Falija talked, Mar-agern simply sat on the ledge, umoxlike, head shaking as the umox seemed to do when they didn’t like a situation. I knew how she felt, as though she, I, were being stretched in several directions at once.

  I went out to put my arm about my other self, saying, “Surely it’s better to move toward something than to run away from something.”

  Rei said, “She’s right, Mar-Mar. The way-gate is only a short way. Take the things you need from here, and we’ll go.”

  “You’re coming with us?”

  “No. There’s a party of Frossians coming up the canyon where we walked. Some of our people are going to lead them astray. You should be on your way before I leave.”

  Though Mar-agern was still unconvinced and certainly unwilling, there was no more argument. We collected our belongings and set out upon a narrow path up the mountain, Rei in the lead, a coil of rope over his shoulder.

  To me, Margaret, rope meant climbing or some other unpleasantness, and my already glum mood deepened considerably. When we reached a fork, Rei stood for a moment, recollecting what Maniacal had told him before choosing the route. This happened twice more, on increasingly faint trails, until we stood at a narrow cleft in a rock wall that we edged through one by one…

  …and came out on a rock ledge edged by a line of stones. Near enough to wet us with spray, a waterfall plunged into a lovely pool among green mosses. Dead ahead was another rock cleft holding a black, wavering pool.

  “We’ve been here,” cried Glory. “We came in this way.”

  “And there’s the way we go out,” said Bamber, nodding to our right where a pale light pool glimmered at the back of a rocky recess. “I didn’t see that the last time we were here.”

  “We never came this far across the ledge,” said Falija. “We jumped down below.” She turned to Rei, asking, “How did we get back here?”

  “If you went down there,” he replied, pointing below, “you must have taken the lowland road that leads in a long curve east and north to the hayfolk. When you left there, you took a road that went straight across the curve you’d made before, like the string of a bow.”

  He turned to Bamber, taking the coil of rope from his shoulder. “I’m told it’s narrow in there. You’ll need to remove your packs and drag them through. The Gibbekot say you’ll need this rope at the other end, where the gate comes out in Thairy. They also say their people live on the heights in Thairy, but the people you need to connect with will be down by the sea.”

  He waited while we filed in, Gloriana first, then the rest of us.

  I came out into a sandy cave, on Gloriana’s heels. We stumbled just far forward enough to escape being knocked down as the others came through behind us. Birds murmured above our heads, drowsy sounds, as though settling for sleep, and the light on the cavern wall glowed red. Behind us, the way-gate we had just left was black and ominous. To our left, the tunnel curved around a corner, and there was another light-filled gate that went on to somewhere else. The two were really only a few steps apart, as they had been on Fajnard.

  The cave entrance was the other way, a narrow slit facing west where a red fire of sun hung above a glistening sea. The cave entrance was midway up a sheer drop of stone that ended below us in a tree-edged clearing with a road running across it and upward to the right.

  “Without wings, we won’t get much farther,” said Gloriana.

  “That’s what the rope’s for,” Bamber Joy explained. “Though I don’t know how the Gibbekot knew about it.”

  Falija said, “They probably use this way-gate all the time. We have people here on Thairy.”

  “Of course,” I said, in a falsely pleased voice. “Isn’t it nice to have one thing make some sense!”

  “Tie the rope to that rock pillar,” Falija directed. “We can lower Grandma and Mar-agern, then we’ll knot the rope so Glory and Bamber can climb down.”

  “I do not need to be lowered,” said Mar-agern, rather offended. “I can climb down the rope.”

  “Well then, you can help the children lower me,” I said crisply. “I do need lowering.”

  When all of us but Falija had reached the clearing, she untied the rope and leapt from one invisible foothold to another, joining Bamber and Glory, who had already penetrated the thin line of trees at the edge of the clearing to look down another precipice to the sea.

  “Town down there,” cried Glory. “Looks like the road goes all the way down.”

  Falija was staring longingly at the upward road, as though trying to find some excuse to go in that direction. Her people, at least her kind of people, were up there, but I could tell she was being urged away from them just as she had been on Fajnard. With a tiny whine of frustration, she turned toward the downward road. I put my hand on the little person’s shoulder. “You must be as confused as we are.”

  “It would be nice to rest,” Falija said. “It would be nicer to talk to someone who really knows what’s happening.”

  “Perhaps no one knows, and we have to figure it out for ourselves. At the moment, I’m thankful there’s a town down there. Maybe we can sleep in beds tonight.”

  “If the people there are hospitable,” said Mar-agern. “I haven’t any money. We don’t even know what’s used for money here.”

  I exchanged glances with Gloriana, who felt for the money bag in the lining of her jacket, and said, “I’m sure we’ll think of something.”

  The road rose to a shallow crest, and from there went steadily downward in an easy, curving, unwearying slope that turned sharply to the right at the bottom. From there it went only a short, straight distance toward a pair of open gates guarded by uniformed young men, stiff as broom handles. Nearby stood a cluster of older people, three men and two women, talking among themselves.

  As we came closer we heard one of the women crying out, “Look there.” She was pointing upward along the coast at a far-off speck against the now-crimson clouds. “That must be Ferni’s flier! He’ll be here very soon, Naumi.”

  “Now me?” I said. “Naumi? Wasn’t that what we called…”

  Mar-agern nodded. “I remember. It was indeed.”

  The two of us walked toward the group, I called out, “Naumi! Is that your name?”

  The person I was hailing turned with a polite smile and froze, as though he were seeing a ghost. “My name is Naumi Rastarong.” He paused, swallowed. “And yours and your sister’s, ma’am?”

  “Margaret,” I said. “This is Mar-agern.”

  “Are we related in some way?” Naumi asked.

  One of his friends came up beside him, and Naumi said, “Caspor, they look like family, don’t they?”

  Caspor said, “I could work up the odds on their not being, but the resemblance is astonishing. That dip in the upper lip, and the slant of the eyebrows!”

  “And their noses,” said another friend. “Even the same color eyes!”

  Naumi said, “Jaker, let’s introduce you four. Flek, Jaker, Caspor, Poul.”

  We all nodded somewhat distractedly at the two men and two women, and I asked, “Do you remember coming from Earth?”

  Naumi cocked his head, obviously wondering at this. “No. As a matter of fact, my earliest memories start at about age twelve, when I survived some kind of accident and was put in the care of my foster father, here on Thairy.”

  “Age twelve,” said Mar-agern. “When the proctor came.”

  “And nothing happened,” I replied, “but I…that is, we always felt something had.”

  “Maybe something did happen,” Falija offered, “and you just didn’t know about it.” She looked up to find five pairs of eyes s
taring at her as though she had grown another head. “Did I say something odd?” she asked.

  Flek stammered, “It’s just…we’ve never seen…we thought you were…I mean…”

  “They thought you were somebody’s pet,” said Gloriana indignantly. “This is Falija, our guide. Her people are called the Gibbekot. A great many of them live up there, on the heights, or so she tells me.”

  “We thought that’s where the Gentherans live,” said Jaker. “And we’ve never seen any of them. We have no idea what they look like.”

  “Rather like me,” said Falija. “Only larger.” She turned toward Naumi. “Excuse me if I am impolite in not using your correct title, but you must be one of the people we’re looking for.”

  “What people are those?” Naumi asked.

  “The people who began life as Margaret Bain, who were split off from her in some way, at some time in her life, and who seem to be scattered across a sizable chunk of the galaxy. Margaret and Mar-agern were split at age twenty-two. You, Naumi, were evidently split off at twelve.”

  “But he’s male!” Mar-agern snapped.

  Falija said soothingly, “My mother-mind tells me that in all gendered races, one sex always shares some of the traits of the opposite sex. Perhaps he, Naumi, was split off from among the most male traits Margaret Bain possessed. Or maybe it really doesn’t matter very much.”

  “This all seems very unlikely,” I growled peevishly. “Just when I get used to something, the ground shifts.”

  A noise from above attracted our attention to the flier, which was approaching a landing pad not far from us. Naumi beckoned everyone to follow him, and we arrived just as a lean, dark-haired person came from the flier, threw his arms around Naumi, smiled across his shoulder at the others, and froze at the sight of Mar-agern, just as Naumi had done.