The Margarets by Sheri S. Tepper
Still, it was a required thing, so I settled my earpieces, keyed my didactibot, and faced a barren planet dotted with tall, irregular lumps. With a hiccup and purr, the lecture began in the same sweet, high voice I had heard at the meeting, Sister Lorpa’s voice. Or one of her kin.
“While on a routine journey of exploration, the Gentheran ship Pendaris Kuo happened upon an uncharted system with one live planet. Since the planet was occupied by a previously unknown race, a monitoring shuttle was implanted into a rocky area to provide a longitudinal recording of the inhabitants.
“The earthen towers you see are the homes of the only land animal living on this world. These clay mounds are analogous to the termite mounds found on Earth during the multispecies ages. Since there is no evidence of a precursor race on the planet, Gentheran historians researched the archives to determine how these creatures may have arrived there. An ancient Quaatar logbook entry may have described the ancestors of this population stowing away on a Quaatar ship, then fleeing the ship on this planet, ‘Into the thick vegetation that covered the world.’”
The point of view receded. “Assuming that one tower was built initially, and extrapolating from the growth rate observed by the buried ship, we see here how the towers spread, resulting in the complete deforestation of the planet. There is evidence of several natural disasters that virtually eliminated these creatures on this world, but each time forest growth returned, they also returned to destroy it.
“Gentheran researchers picked a tower at random and fed audio-optical leads and chemical sensors into it, using the ordinary microburrowers used by xenoarchaeologists. These fibers provide sufficient light to permit a pictorial record of life inside. Only the various types are distinguishable from one another. Members of each caste or type are identical.
“The first recording begins at dawn. The creatures you see before you are curled against a tunnel wall, sleeping. To give human students some sense of scale, each creature could easily be held in your cupped hands.”
I could see why Sybil had been disgusted by the creatures. So was I. They were naked and gray. They had large ears that were folded against the head, each head pillowed on one skinny arm. The legs were short and almost as thin as the arms. They had no noticeable sexual organs. The faces had a common bilateral pattern, one shared by many races: sight and scent organs grouped at the upper end above the ingestion aperture. These mouths were toothless, the creatures had no chins and no appreciable necks.
A second type of individual appeared, slightly larger, with a larger mouth. As it passed along the line, it uttered a sound, wakwak wakwak, as it kicked the feet of each sleeper. Those kicked stood up, each in sequence, as room was made by the previous riser. Uttering this continuous wakwak wakwak, the kicker went up the tunnel, while behind it the wakened creatures made a half turn to face the direction it had gone, moving their two legs in a steady rhythm while making a continuous sound: railev railev railev. The line began to move, slowly at first, then more quickly as space opened up between the awakened ones.
I yawned. Bryan and I had been together the night before, and I was sleepy. Covertly, with a guilty glance at the monitor, I keyed the lecture to fast-forward, stopping shortly before the end. “…the protolanguage these creatures may once have spoken has not been identified. The Gentheran expedition did not take genetic samples, since sampling of speaking races is forbidden by IGC rulings without the consent of the individuals. The Gentheran research team was unsure whether this population was or was not a speaking race, though their opinion was that language had once existed but had been lost, and the current sounds made by the creatures were mere flock-murmur, the sort of recognition noises made by birds. The researchers chose not to presume what the IG might rule on the matter, and as yet, no researcher has been sufficiently interested in this oddity to return to the world in question. The buried Gentheran survey shuttle is still there, however, recording the passing of the race and the probable reforestation of the planet, which has been labeled in Gentheran, ‘Drdpls,’ or, in Earthian, ‘Hell.’
“For students, the importance of this report lies less in what it tells us about this race than in what it tells us about language. We believe that at one time, this creature had language formed and ramified by experience. Brought to a world with no inimical organisms and plentiful food, it expanded endlessly until it occupied the entire land surface of the planet. As food became scarce, the creatures became progressively smaller, eventually reaching the stage we see now.
“Along the way, all meaning was lost except for verbal signals, the kind of signals any animal species develops in order to stay in touch with its own kind, call others to a feeding spot, or alert others to danger. Every linguist should know that language must be used to be retained, and the compilers of this report have warned that human language on Earth is also being reduced. As humans become more crowded, they become less tolerant of variety. To fit into a crowd, people must be similar, and Earth’s population today is a vat of homogeneity with only a pretense of choice remaining. One may pick model x with one curlicue or model y with three, the tasteless brown cracker or the tasteless yellow cracker, the actual difference in either case being nil. Any real choice among things of unlike value might lead to disparity, which leads to conflict. Ideas also contribute to disparity, and therefore in crowded populations, ideas must be restricted to the least controversial, the least interesting. Children all receive the same grades in school. Workers all receive the same pay. Clothing is similar; foods are identical; and with the passage of all distinctions, the words for them also pass. Who now knows of oranges, whale blubber, corsets, chopsticks, panty hose, nutmeg? What is a cable knit? Where might one find a T-bone?…”
I pushed the stop and reversed, listening to this last bit again. What was a cable knit? Or a T-bone? I had known for years that people didn’t say anything, but I had never considered that they might actually be losing language! Suddenly interested in this, avid to learn more, I keyed the machine to play it over. My intention was interrupted by a crash as the rear door of the classroom was banged open.
Around me the whispers fell into silence. The man in the door was a black-clad proctor. During the last ten years, proctors had become both ubiquitous and universally dreaded. He spent only a moment scanning the room before striding directly toward me. He leaned down, spoke quietly, waited while I stood and started to gather up my study materials.
“Leave them,” he said. “You won’t need them.”
I saw a dozen pairs of eyes on me, some of them curious. I shrugged, hands out, obviously as ignorant as they were, trying desperately to look nonchalant. What had I done? Or more likely, what did they think I had done? Did this have anything to do with that meeting? Did they think I was involved in what my fellow students had said…
The monitor spoke from the front of the room. “Settle down. Get on with your lessons, please.”
Outside in the hall, I asked, “Where are we going.”
“To the Provost’s office,” the proctor replied, not breaking his lengthy stride. “Stupid woman insists on seeing you.” I trotted to keep up with him, readying myself for a considerable walk, only to be surprised that a car driven by one of the security staff awaited us at the main corridor.
Cars were silent and fast. The driver, an expressionless woman with her clearance code tattooed on her forehead, left us at the Provost’s office, where I stood just inside the anteroom door, watching the car dwindle down the hallway, trying not to huddle under the watchful eyes of the proctor.
“Do you know what she wants me for?” I asked.
“I don’t answer questions,” said the proctor.
It was a threat. There was just time to realize that before the Provost’s aide came for me and took me to into her office.
The Provost looked up. “Margaret.”
“Yes, Provost.”
She rose. “Margaret, I’m sorry about this. If you were not a party to this deception, you will be shocked
“A party to what? I have no idea…”
“You are seemingly a student here under false pretenses.” She shut the door between us and the proctor.
My mouth dropped open momentarily, before shame and anger snapped it shut. “I am a four, Provost. I am my mother’s first and my father’s third child.”
The Provost nodded, saying more softly, “That was thought to be true ten years ago when you received citizen’s approval at age twelve. Two years ago, however, as you are no doubt aware, it became apparent the planned population cuts had not been deep enough, and the selection criterion was moved back another generation. Only twos to fours from two to four parents are now approved.”
“Yes, ma’am. Of course I know that.”
“All over-fours were instructed to report to the local emigration office?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Interesting, because it appears that your mother’s older brother was born as a twin. Your mother is, therefore, at least the third child of both her mother and her father, a six.”
“I don’t understand! My mother didn’t have an older brother. She had an uncle almost as young as she was, but…”
“The medical records establish that your mother had two older brothers. Twin boys were born to your maternal grandparents.”
“Uncle Hy?” I murmured, completely lost. “He’s Mother’s uncle, and he lives on Luna!”
She shook her head. “He may well live on the moon, if he chooses, but he and his brother were born on Earth, and they were your mother’s siblings, not her uncles.” With a sorrowful expression she reached across the desk and took my hand. “I have seen the records, and this is true, Margaret! You must accept that it is true.”
“But…but, Provost, that would have been recorded! It would have been in the…in the files…I would have known…Mother would have known…”
She shook her head, patted my hand, and said compassionately, “You really didn’t know. I’m so sorry.”
“Mother thought Hy was her uncle!”
“She may have been told he was. The record of your family’s enrollment session is in the permanent files. This year, when the emigration rule was moved back a generation, all the modules were instructed to fact-check and recompute. The module noticed an anomaly, a person named Hyram living on Luna. Original records established that Hyram was a twin of George, who died at birth. Your mother was a six, therefore neither you nor your mother may be registered among two-fours any longer.”
“But…I’m still a four.”
“Though it makes no difference, you really aren’t. You were also a twin, whose sister died at birth. It is very rare to have twins in successive generations on both sides of the family, and your father begot twins, which means you’re a three on your father’s side, a two on your mother’s, so you yourself are a five, the child of a two and a six.” She looked at the papers in front of her. “Strange. If you hadn’t mentioned the name of Hyram during your registration session, no one might have caught that part of it.”
I had mentioned it? I sagged, catching myself on the edge of her desk. She rose, put her hand on my shoulder, whispered, “There’s nothing I can do, Margaret. There is no appeal. But I insisted they bring you here because I want you to know something. I said you were selected to be at that meeting, and you were, by the Third Order of the Siblinghood. I doubt you’ve heard of it, and I know nothing more than the name, but that very fact may be important to you in the future. Say it?”
I gaped. “The Third Order of…the Siblinghood?”
She opened the door, saying brusquely, “Proctor? Take this woman to the Resources Office for outprocessing.”
I was driven home in a Resources floater, black, with the gold symbol on the doors: a stream running down a hill, a tree on the hill, above that a cloud, a sun, the words ENOUGH FOR ALL. That symbol always reminded me of that historic educational effort called “No child left behind,” which actually meant “No child gets ahead,” for compliance meant dumbing everything down so no one would learn more than the least capable. “Enough for all” really meant “Too little for everybody.” As we went, the false windows displayed pictures of tree-lined streets, the vents emitted the smells and sounds of summer: flowers and cut grass, birds singing, children playing. All false. All mere pretense. There was no water for trees, grass, flowers, and solar radiation would kill any child who played outside.
Halfway home, I suddenly thought of Bryan. Bryan! What could I say to Bryan! Sybil was in the class the proctor had just taken me from, and she would tell him! Bryan was a third generation two, a first child of first children, so he might feel that I was too shameful to…He might even think it best not to tell me good-bye…
In that, I misjudged him, for he arrived at my home almost immediately after I did.
“Margaret, I just heard. Sybil told me. Where’s your mother? Did you have any idea about this?”
“No,” I had said, tears streaming down my face. “I hadn’t. Mother is already gone. She left me a note.”
“What did they tell you?”
“Seventy-two hours to prepare for shipment out.”
“I had no idea it would happen that fast! Listen to me, get your things together, but don’t sign any bondage agreement or do anything until I get back to you…”
He was abruptly gone. What did he mean, until he got back to me? What on earth did he think he could do? The agreements were pro forma. They would take me regardless. Still, it was typical of him to try fixing things. He had become a doctor because he had always wanted to fix things. Well, this wasn’t something he could fix, and I wished he had stayed with me, held me close, pretended for a little while this wasn’t happening.
In the meantime, I stood in the middle of the room, tears streaming down my face as I told myself what I had to do. I had to pack. I couldn’t go off without anything to wear. At least I was strong and healthy. At my age I would live through the fifteen years. Mother, though. Mother had never done a day’s hard labor in her life, and she was…what? Fifty. I moved witlessly around the apartment, into my cubicle and out of it. I opened the closet door, took things out of drawers, put them back, thinking distractedly that Bryan needn’t have ordered me to do nothing, for nothing seemed to be all I was capable of. I focused on what I was doing for all of thirty seconds, then forgot whatever it was. I found myself sitting, unable to react in any way to the chaos going on inside me.
In early evening my father came home and fell crying upon my shoulder.
“She told them I didn’t know,” he said. “I did know, Margaret. I just never thought it would make any difference. On Phobos it didn’t make any difference, and we never planned to come back here…”
I put my fingers over his mouth. “Don’t tell them that, Father. If Mother told them you didn’t know, she did it for you. Let her do it. Let her at least feel good about that.”
“I should be with her!” he cried.
“You’re thirteen years older than Mother is. They won’t take you on a labor contract, you’re too old. Concentrate on what you can do to help her. Send packages, maybe…”
He seized upon this idea and fell abruptly into the old Phobos habit of saying the same things over and over with minor variations. He would do this, she would do that, they would stay in touch, he would provide, she would reply, he would find out, perhaps he could visit…then, starting over, he would do this, she would do that. I nodded, responded with monosyllables, let him talk until exhaustion took over and we both slept.
On the second day, Father left to say good-bye to Mother at the assembly point where she was being held.
“Do you want to come, Margaret?”
“I’m not allowed to leave the house.”
“But surely…not even to say good-bye?”
“Not even that.” It was true, but also, I preferred not to go. I had no idea what I could say that would not be hurtful or accusatory, and neither of them
I resolved once more to focus on packing. Sturdy clothes, shoes, warm things in case my destination would be cold. One could always strip down to almost nothing if it were hot. I caught myself folding and unfolding, taking out and putting away, accomplishing little.
And then, unexpectedly, Bryan arrived. He tugged me toward a chair, made me sit down, and took my hands in his.
“I’ve been finding out about a colony planet called Tercis. It has a subdivision, rather like a state or province, called Rueful…”
“Rueful!” I cried.
“Don’t interrupt with questions, Margaret. We haven’t that much time. Rueful has very few doctors. Doctors and some other professions are allowed to volunteer for places like that.” He gazed at me expectantly.
What did he want me to say?
“Why would you volunteer, Bryan? You’re in your last year of the specialized training you’ve always planned on. If there are few doctors, it must be primitive! You wouldn’t want to go there! How could you practice medicine there?”
“We’ve talked about how I feel about practicing medicine here, Margaret. Over and over…”
Well, of course we had at one time, before we had agreed not to, but why bring that up again now? “Yes. So?”
He took a deep breath, and blurted, “And if I volunteer, I can take my wife with me…”
I stared at him, unbelieving. “You would never volunteer for something like this on your own, Bryan, and if you’re doing it for me, I can’t…can’t accept it.”
He drew me into his arms, spoke into my ear, urgently, roughly. I must accept it. He loved me, he had loved me since his sister had first introduced us. He had always intended to marry me. No, of course he hadn’t spoken of marriage, it hadn’t been the right time, but that didn’t make it less true. He couldn’t, absolutely wouldn’t, lose me!