The woman lifted me into a seat, murmuring, “Girl, this is Prince Joziré. I am taking him to a place of safety. Joziré needs a companion, and we have chosen you to accompany him.”
The boy reached out a brown hand to touch my paler one. I felt…I felt the arms-from-my-stomach reaching, and it was almost as though the boy had taken those invisible hands in his own and held them tight. “What’s her name?” he asked the lady.
“What is your name, girl?” She smiled at me.
It took only a second before I realized who I was. “Prince Joziré, my name is Wilvia.”
“Wilvia,” said the boy, returning my smile with a companionable one of his own. “I like that very much.” He turned to the pilot to ask, “And where is it we are going, again, ma’am?”
“Look there,” said the woman, turning to the controls of her vessel. “Look there, Wilvia. See the road?”
I, Wilvia went to stand behind the woman, looking across her shoulder in the direction they were going. “It is a road,” I gasped. There it was, stretching ahead of us in long, curving lines, translucent lines so the ones farther away could be seen through those nearer, the whole reaching on and on into unfathomable distance. “Where does it go?”
“This road goes to B’yurngrad, then on and on until it comes to the center of things and the edge of things. There’s a little town on B’yurngrad, so buried in the grasslands that no one ever goes there. It doesn’t even have a name. People just call it The Town. Some very wise people live there, and you’ll both find friends among them. The two of you will be longtime friends and good companions.”
I Am Margaret/on Mars
The next thing I knew, the worker was muttering to herself as she carried me to the elevator: “Never checked the flow valve, stupid people, don’t they teach their children that they have to check the flow valve every time they put the helmet on…”
When I fully wakened, they told me I had been briefly unconscious because of oxygen deprivation. Momentarily off my guard, I mentioned the dragonfly, only to be told quite firmly that I must have been delirious. I was quite, quite certain the dragonfly had not been the result of delirium, any more than the way my body felt was the result of delirium. I felt as though I had been split in two. I kept reaching in my mind for some other part of me. When I was well enough to stand, I searched the mirror for someone else standing behind or beside me, but there was no one there.
This episode, all of it, beginning with the tantrum and having my mouth washed out with soap, up to and including the departure of the dragonfly, began as simple confusion and ended by changing me forever. From that time on I was absolutely sure of two things: The first one was that somewhere else, there was another me named Wilvia. I knew this because she was no longer with me and because I had seen her go; the second thing was that I had become a mutineer. Until then I had been a curious but customarily compliant child. From that time on, I became a confirmed and silent rebel and simply refused to take part in chirrup tweet caw cwaup. I was determined to learn real language, many of them, all the ones there were! Didactibots were good at teaching people real things. I would get it to teach me the language of the ancient Pthas, a language no one alive spoke anymore!
And that is what I did and it did, except during those times spent in my own worlds, with my other selves. I still had five of them as my companions, all of them but Wilvia, who had gone away and left me behind. Sometimes I thought she had been treacherous or faithless, but I knew that wasn’t so. She hadn’t forgotten me. Sometime…someday, I would find her again.
I was almost twelve in 2096, when the personnel of Mars and Phobos Stations were told the stations were to be closed. For several hours following this incredible announcement, people actually communicated with one another! They disagreed, yelled, orated, hectored, became variously rancorous, anxious, insulting, and grief-stricken. I learned more about them in that brief time than I had learned in the twelve years before. The focus on reality was brief, however. Very soon the Phobos habit of evasive reticence reasserted itself, and everyone turned to their assigned duties. Machinery was wrapped, lines were drained, equipment was secured, personal belongings were packed, and finally the entire staff was shuttled down to the green ravine that held the headquarters of Mars Surface Colony. There we awaited the ship that would take us to Earth.
Oh, how I loved Mars Surface Colony! There were new things everywhere. Despite Mother’s sporadic attempts to keep an eye on me, there were simply too many people and too many things going on to keep me shut up. I met Chili Mech, the woman who had lent me her Mars suit for my trip to the rim, and I began to follow her about.
“You’re like those old-timey pets,” said Chili Mech. “Some little cat or dog. Every time I turn around, there you are. What’s the attraction?”
“You know things,” I told her. “You talk about things.”
“What things?”
“The Gentherans. Tell me about the Gentherans.”
“Hasn’t your didactibot taught you about the Gentherans?”
“Not really, no.”
“Well, let’s see. When the Gentherans discovered us, they told us the Earth biome was terminal,
