“Yes. One of my bosses.”
“Wait,” Jane says. “If she’s a captain, does that mean you’re some kind of soldier?”
“It’s not a military ship,” she says. “But as it happens, I’ve been getting some pressure to train as a military officer.”
“Really!”
“My brother is one,” she says. “He’s in intelligence. Karen’s thinking about it too, after she weans the babies.”
Now Jane is trying to imagine the Ivy of her world as a military officer, involved in intelligence. “Do you want to be in the military?”
“Not particularly,” UD17 Ivy says, another smile transforming her face. “I have other interests.”
Jane is feeling a sudden urgency not to know this Ivy’s interests. She doesn’t want this Ivy to overlay her Ivy, whom she only met yesterday. Her Ivy does beautiful carpentry and this world probably doesn’t even have forests. And what carvings would a carpenter in this oceanless world carve, in lieu of Ivy’s whales, sharks, and girls in rowboats?
“Well,” Jane says. “I’ve got one more visit to make before I go home.”
“Here?” says UD17 Ivy, indicating the door behind Jane. “You know that’s Ravi’s cabin, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t think you’re going to catch him alone,” she says. “You know who’s in there?”
“Yeah,” Jane says. “Someone told me. I was—surprised,” she says, leaving it at that. “It’s not Ravi I’m wanting to see.”
“Oh,” UD17 Ivy says, her eyes widening. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”
Jane pauses, swallowing. “There’s a question I need to ask.”
UD17 Ivy bites her lip. She’s trying, Jane thinks, to stop herself from telling me not to go in there.
Instead, UD17 Ivy says, “Would you like me to wait here for you?”
Jane’s breath comes out in a rush of relief. “Really?” she says. “Do you have time for that?”
“Sure,” says Ivy. “I could stand outside the door, if you want? You could knock if you need me.”
“Yes,” Jane says. “Please. That’s awfully kind. I won’t be long.”
*
Jane doesn’t knock. She pushes right in, takes one look, and perceives, immediately, why everyone’s been warning her.
It’s not because there’s anything wrong with the appearance of the person in Ravi’s bed. It’s something else, something more primal.
UD17 Jane and UD17 Ravi are in the massive bed together. He’s on the far side, asleep, turned away from both Janes. There’s some sort of metallic gold dye streaking his otherwise dark hair. One bare arm is visible above the sheets and he’s got the most gorgeous sleeve of tattoos. Jane sees Earth things curving and looping around his muscles. Trees. Poppies. Valleys. Cities of stone stretching away to the sea.
Jane had, of course, realized that she might walk in on sex happening, but it’s only now that she appreciates how strange and overwhelming that would have been. To see herself doing something so intensely private, something she hasn’t even ever done, and discover what she looks like doing it. To see it, but not be feeling it.
Instead, UD17 Jane is sitting up in bed, wrapped in a sheet as if cold, or shy of nakedness. The first thing that rocks Jane is how vulnerable she looks, how young, her expression uncertain, her hands twisted together. The second is how alone.
Startled at Jane’s entrance, this other Jane yelps, then makes an indignant noise. Then, finally, seeing who Jane is, sits wide-eyed and stunned.
“Hi,” Jane says. Real Jane.
“Hi,” UD17 Jane responds automatically, then, glancing over at UD17 Ravi, shifts to the edge of the bed, farther away from him. “I don’t want him to wake up yet,” she whispers. “Let’s keep our voices down.”
Is that how she looks when her face is moving, talking? Jane knows it is; it’s fundamentally familiar. But it’s also not quite what she’s imagined her own face doing. With a shock, Jane realizes it reminds her of Aunt Magnolia.
Something else: Why does she find herself sharp with immediate . . . resentment toward this person?
“You know about the multiverse, right?” she says quietly.
“Yeah, of course,” says UD17 Jane, a little breathless. “We all do here.”
“Do you—”
Jane had almost been about to ask, ridiculously, if UD17 Jane knows how to breathe the way a jellyfish moves. Then she remembers that in addition to this being a weird question to ask after bursting in on someone, there are no oceans in this world. “Are there jellyfish here?” she asks quietly, then presses her palm to her forehead. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m overwhelmed. I can only think of stupid questions.”
“It’s okay,” says UD17 Jane. “Really. I’m overwhelmed too.”
Yes, Jane can see this. Her own feelings are reflected in the short breaths and guarded eyes, the baffled expression of this other Jane.
“But I don’t know what you mean,” UD17 Jane goes on. “Are you asking me about an extinct fish?”
Jane begins to roll up her sleeve. “It’s an invertebrate, jellylike, marine animal,” she says, hearing herself describing jellyfish to herself and resisting the urge to laugh hysterically. “Not a fish, actually. Look.”
Jane turns her shoulder so that UD17 Jane can see the golden bell, trailing arms, and tentacles of her tattoo.
“Wow,” says UD17 Jane. “That’s beautiful.”
“They’ve lived in the oceans for over five hundred million years,” Jane says. “They’re the world’s oldest multi-organ animal.”
“I think I remember hearing about them,” says UD17 Jane. “An Old Earth monster. They’re extinct now.”
Jellyfish extinct? When they’ve lived for over five hundred million years?
Jane begins to comprehend what it means that these people’s Earth was blown apart. How can she conceive of the loss of oceans? The loss of dirt, solid under her feet? True sunlight, warmth, rain? How would Aunt Magnolia have taught Jane to breathe in this world, if not like a jellyfish?
Jane doesn’t hate this dimension the way Ravi does. But it’s sad, and impossible, and scary.
And at least now she understands her resentment for this alternate version of herself. She understands it as it fades. Jane has felt as if faced with a person who’s stolen her identity. Stolen, even, her facial resemblance to Aunt Magnolia. Mocked her decision not to sleep with Ravi by sleeping with him anyway. As if everything special and unique about her has been appropriated by this person, whose existence, sitting there like a mirror, dilutes Jane somehow.
But Jane is not diluted. Jane is Jane and it doesn’t matter who this person is. Jane is a person who lives on Earth, in a world where jellyfish have floated in the oceans for five hundred million years. Jane has a home. This place is not her home.
Also, Jane is a person who decided not to sleep with Ravi. She decided to let Lavender escape. She sacrificed her umbrellas. She knows how to breathe the way a jellyfish moves. She has a girl named Ivy, whom she barely knows and whose counterpart is standing like an anchor outside this room. UD17 Ivy is doing that for Jane, not for this person, and Jane has no idea what will or won’t come of her feelings. She had a father who taught high school science, a mother who studied the science of falling frogs, and an aunt who swam with whales. Jane makes umbrellas. She can’t bear the thought of a world where there are no ailing oceans for Aunt Magnolia to try to save.
She is her own aunt Magnolia’s child.
“Are you happy?” Jane blurts out, because suddenly, despite all she’s just been thinking, she cares.
That face grows quiet, in a cellularly familiar way. Jane knows that UD17 Jane is considering the question hard. “Not really,” she finally responds. “Not since my aunt Magnolia died.”