Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (S.F. MASTERWORKS)

by James Tiptree Jr.

  The head wagged drunkenly, fell off backward. The huge decorticated body heaved, boosting itself onto the crumbling piles of the apex. It was still coming—no, it was not! The leg-action changed, began to oar with the revolving motion. The tons of belly canted sidewise, skewering itself on the pilings, ripping open to release cascades of boulder-sized eggs. Around it churned, becoming one with the ruins of the apex wall.

  The male who had been following was mounting on her now, posturing mindlessly on the heaving mass. Piet’s laser bored out again and sliced. The male’s head tipped backward, and as it did the female’s legs caught on one side and tipped them both. One set of legs came free of the water, still jerking like machines. They were thick as the pilings, a touch would break a man. But the monster-reinforced wall was still there.

  Mysha had been so focused on the action at the apex that he had only vaguely seen the press of behemoths making shore along both bases of the wall. A chaos of craters was spreading far back in the fields as newcomers clambered bellowing over the encysted bodies of the earlier arrivals. Here and there among them the dying heads mowed and capered toward the sea, only to be crushed beneath the incoming cows.

  The wall was damaged in several places now. Mysha could see men slipping in the ichor jellied over the cribs. They hauled, splashed, mouths working soundlessly. The din around them all was so great that it felt like a wall of agonizing silence. The pain in his groin fought with the pain in his ears; only his eyes lived.

  For a long moment no animals came directly at the wall, and then a herd on the far side suddenly veered toward it. The lead cow hit the outer pilings midway and reared. As she did so Piet’s weapon carved a line of fire into her thorax. But there was not enough time-another cow had reached the corpse-mound at the apex and was clambering up, crashing the dead cow’s flailing limbs. Her mate was right beside her, Mysha saw the laser leave the first target half cut, strike at the pair mounting the corpse-pile.

  Too late, too late—the incomers toppled forward, crashed into the bay behind the wall raising a thunderous wave. Rafts overturned, heads bobbed. The cow reared, bellowing, and smashed across the shoals to the fish-shed. There Piet’s laser caught her thorax, but she made one more lunge before her forward motion stopped and she began to chum. The fish-shed had vanished. Debris of coracles, nets, sails spewed out, disappeared, flying rocks struck the kilns. Piet was working on the male behind her now.

  Suddenly a flame shot from the sea-wall where the partially disabled cow had burst the pilings. The oil-spray crew had ignited her. He watched the male behind her posture and wail and then sheer off.

  Mysha panted, clutched against a tree, his eyes going back and forth around the holy wall. Bodies were impaled on it, merged with it in several places now. They were working out to the apex now to fire the corpses there. That must be Gregor’s son with the oil. Three huge cows were just ahead of them, coming in. The boys clambered, straining with a drum. The cows came on. Then the boys leaped for the water, and a rolling gout of flame blew out of the pile. Through the smoke Mysha saw the cows lurch, slew sidewise to miss the wall.

  He pulled himself upright to look, around. The shoals directly ahead were momentarily clear. On either side of them was chaos and carnage as far as he could see. What had been their cropland was utterly unrecognizable, jumbled with the near jungle, heaving with nightmare shapes. Only the colony itself remained huddled behind its wall.

  But the wall was still there, still holding! Defiance flamed from its oily pyres. Behind it their enclave, the heart of their life, was intact, still safe. Except where the dying cow weltered among the outbuildings, nothing had been lost. All held safe! The fires—and Piet up there, his marksman of light—were they really holding them off, stemming the onslaught?

  He stared. The horizon seemed thinner. Yes! It was breaking up, there were gaps. The shoals were still thick with wallowing bodies, but no matter. The height of the attack was passing. Let the last ones come—they will be met with fire, be turned! The wall will hold, he thought, not feeling the water run from his eyes. The young gods have won through.

  By nightfall it would be over. They would be safe.

  Safe. They didn’t need him.

  In the numb heart of the unceasing din Mysha felt the faint stir in his mind, the silver hemorrhage of hope. They didn’t need him. He was free! Free to let the noion take him forever to life among the stars. . . . He shut the thought fiercely away.

  Time later—

  —Suddenly a crack louder than all the rest struck him, coming from below the grove. A skein of cloud flew by.

  He gave a cry and hobbled forward to look.

  From the wreckage of the roof two gigantic eyes glared up at him, timbers collapsing around it. The thing was lying face up, it was the head of the male who had got ashore. Steam billowed out. A boy was lying on the ground. The head skewed into the open, pushed by scrabbling stumps of legs. Pavel and another boy ran into the steam. The steam lessened.

  A man—it was Dr. Liu—ran up carrying a beaker. Pavel grabbed it, went after the colossal head which was grinding blind circles toward the generator house. Pavel danced aside from the legs, darted at the door-sized wound where the limb-stumps met. He flung the liquid, leaped back. There was a paroxysm that sprayed a brick-pile into the air. When the dust settled the head had stilled, its ganglia burned out.

  But the broken roof had sheltered the main boiler that powered the generator.

  The laser—the laser had only the batteries now.

  Stunned, Mysha conjured frantic images of the auxiliary boiler that they used to charge the batteries, calculated amperage drains. Too little, too slow. Too slow.

  He turned slowly to search the sea. The horizon humped closer, only scattered herds now, breaking apart as he watched. Gaps on both sides of them.

  But in the far shoals, straight ahead, a solid phalanx was coming. Mysha stared, shaking his head as agonies stabbed at him. The moving mountains rocked, heaved, their course relentless toward the wall. He studied the cribs, the smoking pyres. Pavel had boys tearing at the thatch. For torches that would be.

  When the laser gave out they were done for.

  They needed him.

  Die, hope . . . Loss tore his heart, his face contorted with the pain. I must die.

  But that was not enough.

  He must want it, he realized. He had to kill this traitorous hope, stamp out every trace of it and tune his whole being to the task, or it would not work.

  Because he knew what moved the noion, what made it act. His need. Only when he hungered totally, intolerably, could the noion fulfill him. He must want this and this only in every living cell of his soul and body, as he had before.

  But how can I, Mysha thought despairingly, not hearing the clamor, not seeing the flames and the wreckage. A man can make his body walk into flames for his children’s sake, a man can make himself turn away even from life everlasting to save his own. But the deed is not enough, here. I must want with my whole soul. Sobs twisted his mouth. Too much—too much to ask of man, poor double-soul—that he desire his death with all his heart. To choose between his race and his life and mean it? If only the noion had never shown him—

  “I can’t,” he whispered. “Can’t—”

  —And was suddenly aware of love returning, rising in him from some deepest, most secret reservoir. The world came back around him—his beloved ones came back. And he began to feel he could. He could! Fierceness rose, bringing the blood-need. What would the stars be worth, if he must live forever knowing he had abandoned them?

  Through mists he saw that a new group of animals was heading for the wall.

  “I will save you,” he said thickly to the air. “The last wish is for you, Melie.” And the need was there.

  He turned back calmly to the tree from which the noion hung, biting his mouth with pain. A wave of repulsion rose against him, an almost physical push to right or left away from the tree. For an instant he faltered and then remembere
d what this was—the noion’s defense, the shield that had kept it safe even from the colony’s boys.

  “No, no,” he told it, opening his mind. “You must let me.”

  The resistance around him shivered. He forced himself on, reached a hand painfully to the noion’s bough. This was not the place. The sea-wall. He felt they must be on the wall, closer.

  “You must let me,” he repeated, letting his need rise.

  The thick air thinned, went to normalcy. He pulled awkwardly on the bough. It was long dead, but it would not give. Sick from the pain of pulling, he fumbled for his knife—and suddenly found himself involuntarily turning.

  In silence the noion released its ancient hold, dropped against his chest.

  He had touched it only once or twice before, carefully with a finger feeling its peculiar musty, lifeless warmth. Now with the whole creature in his arms his body resonated with its currents, its field. It was hard to keep his arms around it, he enclosed more than held it. Were brush discharges coming out of his hair and elbows? He could see nothing.

  He began to hobble with what speed he could down the rocky path to the base of the sea-wall below. The unceasing bellows battered at him, the pain of his body swamped his mind. He was in the smoke now, soot and flying spume rained on him.

  When he could risk a glance from the rocks, he saw that the oncoming army was much closer. Still headed straight in. He stumbled, forced his legs to run. Outside the wall two monsters were grinding by toward, the field. The main group did not swerve after them. As he started to clamber out on the cribs he saw the defenders were bringing up more oil for the fire. Faces turned toward him. He could see mouths gape, but their voices were lost in the din.

  The beslimed rocks were desperately slippery. He scrabbled, stumbled, not daring to free a hand from the core of silence in his arms. A patch of jelly sent him down on his ruined hip. He wrenched himself on sideways with knees and elbows, feeling a grating inside him, a skewering gush. One thigh was against the rocks now, his other foot kicking at the crib logs, somehow moving him on. Like the beasts, he thought, I go on.

  A wave washed over him. When he could see again, there was a vast flank reeling by him along the wall, shifting the crib he lay on. He was quite near the apex now. A boy seemed to be scrambling back toward him. Over the boy’s head nightmares were rising in the smoke.

  He sagged, staring at monstrous masks, collecting himself. This was close enough, this would have to do. “Noion, noion!” he gasped. A cow reared up directly ahead of the flames, too closely flanked to be able to turn. “Noion, help me.”

  At that moment Mysha felt a connection open in his mind, a tiny struggling like the shadow of a fish on a gossamer line. It was—yes, he was sure it was—contact with the dim life of the cow. The faint spark writhed, as if torn between its driving forward and recoiling from the fire.

  This was what the noion could do, had done before to save itself!

  As he hung with his outer eyes on the cow and at the same time . . . touching it, the pale streak of the laser came out overhead and scored her armor. She reared higher, her head slumped backward. The inner connection went out—and his eyes saw the cow’s terrible bulk surge forward to smash down upon the flame in a blast of water and smoke. The pyre was extinguished.

  Another cow was mounting the wall beside her. The laser cut, cut, swung to still another coming in. And now a monster of monsters heaved up upon the smoking carcass at the apex. Just as the laser touched her, its light paled, guttered, and went out.

  The laser was done.

  “Noion, noion!” Despair screamed out of him. “Make her turn! Turn, turn, turn—”

  And it was there, the line, the channel—and his need, his need drove out, met, completed itself in potency. Turn! His outer eyes saw only chaos, it was the eye of his mind that sensed when impulse leaped ganglion, when energy became asymmetrical and the blind engines unbalanced the mighty belly—turning—veering it along the wall!

  But as this web gave, he was aware of the others coming behind her, the dull energy-points of their beings blooming just ahead of his reaching mind. “Now, noion!” he prayed, trying to hurl himself, imploring, “Turn, turn. Oh, noion, help me—MAKE THEM TURN!”

  Emptiness.

  Vision came back to his eyes.

  Beside him, beyond the wall, the behemoths were grinding ashore. They had turned. He had turned them!

  Dazedly he saw others passing the far wall. The herd had split. As he watched, a last male tipped over the pilings, righted himself, and lurched away after the cows.

  And the shoals ahead were clear as far as he could see through the choking smoke.

  He felt unbodied, weightless with exaltation and relief. Pain gouted and wrenched at him from below, but he was remote from the pounding, crashing, bellowing all about. It came to him that he was quite probably dying.

  As he thought it he felt also a wave of weakness from the entity in his arms. This was killing them both.

  So be it.

  Another herd of horrors showed now through the smoke ahead. He reached for them from far, found the frail potency, fought, felt them shift, go slewwise. Wind blew the smoke flat.

  He realized he was seeing the true horizon, almost empty now. The main herd was past.

  Ahead of him on the wall, men wrestled torches toward the slippery crest. No one was near him. He found he was sobbing or screaming when he breathed, but he could not hear himself. Memory brushed him: a boy—had it been one of his sons?—had pawed at him, gone away.

  He managed to twist agonizingly on his elbows so that he could look back at the colony.

  Yes, there was more damage. The hideous bulk of a cow reared among the dormitories, shedding timbers. But it was still safe. Still safe! His last gift had saved them, his dying had given life to all he held dear. Cocooned in deafness he let his gaze go out to the beloved scene. Still so beautiful, despite the smoke! Golden figures ran as if playing a game. His nest, his life—

  His life. Not the stars; this . . .

  Why had the scene changed subtly, as if transparency had congealed around it, turning it into something curious and tiny like a toy in plastic? His lifework. The species lives, I die. The operative words, I die. Die, he thought, like a faithful ant whose nest lives on. Like those dying head-husks capering to the sea. Only that more may breed and die, to breed and die. The building, the breeding, the towers raised and fallen, without end. Disgust chilled him. For this I have forsaken—

  Be in nothing so moderate as in love of man.

  His traitor soul gasping, he fighting, fainting. Was it possible that a man could strive with his whole heart all his life for his kind, his young—and at the last turn away? It is my body’s dying, only that, he told himself. In the end the brain goes.

  He made himself turn back, peer.

  They were still coming. One more assault. The last, the last ones. It was so dark here. Or was the day ending? All over by nightfall.

  Here they come. This one will kill us.

  Good, he thought, good! Faithful ant. Forget the soul’s weak protest. Those who come after can perhaps—No time. He groped inwardly, eyes closed, for the channel, the focus . . . and felt nothing.

  Noion!

  Faint in his mind: “You need . . . this?”

  “Yes, yes!” he shouted into the roaring. Oh, god, no time—the beasts were at the wall.

  “Yes!” he screamed again, forcing himself to feel, to clench his need into the power, to touch, reach—ah! There! It came, it was there, the help, the opening—the noion was with him. He felt the beasts’ lives now, touched. Turn, turn, turn! Turn with my last strength, with my death that I give freely! TURN with my death that I did not need to die—

  The contact faded, was gone.

  He opened his eyes.

  A tower of armor was bulging through the murk above him, the rock he clung to tilted, slipped.

  They had not turned.

  They had breached the wall. An avalanche
of piling was falling on his inshore side, the thunderous wake rocked his crib. And in the bay, on the beach, blotting out the colony from his horror-filled eyes—

  “Noion! Noion!” He screamed, his death suspended over him, rushing in stasis—he knowing what had happened, what he had done. His need, his desire at the end, had not held true—he had betrayed them back to the jungle, to the running and the dust. His human heart, his soul, had betrayed them all—

  “Noion!” his soul shouted. “Take me! Give me the other, give me back myself!”

  But the life against his chest was draining, going away. Too late. Too late. All wasted. He felt the wraith-wind of its going in his brain, the alien immensities opening to the imago. Opening—for an instant it was as if the noion were still holding a way open, offering to share its dying with him if he could. The longing rose in him, the terrified love toward what he could not imagine—O rich and sounding voices of the air—I come! I come!—

  —But he could not alone, no, and his useless death hung over him, the crashing was beating on his mortal ears. His lips moved, crying, “Man is the, is the, that—”

  A vast impersonal tonnage fell upon him and the stars raveled away from his brain.

  SHE WAITS FOR ALL MEN BORN

  Pale, beyond porch and portal,

  Crowned with calm leaves, she stands

  Who gathers all things mortal

  With cold immortal hands

  —SWINBURNE

  IN THE WASTES of nonbeing it is born, flickers out, is born again and holds together, swells and spreads. In lifelessness it lives, against the gray tide of entropy it strives, improbably persists, gathering itself into ever richer complexities until it grows as a swelling wave. As a wave grows it grows indeed, for while its crest surges triumphant in the sunlight its every particle is down falling forever into dark, is blown away into nothing in the moment of its leap. It triumphs perishing, for it was not born alone. Following it into being came its dark twin, its Adversary, the shadow which ceaselessly devours it from within. Pitilessly pursued, attacked in every vital, the living wave foams upward, its billion momentary crests blooming into the light above the pain and death that claims them. Over uncounted eons the mortal substance strives, outreaches. Death-driven, it flees ever more swiftly before its Enemy until it runs, leaps, soars, into flashing flight. But it cannot outrace the fire in its flesh, for the limbs that bear it are Death, and Death is the wing it flies on. In the agony of its myriad members, victorious and dying, Life drives upon the indifferent air. . ..