Up the Walls of the World

by James Tiptree Jr.

  As he is helping stabilize a protective shield for Lomax, a body comes cartwheeling down the wind—and at the same instant Dann becomes aware of a searing pain through his own left side. Half-dazed by agony, he watches three females wind-block the body, as he himself had once been halted. It is screaming blue with pain; someone has been badly burned.

  But why does he himself hurt so? Painfully he scans himself, finding no damage.

  “Healer! Healer Tanel!”

  Slowed by the burning in his side, Dann manages to jet over.

  Oh God, it’s Chris. The fine young body is horribly burned, the left mantle and vanes are black and shriveled. What can he do? In Dann’s mind the image of his old office with its dermal sealants and analgesics glimmers like a lost jewel.

  And elder Father is watching him.

  “Father,” Dann says through his pain, “have you no substances to relieve this hurt, to cure wounds?”

  “Substances?” the other echoes, “but are you not a Healer?”

  “Yes. But in my world injuries like this are treated with, with relieving materials.”

  “I know nothing of this. If you are a Healer, heal.”

  Heagran and others have drifted up, looking agitated. Scarcely able to think above the screams and the pain, Danri moves toward the mutilated body.

  “Chris? Chris, what happened?”

  “I guess I went too high,” the other gasps. “I—I—

  But what he is saying Dann will never know. Pain unbelievable shoots through him, his whole side from head to vanes is aflame, scorching, raked by steel claws. His body contorts in air, infolding itself around the torment. He realizes dimly that his field must have touched Chris’. It is an eternity before the fiery contact breaks, leaving him choking on pain, trying to control the screaming from his mantle.

  When he masters himself somewhat he finds old Heagran beside him, transmitting a wave of calm.

  “A true Healer!” the old being exclaims solemnly. “Fathers, observe! Is this not Graph, come again from the skies?”

  Writhing in subsiding agonies, Dann understands nothing of this.

  “Hey, Doc. Thanks.”

  That seems to be Chris before him. But what’s happened? The burn-damage looks minimal, even the mantle has smoothed out. All vanes are opening normally as Chris’ body rides the air.

  “Our Healers today can do nothing like this,” Heagran is saying. “To drain another’s pain so that the damage is undone! The legend of Graph lives again before our eyes. Healer Tanel, I salute you. Your gift will be of great value to your people at the end.”

  “My gift?” Confusedly, Dann inspects his still-burning side. It appears perfectly intact. Only the pain is real. What the hell kind of “gift” is this?

  Suddenly his old years of useless empathy flash before him. His weird troubles with other people’s pain. Had he actually done—something? Probably not, he thinks; only here in the mind-world of Tyree. Doomed Tyree. Oh Jesus, what lies ahead?

  Is he expected to share seven other radiation deaths before his own?

  “The Great Wind has sent him, Heagran,” an old Father is saying. “He alleviates our guilt at the fate of his people. But we must not ask his aid, even for our children; we who brought them here.”

  “Winds forbid,” says Heagran. “He is theirs alone.”

  But what about me, Dann laments to himself. The Great Wind doesn’t seem to give a damn about doctors. Oh Christ, can I really make myself take that much pain again—and again and again?

  But even as he cringes, there is obscure satisfaction. At least he hadn’t been crazy. His joke about being a receiver; apparently true. Specialized to pain, I’m pain’s toy. But at least it’s real. Probably a lot of doctors have it. I’m a doctor—and the sole materia medico here is myself. I’ll have to try. Chris is telling him something.

  “—so I went up to look the situation over. It’s bad. We have to get deeper, fast.”

  They move the clumsy rafts downward, with the children beneath them. And later move down again, and again down, til they end here, almost at dread wind’s bottom. Lower than this the updraft is too weak to support their great forms, and the protective rafts are now barely airborne in the feeble wind. Here is where they will die.

  On the way down Dann has to exercise his horrid “gift” twice more; first Winona becomes badly seared, then Val. Her pain is especially fierce; he has to force himself to the utmost to hold contact. And she is so ashamed. Val alone seems to understand that the pain is not abolished but merely exchanged, while the mysterious healing works.

  And now he can hear weak moaning from the sleeping form of Ron and Rick; blisters are suppurating on “Waxman’s” vanes. When he wakes up Dann will have to help him, will have to do the whole damn bit again.

  Unfair, unfair; the oldest plaint: Why me? Isn’t one death all a mortal should be asked to bear? Why can’t he end it all, soar out on the updraft to his own single, personal incineration? The prospect strikes him as blissful, the temptation is strong.

  Well, but I’m a doctor, he thinks. At least I can hold on long enough for one more try. Maybe if I take them earlier, before the burns are so bad, maybe I can stand smaller, more frequent increments of pain? Physician, kid thyself… There’s no way to make it anything but awful.

  Dully, he watches the slow action around the raft where the Hearers are. Through the burning murk Dann can see Lomax and his surviving aides bravely taking turns outside the shelter, their weakened fields combined in brief attempts to probe the sky. Nearby Tivonel hovers under a little bundle of frikkon-weed, still keeping watch for a sign from Giadoc. Her once-charming form is blackened and scarred. Dann has persuaded her to let him help her once only. Overhead, the fire-storm from the Sound is a torrent of angry roaring.

  Suddenly it stills, and the whole landscape shudders through a dreamlike change. Startled, beyond thought, Dann finds himself riding again the high winds of Tyree, seeing a Tivonel grown sleek and graceful. Coral laughter rings out—why, there is Winona’s form, and Father Elix! He hears himself saying, “May I present Winona, a female of my world?”

  But—but—what’s happening? In his total disorientation Dann is conscious of one overwhelming sensation: Joy. Somehow, he is living again the magic time of waking on Tyree. He pumps air, trying to savor the wonder of this release, only vaguely attending to the remembered action unreeling around him. But just as he hears his own voice speak, the illusion shivers and fades out, the joy evaporates.

  He is back in reality, hanging in the dark wind-bottom of a burning world. Around him others are stirring; did they feel the strange thing too?

  “Tivonel! What happened?”

  She jets effortfully closer to him, towing her inadequate protection. Her burns and scars are back; all is as before.

  “A great time eddy,” she tells him in the ghost of her old laughing voice. “They happen here. That One was nice, wasn’t it? I hope it comes back.”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, look. How nasty.”

  Dann has been noticing a sharp but oddly different squeal of pain from one of the Tyrenni groups. “What is it?”

  “That child is draining its hurt into a plenya. What’s its Father thinking of?”

  Probably of his child’s pain, like any normal parent, Dann thinks. But he admires this world’s ethics. Never add to another’s pain—even here in a world conflagration. He watches a nearby Father rouse himself and separate the child from its crying pet. The Father seems to be sheltering a child of his own, but he holds the errant one in contact beneath the shelter.

  “Probably an orphan,” Tivonel says. “Poor thing.”

  She goes back to the Hearers, and Dann nerves himself to “heal” Waxman’s blistered vanes. It’s not quite so bad this time; maybe he can do one more. Frodo is exposing her young body recklessly, trying to hold the shield in place over Val. He bullies her into letting him take over at the ropes.

  The painful hours drag by. Two more
time eddies pass, but they only yield brief interludes from their long progress down the Wall. It is eerie to see dead bodies stir to life. Dann hears again old Omar’s dying words: “Winds of Tyree… I come alone.”

  The Sound is a frightful shriek now and the very air is scorching them. The shelters are all but useless. Dann can see a few crippled figures moving painfully from group to group; perhaps Tyrenni Healers. As he watches, one of them crumples and its field goes dark. All around, other Tyrenni bodies are drifting down toward the Abyss. Lomax and his Hearers are still at their vain efforts, their forms horribly blistered, their great fields weak and pale.

  Winona’s voice speaks quietly beside him. “We’re dying, aren’t we, Doctor Dann?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “I’m glad I… knew it.”

  “Yes.”

  Not much longer now. They can’t take much more. Dann finds he cannot look toward the sad form of Tivonel. Under the human shelter, someone is trying not to groan. Dann can feel the pain that means he must act again. He sees that it’s Frodo; her small body has developed great rotted-out burns. Oh, no.

  “Chris, take this rope a minute.”

  He goes through the dreadful routine again. The sharp young agonies that jolt through him are almost beyond bearing, mingled with the real pain of his own now-blistered vanes. I can’t take this again; I can’t. Let it end.

  As he is emerging from the invisible fires he becomes conscious of screaming or shouting outside. It’s coming from the Hearer group, but it is Tivonel’s burned mantle flashing wildly.

  “That’s Giadoc! I heard him! Listen!”

  “Be silent, female.” The big form beside her is barely recognizable as Bdello.

  “It was his life-cry!” Tivonel flares stubbornly. “Listen, Lomax! It’s Giadoc, I know it.”

  “It is only the Destroyer’s emanations,” Bdello says. “It calls us to our deaths.”

  “Wait, Bdello.” The wounded form of Lomax struggles out of the shelter. “Wait. Help me.”

  His weakened life-field probes painfully upward, reluctantly joined by Bdello’s. Tivonel hovers impatiently beside them, so excited that she dares to join her smaller energies to theirs.

  After a long interval Lomax’ mantle lights.

  “It is from the direction of the deathly one,” he signs feebly. “But it is Giadoc He calls us to come to him in the sky. We must form a Beam.”

  His field collapses, and he drifts for a moment inert.

  Bdello’s life-energy drops down and enfolds his chief. “How can we form a Beam?” he demands. “Most of our Hearers are dead.”

  Lomax stirs, and disengages his mind-field from Bdello’s. “Thank you, old friend. This is our last chance. For the children, we must try. Call Heagran.”

  “It is hopeless,” Bdello says angrily, making no move.

  “Then I will go!” exclaims Tivonel, and she struggles off through the smouldering dark to where the senior Fathers lie. Dann can hear faint golden light from her burned mantle. “Oh, I knew he would come!”

  But Giadoc has not come, Dann thinks. And how are they to raise the energy to get to him? Nevertheless, a wild hope begins to stir in him.

  But as the Elders make their way to Lomax, Dann sees with dismay how few they are, how damaged and weak in field-strength. Has this hope come too late, much too late?

  Old Lomax is saying with heart-lifting vigor, “Heagran, all your Fathers must serve as Hearers now. Help me form a bridge, a Beam. Giadoc has found some refuge in the sky. If we can send our children there they will live.”

  “What if it is a trap of the Destroyer?” Bdello demands.

  “Then we will be no worse than we are,” Lomax replies. “Heagran, will you help? We cannot surround the pole now, but we can concentrate here.”

  “Yes.” Dann can see the old being’s pain and weakness, but his voice is strong. “Those of you who can still ride the wind, go and summon the people here in my name. Tell the Fathers we have a last chance for the children’s lives. Now, Lomax, instruct me in the method of our help.”

  Despite himself, Dann feels a growing hope. Have the powers of these people really found some magical way out of this nightmare?

  He watches the surviving Tyrenni jetting painfully in to Lomax through the deadly air. Many Fathers have two, even three children in tow; orphans whose Fathers died protecting them. Here and there he sees a female trying to guide and shelter a child… If this hope does not materialize, he is seeing the last hours of a wondrous race.

  They crowd around Lomax and Heagran in silence; Dann senses the odd faint jolts of energy he has come to associate with the touch of life-fields. The Tyrenni must be transmitting Lomax’ instructions directly mind-to-mind; an emergency mode of communication, perhaps. Presently they disperse somewhat, and Dann senses a gathering of strength, as if a field of athletes were each preparing for some ultimate exertion. Can they really do something, achieve a real escape from this death?

  Suddenly the silence is broken by a flash from Tivonel. “Lomax! Remember the strangers!”

  “Ah, yes,” says Lomax. “Strangers, come near. Be ready to send your lives out when you feel the power. I will help you if I can.”

  The other humans have heard the call, are struggling out. Dann shepherds them to a position near Lomax. No one says anything. A feeling of effortful, building power is already charging the air, riding over the sears of pain. It is thrilling, formidable. For the first time Dann lets himself truly hope.

  “Now!” calls Lomax. “Fathers, Tyrenni all—give me your lives!”

  And his mind-field flares up in splendor, towering toward the dark sky. But not alone—the massed energies around rise with him, building, joining chaotically, forming a great spear of power launching up through inferno. Dann feels his life sucked upward with it, drawn up and out of his dying body, hurtling into immaterial flight.

  Exulting, he feels the lives meshed round him, knows himself a part of a tremendous striving, a battle of essence against oblivion, a drive toward unknown salvation beyond the sky. And they are winning! The surge is immense, victorious. Far behind them dwindles the burning world bearing their destroyed flesh. And from ahead now he can sense a faint welcoming call. They have made it, they are winning through! In an instant they will be saved!

  But even as the sense of haven reached opens to his unbodied mind, a terrible faintness strikes through him. The rushing energy upbearing him begins to weaken, to wane and dissolve. In utmost horror he feels the life-power sinking back through hostile immensities. Oh God. Oh no—it was too far, too far for the exhausted strivers. They have failed. With dreadful speed the fading Beam collapses, back, back alid down, losing all cohesion.

  In deathly weariness and disarray, the minds that formed it faint and fall back into their dying bodies in the hell-winds of Tyree.

  Silence, under the fire-roaring sky. Only the occasional green whimper of a child comes from the stricken crowd. Their last hope has failed, there can be no more. Ahead lies only death.

  After a time old Heagran stirs and orders the others to seek what shelter they can. His voice is drained, inexpressibly weary. Painfully, by ones and twos, the crowd obeys.

  “Of what use?” says Bdello bitterly. But he too goes to help secure their abandoned shelter.

  “We were so close, so close,” Tivonel cries softly. Her mantle is so burnt she can barely form the words. “He would have saved us. He tried.”

  “Yes.”

  “You understood, Tanel. I am to die with you, as you said.”

  “I’m sorry, Tivonel. I too loved your world. Now you must let me heal you one last time.”

  “No.” Her weak light-tones are proud. But he persists, and finally she allows him to restore the worst of her burns, though he all but faints with her pain.

  The next hours or years drag on through nightmare. The agonizing death-signals are louder and closer now; Tyrenni are dying all around. So far he has been able to preserve all of his
little band of humans, and Tivonel. But his strange ability to heal seems to be weakening as his own body suffers more damage, and his courage to bear their pain is failing him fast.

  Frodo seems to be worst off; he forces himself to summon the will to make his healing will touch her mind-field. But the effort effects only a slight improvement, at the cost of agonies he hadn’t believed bearable. She must be, he sees, about to die. They all are. End this, he prays to emptiness. End this soon.

  As if in answer to his plea, another huge fireball comes screaming down through the murk. Dully he realizes that this one is coming close. Close—closer—the air is in flames. All in one roaring shock he feels his own flesh burning and sees it explode among the Tyrenni beyond.

  Oh God, it hasn’t killed him. He is in pain beyond his power to feel it; even as he hears his own voice screaming he finds himself existent as a tiny mote of consciousness somehow apart from the incineration of his flesh. He has heard of such terminal mercies, can only hope that others are finding it too. But it is perilously frail, is passing. In a moment he will be swallowed in mindless pain.

  He can see darkly where the charred bodies of the hearers and the Senior Fathers drift. A few death-moans rend his mind. This is the end. Goodbye, fair dream-world. He wishes he could send or receive a last warm touch. But an overwhelming agony is cresting up, is about to fall on him forever.

  He waits. Still it hangs over him, an unbreaking wave. Around him the world seems to be quieting, a strange effect of lightening and darkening at once. His senses must be dying. Let me die too, before I recover the full power to feel the pain. Disorientation washes over him. Death, take me.

  But strangely he still lingers in crepuscular consciousness. And then a horrible perception penetrates his agony. The blackened, shriveled bodies in his view are beginning to stir. They change, expand, are again limned in living energies. Others too seem to be coming back to ghostly life. And his own pain is slackening, receding back.