Up the Walls of the World

by James Tiptree

  Praise for the Writing of James Tiptree Jr.

  “[Tiptree’s work is] proof of what she said, that men and women can and do speak both to and for one another, if they have bothered to learn how.” —Ursula K. Le Guin

  “‘Tip’ was a crucial part of modern SF’s maturing process…. ‘He’ … wrote powerful fiction challenging readers’ assumptions about everything, especially sex and gender.” —Suzy McKee Charnas, The Women’s Review of Books

  “[Tiptree’s] witty, masculine style, yet keen understanding of women influenced sci-fi writers from Philip K. Dick to Ursula K. Le Guin.” —Houston Voice

  “[Tiptree] was simply one of the best short-story writers of our day…. She has already had an enormous impact on upcoming generations of SF writers.” —Gardner Dozois

  “Her stories and novels are humanistic, while her deep concern for male-female (even human-alien) harmony ran counter to the developing segregate-the-sexes drive amongst feminist writers. What her work brought to the genre was a blend of lyricism and inventiveness, as if some lyric poet had rewritten a number of clever SF standards and then passed them on to a psychoanalyst for final polish.” —Brian W. Aldiss

  Up the Walls of the World

  James Tiptree Jr.

  To H. D. S.

  For dreams that never die.

  Chapter 1

  COLD, COLD AND ALONE, THE EVIL PRESENCE ROAMS THE STAR-STREAMS. IT IS IMMENSE AND DARK AND ALMOST IMMATERIAL: ITS POWERS ARE BEYOND THOSE OF ANY OTHER SENTIENT THING. AND IT IS IN PAIN.

  THE PAIN, IT BELIEVES, SPRINGS FROM ITS CRIME.

  ITS CRIME IS NOT MURDER: INDEED, IT MURDERS WITHOUT THOUGHT. THE SIN WHICH SHAMES AND ACHES IN EVERY EDDY OF ITS ENORMOUS BEING IS DEFALCATION FROM THE TASK OF ITS RACE.

  ALONE OF ITS RACE IT HAS CONCEIVED THE CRIMINAL ACT OF SKIPPING LINK, OF DRIFTING AWAY IN PURSUIT OF NAMELESS THIRSTS. ITS TRUE NAME TOLLS UPON THE TIME-BANDS, BUT TO ITSELF IT IS THE EVIL ONE.

  FROM THE DEBRIS AROUND THE CENTRAL FIRES OF THIS STAR-SWARM IT HEARS THE VOICES OF ITS RACE REVERBERATE AMONG THE LITTLE SUNS, SUMMONING EACH TO THE CONFIGURATIONS OF POWER. DEFEND—DESTROY, DESTROY!

  ALONE, IT DOES NOT, CAN NOT OBEY.

  SOLITARY AND HUGE, IT SAILS OUT ALONG THE DUSTY ARMS, A HURTING ENTITY SLIGHTLY DENSER THAN A VACUUM ON THE CURRENTS OF SPACE: VAST, BLACK, POTENT, AND LETHAL.

  Chapter 2

  The evil strikes Tivonel in the bright joy of her life. But she is not at first aware of its coming.

  Zestfully she hovers above High Station, waiting for the floater coming up from Deep. Her mantle is freshly cleaned and radiant, she has fed in civilized style for the first time in a year. And it’s a beautiful morning. Below her, three females of the Station staff are planing out to the edge of the updraft in which High Station rides, looking for the floater. The bioluminescent chatter of their mantles chimes a cheery orange.

  Tivonel stretches luxuriously, savoring life. Her strong, graceful jetter’s body balances effortlessly on the howling wind-rush, which to her is a peaceful wild meadow. She is thirty miles above the surface of the world of Tyree, which none of her race has ever seen.

  Around her corporeal body the aura of her life-energy field flares out unselfconsciously, radiating happiness. It’s been a great year; her mission to the upper Wild was such a success. And it’s time now for the treat she has been promising herself: before returning to Deep she will go visit Giadoc at the High Hearers’ Post nearby.

  Giadoc. How beautiful, how strange he was! What will he be like now? Will he remember her? Memories of their mating send an involuntary sexual bias rippling through her life-field. Oh, no! Hastily she damps herself. Did anyone notice? She scans around, detects no flicker of laughter.

  Really, Tivonel scolds herself, I have to mend my manners before I get down among the crowds in Deep. Up here you forget field-discipline. Father would be ashamed to see me forgetting ahura, mind-privacy-smoothness.

  She forgets it again immediately in her enjoyment.

  It’s such a lovely wild morning. The setting Sound is sliding behind Tyree’s thick upper atmosphere, fading to a violet moan. As it fades comes the silence which to Tivonel is day, broken only by the quiet white tweet of the Station’s beacon. Above her in the high Wild she already hears the flickering colorful melody that is the rich life of Tyree’s winds. And faintly chiming through from the far sky she can catch the first sparks of the Companions of the Day. Tivonel knows what the Companions really are, of course: the voices of Sounds like her own, only unimaginably far away. But she likes the old poetic name.

  It’s going to be a fine long day too, she thinks. High Station is so near Tyree’s far pole that the Sound barely rises above the horizon at this time of year. At the pole itself, where Giadoc and the Hearers are, it won’t rise at all, it’ll be endless silent day. Vastly content, Tivonel scans down past the station at the dark layers below. They are almost empty of life. From very far down and away she can make out a tiny signal on the life-bands; that must be the emanation of the far, massed lives in Deep. Where’s the floater? Ah—there! A nearby pulse of life, strengthening fast. The station team is jetting down to help; moments later Tivonel catches the faint yellow hooting of its whistle. Time for the males to leave.

  The big males are grouped by the woven station rafts, their mantles murmuring deep ruby red. Automatically, Tivonel’s mind-field veers toward them. They were her companions in the years’ adventure, she has monitored and helped them for so long. But of course they don’t notice her now that they are Fathers. Safe in their pouches are the proud fruits of their mission, the children rescued from the Wild. The little ones were frightened by their first taste of relatively quiet air here; Tivonel can detect an occasional green squeal of fear from under the edges of the males’ mantles. The Father’s huge life-fields furl closer, calming the small wild minds. At a respectful distance hovers the Station staff, trying not to show unseemly curiosity.

  The males were tremendous, Tivonel admits it now. She didn’t really believe how superior they were until she saw them in action. So fantastically life-sensitive, such range! Of course they had to get used to the wild wind first—but then how brave they were, how tireless. Tracking the elusive signals of the Lost Ones while they tumbled free down the thickly whirling streams of the Great Wind itself, gorging themselves like savages. They must have circled Tyree a hundred times while they searched, found, followed, lost them, and searched again.

  But they couldn’t have done it without me guiding them and keeping them in contact, she thinks proudly. That takes a female. What a year, what an adventure up there! The incredible richness of like in the Wild, an endless rushing webwork of myriads of primitive creatures, plants and animals all pulsing with energy and light-sounds, threaded with the lives of larger forms. The rich eternal Winds where our race was born. But oh, the noisy nights up there! The Sound blasting away overhead through the thin upper air—it was rough even for her. The sensitive males had suffered agonies, some of them even got burned a little. But they were brave; like true Fathers, they wanted those children.

  That was the most exciting part, she thinks: when the males at last made tenuous mind-contact with the Lost Ones and slowly learned their crude light-speech. And finally they won their confidence enough to achieve some merger and persuade them to let the children be taken down to be properly brought up in Deep. Only a male could do that, Tivonel decides; I don’t have the patience, let alone the field-strength.

  And how pathetic it was to find the Lost Ones had preserved patchy memory from generations back, when their ancestors had been blown up to the Wild by that terrible explosion under Old Deep. These are surely the last survivors, the only remaining wild band. Now the chi
ldren are saved. Very satisfactory! But tell the truth, she’s sorry in a way; she’d love to do it again.

  She’ll miss all this, she knows it. The Deep is getting so complicated and ingrown. Of course the males want to stay down there and let us feed them, that’s natural. But even some of the young females won’t budge up into the real Wind. And now they have all those tame food-plants down there.… But she’ll never stay down for good, never. She loves the Wild, night-noise and all. Father understood when he named her Tivonel, far-flyer; it’s a pun that also means uncivilized or wild-wind-child. I’m both, she thinks, her mantle flickering lacy coral chuckles. She casts a goodbye scan up to where Tyree’s planetary gales roar by forever, unheard by any of her race.

  “The floater’s here!”

  The flash is from her friend Iznagel, the Station’s eldest-female. They’re wrestling the floater into balance on the Station updraft.

  The floater is a huge vaned pod, a plant-product brought from the lowest deeps above the Abyss. One of the proud new achievements of the Deepers, It’s useful for something like this, Tivonel admits it. But she prefers to travel on her own sturdy vanes.

  The pod-driver covers the yellow hooter and climbs off to stretch. She’s a middle-aged female Tivonel hasn’t met. Iznagel presents her with food-packets and the driver sparkles enthusiastic thanks; it’s a long trip up and the fresh wild food is a treat after the boring rations in Deep. But first she must offer Iznagel her memory of conditions in the wind-layers below. Tivonel sees the two females’ mind-fields form in transmission mode, and feels the faint life-signal snap as they merge.

  “Farewell, farewell!” The Station crew is starting to flicker their goodbyes. It’s time for the males to embark. But they are not to be hurried.

  Tivonel planes down to the pod-driver.

  “A message for Food-Supply Chief Ellakil, if you will,” she signs politely. “Tell her Tivonel will be down later. I’m going first to Far Pole to see the Hearers.”

  The driver, munching embarrassedly, signals assent. But Iznagel asks in surprise, “Whatever for, Tivonel?”

  “The Father-of-my-child, Giadoc, is there.” Just in time she remembers to restrain her thoughts. “I want to hear news,” she adds—which is true, as far as it goes.

  Iznagel’s mantle emits a skeptical gleam.

  “What’s a Father doing at Far Pole?” the driver demands, curiosity overcoming her shyness at public eating.

  “He became a Hearer some time ago, when Tiavan was grown. He’s interested in learning about the life beyond the sky.”

  “How unFatherly.” The driver’s tone is tersely grey.

  “You wouldn’t say so if you knew him,” Tivonel retorts. “Someone should gain knowledge, and our fields aren’t big enough. It takes a Father’s sensitivity to probe the sky.” But as she speaks, something in her agrees a little with the driver. Never mind; my Giadoc is a true male.

  “Here they come at last. Move back.”

  The big males are jetting somewhat awkwardly out to the floater. As they near it, a clamor of shrill green shrieks breaks out from under their mantles: The youngsters are appalled anew at the prospect of entering the pod. They scream and struggle shockingly against their new Fathers, contorting their little mind-fields against the huge strange energies that envelop and soothe them. They’re strong young ones, deformed by premature activity in the Wild. Even big Ober seems to be striving for composure.

  As they go by, Ober’s mantle flaps upward, revealing his bulging Father’s pouch and a glimpse of the child’s jets. The pod-driver squeaks bright turquoise with embarrassment. Iznagel only averts herself, glowing amusedly under the conventional rosy flush of appreciation for the sacred Skills. Tivonel is used to the sight of such intimate gathering after the last months. That silly driver—Deepers forget the facts of life, she thinks. It’s better up here where people are more open to the Wind.

  Behind her she notices the two young Station males, their life-fields flaring straight out with intense emotion. Probably seeing grown Fathers in action for the first time. Belatedly, she checks her own field, and tunes her mantle to the correct flush. The last of the Fathers are going in.

  “Goodbye, goodbye! Wind’s blessing,” she signals formally, unable to check an eddy of her field toward them, hoping for a last warm contact. But of course there’s no response. Don’t be foolish, she chides herself. Their important, high-status life has begun. Do I want to be an abnormal female like the Paradomin, wanting to be a Father myself? Absolutely not; winds take the status! I love my female life—travel, work, exploration, trade, the spice of danger. I am Tivonel!

  The party is all inside, their life-emanations crowded into one massive presence. The driver climbs onto the guide-seat. “Farewell, farewell!” the Station-keepers’ mantles sing golden. The floater’s vanes tilt up, the helpers jet forward with it into the wind.

  Abruptly it angles up, the wind takes it, and the pod leaps away and down. The departing life-fields she has known so well shrink to a fleeing print, dwindle downwind into the lifeless dark. A gentle yellow hoot sounds twice and ceases. All is silent now; the Sound has set.

  Tivonel lifts her scan and her spirits bounce back in the lovely day. Time for her to start upwind, to Far Pole and the Hearers. To Giadoc.

  But first she should inquire about the trail. She hesitates, tempted to strike off on her own skill. It would be easy; already she has detected a very tiny but stable life-signal from far upwind. That has to be the Hearers. And her mantle-senses have registered a pressure gradient which should lead to an interface between the windstreams, easy jetting.

  But it’s polite to ask. Ahura, ahura, she tells herself. If I go down to Deep acting this way they’ll take me for a Lost One.

  Iznagel is directing the stowage of a raft of food-plants destined for Deep that will have to await the next floater.

  Tivonel watches the scarred senior female with affection. I’ll be like her one day, she thinks. So rugged and work-tempered and competent. She’s been up to the top High, too, look at those burn-scars on her vanes. It’s a big job keeping the Station stable here. But a good life; maybe I’ll end here when I’m old. Worry dims her momentarily; now people are starting to grow so much stuff down by Deep, how long will they keep the Station up here? But no use to fret—and that tame food tastes awful. Iznagel finishes; Tivonel planes down.

  “May I know the path to the Hearers?” she asks in formal-friend mode.

  Iznagel flashes cordial compliance and then hesitates.

  “Tell me something, Tivonel,” she signs privately. “I could hardly believe what your memory gave us, that those Wild Ones tried to do—well, criminal things.”

  “Oh, they did.” Tivonel shudders slightly, remembering the nastiness of it.” “In fact I didn’t put it all in your memory, it was so bad. The males can tell the Deep Recorders if they want.”

  “They actually struck at your life-fields?”

  “Yes. Several of them tried to mind-cut us when we came close. A male attacked me and tried to split my field! I was so startled I barely got away. They’re untrained, thank the Wind, but they’re so mean. They do it to each other—a lot of them looked as if they’d lost field.”

  “How hideous!”

  “Yes.” Tivonel can’t resist horrifying her a little more. “There was worse, Iznagel.”

  “No—what?”

  “They weren’t just trying to mind-cut us. They … pushed.”

  “No! No—you don’t mean life-crime?” Iznagel’s tone is dark violet with horror.

  “Listen. We found a Father who had pushed his own son’s life-field out and stolen his body!” Tivonel shudders again, Iznagel is speechless. “He wanted to live forever, I guess. It was vile. And so pathetic, seeing the poor child’s life around the Father’s ragged old body. Ober and the others drove him out of his own body and got the child back in his. It was the most thrilling sight you can imagine.”

  “Life-crime…. Imagine, a Father d
oing that!”

  “Yes. I never realized how awful it was. I mean, they tell you there could be such a bad thing, but you can’t believe what it’s like till you see.”

  “I guess so. Well, Tivonel, you certainly have had experience.”

  “And I intend to have some more, dear Iznagel.” Tivonel ripples her field mock-flirtatiously. “If you will kindly show me the trail.”

  “Certainly. Oh, by the way, speaking of bad things, you might tell the Hearers there’s more rumors in Deep. Localin the driver says the Hearers at Near Pole have been noticing dead worlds or something. The Deepers think maybe another fireball is coming in.”

  “Oh, Near Pole!” Tivonel laughs. “They’ve been spreading rumors since I was a baby. They eat too many quinya pods.”

  Iznagel chuckles too. Near Pole is a bit of a joke, despite its beauty and interest. Its lower vortex is so near Deep that many young people go on holiday out there, scanning the sky and each other and playing at being Hearers. Some real Hearers are there too of course, but they keep to themselves.

  Iznagel’s mind-field is forming for memory-transfer. Tivonel prepares to receive it. But just then a small child jets up, erupting in excited light.

  “Let me, Iznagel! Let me! Father—say I can!”

  Behind her comes the large form of Mornor, her Father, twinkling indulgently. Tivonel respects him doubly—a Father enterprising enough to come up here and give his daughter experience of the Wild.

  “If the stranger doesn’t mind?” Mellowly, Mornor flashes the formal request for child-training contact. He must have few chances for his child to practice, up here at Station.

  “Accept with pleasure.” Tivonel bends her life-field encouragingly toward the child. After months of receiving the chaotic transmissions of the Lost Ones, she is unafraid of being jolted by a child.

  The young one hovers shyly, marshalling her mind-field, pulsing with the effort to do this right. Jerkily her little thoughts gather themselves and extend a wobbly bulge.