Up the Walls of the World

by James Tiptree

  The government always spends money in crazy ways, Dann reassures himself. Especially the military. He recalls some absurd scandal about condoms in balloons. This is just another. Float along with it.

  Genially he asks Costakis, “If nobody is around who knows the combination, how can you, ah, read the numbers?”

  “They don’t have to be around.” Costakis purses his small mouth. “Maybe I read someone, maybe there’s traces, see? I don’t want theories. I just know what I can do. Gives me like an interest in life, see?”

  “I see.” Delicious, Dann thinks. I am in the realm of fantasy. The faint glow of his chemical supplement to breakfast has taken firm hold.

  Costakis is peering down. “I told you, Norfolk. That was U.S. Three-Oh-One.” His tone is not quite casual.

  “You know the area well?” From his internal shelter Dann looks benignly on the unappetizing little man. He is totally unaware that his own knobby face emanates a profound and manly empathy that a TV casting director would give an arm for.

  “I know Route Three-Oh-One.” Costakis pauses and then blurts out with dreadful cheeriness, “I spent twenty hours lying on it with a busted head. Nobody stopped, see? Hitch-hiker sacked me and took my car. Broad daylight, man, it was hot. I couldn’t move, see? Just jerk my arm. Last ride I ever give anybody.”

  “Twenty hours?” Dann is appalled. “Couldn’t they see you?”

  “Oh yeah, they saw. My legs were on the concrete.”

  “But the police—”

  “Oh yeah. They picked me up. Threw me in the drunk tank at Newburg. I was about gone when the doc noticed me.”

  “Good lord.” A cold shaft of pain is probing for Dann, sliding through his defences. Shup up, Costakis.

  “’Course, if I had family or something, they might’ve looked for me,” Costakis goes on relentlessly. “Had one brother, he got killed on Cyprus. Went back to try to find Dad’s grave, he got caught.” He grins in a hideous parody of fun. “What woman would look at me?”

  Dann makes a wordless sound, knowing life has tricked him again. The unwelcome reality of the little man is flooding in on him. The loneliness, the horror vitae. Confirmed by twenty hours lying alone in pain, being passed…. Dann shudders, wanting only to turn him back into K-30, an unreal grotesque.

  “So I can use an interest in life, see?”

  “Of course.” Stop, for God’s sake, I can’t take it. Dann’s hand is feeling for the extra capsule in his pocket. No closeness, nobody. What woman would look at me? Costakis is undoubtedly right, Dann sees; to a woman that pumpkinheaded, pygmoid body, the inept abruptness, would probably be actively repulsive. To a man he is a cipher, faintly annoying, exuding a phoney jauntiness and knowledgeability that smell of trouble inside. Keep away. And everyone has, of course, always will…. To be locked forever in rejection…. I can use an interest in life … Pity grabs painfully at some interior organ Dann suspects is vital. Panicked, he bolts over Costakis and heads for the plane lavatory.

  Coming back, he notices the extra member of the party. Sitting at the very back, behind Kirk’s dog, is an unknown civilian. He must have got on last.

  Pretending to look at the dog, Dann gets an impression of greying black hair, grey, very well-tailored suit, a vaguely New England face with a foreign trace. Must be a passenger for wherever they are going.

  Costakis has seen him looking.

  “The snook,” he whispers, grimacing. “The big enchilada.”

  “What, C.I.A.?” Dann whispers back.

  “Shit, no. No action there now. D.C.C., I bet.”

  “What’s D.C.C.? I never heard of it.”

  “You wouldn’t. Boss spooks. Defense Communications Component, name doesn’t mean anything. I saw them in Annapolis, everybody jumped. Hey, look at that, I was right. That smutch is Norfolk. We’re starting down.”

  The clouds are opening. Below them woods and meadows are swinging up. Dann sees a little lake. General exclamations in the plane.

  They land in sunlight on an apparently deserted country airstrip, which seems unusually long. At the far end Dann can see the sock and a couple of choppers in front of the control shack. Apparently they are not going to taxi back. The plane’s steps are unfolded.

  As they file down, Dann sees that a grey sedan and a grey minibus have already come out to them. He notices an odd structure looming at their end of the strip—a parachute tower, in need of paint. His blood-chemistry is repairing his internal damage. It is a fine summer day in fantasyland.

  The clipboard character has reappeared and is loading their bags in the bus. Before they are all out, the sedan has raced away with Costakis’ spook inside.

  “Oh look, aren’t those real deer?” Winona’s turquoise arm points to a dozen pale tan silhouettes grazing in the woods alongside.

  “That’s right, that’s right!” Noah enthusiastically shepherds them into the bus. “I told you it would be delightful.”

  The Frump makes a snorting noise.

  The bus carries them through more woods and meadows on a narrow blacktop road. Not a country road; the straight lines and square corners bespeak the military mind. They pass what Dann thinks is an unkempt firelane.

  “Obstacle course,” Ensign Yost says.

  After what must be five miles they pull up at three old-style wooden barracks, standing by themselves in a grassy clearing. A volleyball net hangs in front of one. The June sun is hot as they get out.

  “Look—a swimming pool!” Winona carols. They all stare around. Beyond the far barracks is a very long, shabby pool speckled with floating leaves.

  “I told you to bring your suits,” Noah says like Santa giving presents. “Well, Kendall, this looks just fine, if our equipment is only here. We must check on that at once.”

  “It’ll be here,” Kirk says shortly. “You don’t do anything until you all sign in.”

  Another sedan has driven up. Out of it gets a large, bearded, bear-like man in rumpled grey fatigues. He is carrying a folder.

  “Captain Harlow,” Kirk announces. The man wears no insignia; Dann recalls that Captain is a higher rank in the Navy. “All in the day-room, please.”

  “This building will be your test site, Dr. Catledge,” Captain Harlow says as they troop into the large room at the front of the first barracks.

  It looks exactly like all the rec-rooms Dann saw in his service days; plywood, maple, chintz, a few pinups. Over the battered desk is a sign: WHAT YOU SEE HERE LET IT STAY HERE. The desk is littered with copies of Stag, Readers Digest, sports magazines.

  Noah has trotted into the corridor leading to the bedroom cubicles, the toilets, and the back door.

  “These bedrooms will serve as test stations, Captain,” he says briskly. “But we’ll need doors installed to close off each end.”

  “Just tell Lieutenant Kirk your requirements,” the ursine captain says pleasantly. “You’ll find we move fairly fast here. Now I need your signatures on these documents before I turn you loose. Read carefully before signing, please.”

  Dann notices that his hands and wrists are delicate; the bearishness is an affectation. Kirk hands round papers; general fumbling for pens and places to write.

  Reading, Dann is informed that he is now subject to National Security Directive Fifteen, paragraph A-slash-twelve, relating to the security of classified information. He is, it appears, swearing never to divulge any item he has experienced here.

  He signs, visualizing himself rushing to the Soviet embassy with the news that there is an ederly parachute-tower near Norfolk, Virginia. Kirk gives him an ID card bearing his own color photograph in plastic and a wad of what appear to be tickets.

  “Pin the badges on you at all times,” Harlow tells them. “Your lunch is laid on in Area F Messhall. The bus will wait while you take your bags over to the living quarters. Ladies in the end barracks, please.”

  “Right by the pool!” Winona exclaims. “Captain, can we take walks around here? The woods look so lovely.”

&n
bsp; “Your badges are for Area F only. Don’t pass the area fences.” He smiles. “Don’t worry, you’ll get plenty of exercise. It’s a square mile.”

  “Can we walk home from the messhall?”

  “If you wish. The bus will take you to and from meals. The schedule is over there. Lieutenant, will you come with me?” As he and Kirk go out, Costakis mutters to Dann, “Harlow. That’s a new one. I’ve seen him without the beard.”

  The men’s barracks next door is hot and stuffy; Yost and Costakis turn on the air conditioners. Their cots are stripped, the bedding folded on them. Dann picks a cubicle on the side nearest the women’s building and transfers some vials to his pockets. When he comes out onto the steps, R-95—Rick—is waiting for him.

  “Ron’s scared,” Rick says in a low, morose voice.

  “Your brother … he’s in the submarine?” Dann is trying to recall Rick’s last name: Ah, Waxman. Rick and Ron Waxman.

  “Yeah. He doesn’t like it.” Rick gives him a smouldering look. “I don’t like this either. I wish we hadn’t come.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be all right. They seem to be taking good care of us.”

  “You really think so?” Rick shoots the question at him as if trying to penetrate to some fund of truth in Dann’s head. Why is Rick asking him, of all people? Abstractedly, he smiles his good smile and utters more reassurance, making for the bus.

  Kirk is waiting for them at the messhall door. It turns out to be a great dim, cavernous space, filled with big military-rustic tables, all empty except for a small group at the far end. The place looks old. Adjusting his eyes, Dann sees ghosts: battalions, whole clandestine armies have trained here for God knows what.

  A plump man in fatigues and silver bars takes their mess tickets and seats them right by the door. Not near the others. Dann understands; Noah’s people are in quarantine. We’ll meet no one and see as little as possible of anything that may be going on here. He squints through the dimness. At the two far tables are men in fatigues, a few smartly uniformed Waves. Station personnel, or embryo spies? He sits down between Ensign Yost and the Frump; he will not let himself look at her, sitting beyond Noah, Kirk, Winona.

  “I sure hoped we’d be on the water,” Ted Yost says. “Call this a shore installation?” He sighs. “I wish I could have gone in the sub.”

  “Ron didn’t want to go,” Rick tells him sulkily. “He had to because he’s the best sender. He hates it.”

  “I know.” Yost smiles with unexpected sweetness, his gaze far off.

  Their food comes fast, on trays; enormous breaded veal cutlets, baked potatoes, applesauce. Good, but too much of everything. As it arrives, four people at the far end get up to go. Among them Dann sees the bearded “Captain Harlow” and a tall, thin, grey civilian. Kirk jumps up and strides down to them.

  “The Black Rider,” mutters the Frump’s voice beside him. I must stop calling her that, Dann thinks. What the hell is her name? Something Italian. From beyond her the Princess smiles at him intently.

  “I’m so glad you’re with us, Doctor Dann.” Her voice is very soft.

  “Everybody! Give me your movie-tickets!” It’s Kendall Kirk back, looming at them in his insufferable clean-cut way. “The movie-tickets, those yellow ones. You never should have been issued them,” he says severely, as though it was their fault.

  There is a general confusion while the movie-tickets are being separated from the meal-tickets and passed back to Kirk. Dann is delighted with this evidence of military bumbling. At last Kirk sits down again, and starts talking with Noah about their missing equipment.

  The Frump has been making scornful comments, sotto voce. Her swarthy face looks surprisingly like a worried small boy’s. Dann experiences a rush of outgoing geniality.

  “You know, after all this time of having to refer to you as Double-you-eleven and twelve, I’m not sure we’ve ever been introduced. I’m Daniel Dann.”

  “Fredericka Crespinelli.” The Frump says it so like a handshake that Dann glances down and sees her small fist curled tight.

  “I’m Valerie Ahlgren,” the Princess laughs. “Hey, Daniel Dann, that’s neat. It’s Dan any way you say it. I’m Val, call her Frodo.”

  The Frump—Fredericka—scowls. Dann prods his memory.

  “Frodo—that’s from a book, isn’t it?”

  “How would you know?” Fredericka—Frodo—demands.

  “Wait—Tolkien. Something Rings. And Mordor was the Black Realm, wasn’t it?” He smiles. “Do you see this place as a black realm?”

  “Oh yes,” says Valerie. But her friend asks curtly, “What are you, a psychiatrist?”

  “Goodness no. I’m just interested. To me this place seems, well, somewhat ramshackle and abandoned. Maybe it was blacker once.”

  “It’s not abandoned,” Valerie says intensely, looking furtively about.

  “Ghosts, maybe,” Dann chuckles.

  “Didn’t you notice those magazines—all recent?” Frodo frowns. “They use this place.”

  “That’s why we’re so glad you’re with us,” Val says quietly. “People like us, we’re vulnerable. They don’t like us.”

  For an instant Dann thinks she’s telling him they’re lesbians, which he had rather assumed. (The perennial male puzzle: How, how?) But then he realizes her glance had summed up the whole table.

  She means, he sees, people like Noah’s subjects. People who are supposed to be telepathic, to read minds. Nonsense, he thinks, meaning nonsense that they read thoughts and nonsense that the powers of Deerfield would dislike them.

  “They value you,” he tells her gently. “They’re taking all this trouble to see what you can do.”

  “Yeah,” Frodo grunts. Valerie just looks up at him so earnestly it gets through. She’s really worried, he sees. Probably people like this are inclined to paranoid suspicions, living among unreal perceptions.

  “I wouldn’t worry. Really.” Hesummonsup his doctor smile, willing her trouble away as he used to will away more tangible ills.

  Slowly she smiles back at him and touches her friend’s hand. Surprisingly, it’s a strong, radiant smile, quite transforming her face. At the same moment he glimpses Frodo’s fingers; her nails are bitten off to stubs. H’mmm. His notion on their relationship somersaults. Who is the strong one here. Or must there be a strong one, do their small strengths complement each other?

  “Anyway, it’s nice being by ourselves,” Val says. “Sometimes it hurts so much, in crowds.”

  “You can say that again,” says Ted Yost from Dann’s other side. He and the girls exchange looks. Dann has a moment of crazy belief; what would a barrage of thought from a crowd be like for a telepath? Horrible. But of course it’s not that; they’re probably abnormally sensitive to voice-tones, body-signs of hostility.

  Across from him, Chris Costakis has taken no part in this conversation; he eats stolidly, his gaze darting about. Beside him, Noah and Kirk have been going over the requirements; the doors to be installed, the missing biomonitors, the computer terminal, the power supply.

  “They want the first test at eighteen hundred tonight,” Kirk says.

  “Kendall, until we get our hands on our equipment I refuse to try anything. This is going to be done right or not at all.”

  “Okay, okay. They’re putting on the pressure.”

  “Then they must get my equipment and get it set up right.”

  “It’ll be here.”

  “And properly installed.”

  Kirk glances at Dann, who looks carefully blank. He knows and wants to know nothing of the entrails of the shiny cabinets he uses, To his relief Costakis speaks up abruptly.

  “I can give you a hand, Doc.” The little man is still offering his help to a rejecting world.

  “Good, good, Chris,” says Noah enthusiastically. “I’m glad to have someone who understands the function. If you’re all finished, shall we go?”

  “Now for that pool!” Winona sings out. Behind her, Margaret Omali towers up.
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br />   As they walk toward the bus, she turns away.

  “I’ll walk.”

  “But the computer!” cries Noah. “We need you, Miss Omali!”

  “It won’t be there,” she says flatly. “One mile I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  She strides away, followed by Noah’s expostulations. Dann sees Kendall Kirk take one tentative step and says firmly, “I believe I’ll walk too. That was a heavy lunch.”

  Kirk gives him a nasty look and gets in the bus. Dann finds he has to stretch even his long legs to catch up with her. The bus passes them then disappears. He swings along in silence beside her, feeling wild and happy.

  “You meant it. Four miles an hour,” he says finally. “I hope you don’t mind my sharing your walk?”

  “No.”

  He searches for a topic. “I’m, ah, puzzled. If it wouldn’t bother you to tell me, how do they put a computer out here in the woods?”

  “They install a terminal and tie in via telephone line. There’s a small computer capability at the headquarters here, they won’t specify what. Through it I can access TOTAL. The phone line is fast enough for our purpose.”

  He is enchanted that she will talk, he would listen to her read stock quotations. “What’s TOTAL? A big computer?”

  Her perfect lips quirk. “More than that. TOTAL is the whole Defense system. We only use a tiny part.”

  “It must be enormous.”

  “Yes.” She smiles again in secret pleasure. “Nobody knows exactly how far the network extends. One time it printed out all your credit ratings.”

  “Good Lord!” But he is thinking only that she is walking a little slower, relaxing. The blacktop is cool in the forest lane.

  “And could you tell a layman why we need a computer? It seems to me that their answers are either right or wrong.”