Up the Walls of the World

by James Tiptree

  As Val combs her hair the two of them start humming, glancing at him mischievously. Presently their voices rise in harmony, parodying an old ridiculous tune. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine—”

  It’s a lovely moment; the sweet mocking voices touch him dangerously. When the song ends he can only say roughly, “I wouldn’t sit on that grass too long, Frodo.”

  “Why not?”

  “Chiggers.” He explains the curse of the South and Frodo scrambles into a chair. There is a pause in which a wood-thrush gurgles and trills.

  “Doctor Dann,” Valerie says, “you won’t let them do anything to us, will you?”

  Behind her Frodo’s dark eyes are peering intently at him out of her monkey face. It comes to Dann that he’s being asked a real question.

  “What do you mean, do something to you?”

  “Like, keep us here if we do it.”

  “Control our heads,” Frodo adds. “Use drugs on us, maybe.”

  “What on earth for?”

  “So we’d do what they want,” Valerie explains. “Be, be like telephones for them. I mean, if they really want this submarine thing.”

  “Good heavens!” Dann chuckles. “Why, no one—you’ve been reading too many thrillers.”

  “You honestly, truly think it’s all right?” Val persists.

  “I assure you. Why, this is the U.S. navy. I mean—” He doesn’t know what he means, only to assuage the fear in her eyes.

  “Nobody would miss us,” says Frodo in a low voice. “Not one of us. I checked. None of us has anybody waiting outside.”

  “Goodness. Now, look, you mustn’t worry about such nonsense. I give you my solemn word.”

  Val smiles, the trust in her eyes momentarily pierces him. His solemn word, what does that mean? But it has to be all right, he thinks. After all, Noah Catledge—

  “It’s not just the Navy,” Frodo says. “That Major Fearing isn’t in the Navy. He despises us.”

  “Aren’t you being just a little, ah …”

  “No, he really does.” Valerie’s eyes have clouded again. “He hates us.”

  “I don’t see how his likes or dislikes could be a treat to you,” Dann says soothingly.

  “I do.” Frodo stares at him over Val’s head and draws her finger across her throat. “I bet he’d hate having his mind read.” Her tone is light but she’s scowling ferociously, willing him to understand.

  Dann recalls his brush with Fearing, that intensely covert man. His aura of secret power, the invisible fortifications of self. Trust nobody, withhold everything; classic anal type. Frodo is perfectly right; for a man life Fearing to have his mind read would be traumatic. A terrible threat. Dann chuckles, disregarding some subterranean unease. Could Fearing be snooping about to check on Kirk’s enterprise? Comical.

  “I really wouldn’t worry,” he says so warmly and firmly he quite believes it. “After all, he can’t do away with me.”

  The girls smile back and they chat of other things. But under the surface Dann has an instant of wondering. What could he do if the military decided to treat these people as resources, conscript them in some way? If he had to make some protest, who would listen? Nobody, especially after one look through his prescription records. For that matter, who would miss him if he never showed up again?

  —But this is crazy, he tells himself. And sanity returns with the conclusive answer: It’s all nonsense because tomorrow nothing will happen. Nothing ever has. This test will turn out like all the rest, ambiguous at best. He hopes it’s ambiguous for old Noah’s sake. But unseen voices are not going to come out of that submarine, this ragtag of people is not able to read secrets out of anybody’s mind. They’ve got him as crazy as old Noah with his blue lizard science fiction.

  Relieved, his smile strengthens. Valerie is telling him how she’s working as a junior nurse while Frodo starts law school at Maryland U. The vision of Frodo as a lawyer diverts him. In the fantasy twilight of Deerfield he wishes them well with all his battered heart:

  When they go in he remains, waiting for what he will not admit. The twilight deepens. From back in the woods the frogs tune up. Nothing is going to occur.

  But just as the last light goes, she is there.

  Tall and so divinely lean as to be almost grotesque, in a sexless grey suit, she is in the water almost before his eyes can separate her from the dusk. He has only an instant glimpse of sharp high breasts and elegant thigh. She makes no splashing; only a straight wake down the pool to him, a swift turn underwater and she’s started back again, the long dark arms reaching rhythmically, a chain of foam at her feet. In the shallow end her jackknife turn makes an ebony angle against the water. Then she is streaking back toward him, only to turn and repeat, again and again and again.

  He sits hypnotized. Is this strenuous ritual a professional skill? It doesn’t look like play. Indeed, it has almost an air of self-inflicted penance. Whatever, she gives no friendly sign.

  The stars come out, the cicadas start their shrilling. From the far barracks he can hear voices and music. How marvelous that the others wish to stay in their lighted box, leaving him alone here with her. But she is still at it, like a mechanical thing. Swim, turn, swim, turn—God knows how many times, he hasn’t counted. So long … Surely she will go straight in afterwards. He is unreasonably saddened.

  At last she climbs out to wrap herself in a pale robe. He summons courage.

  “Miss Omali? Margaret?”

  She hesitates and then to his delight comes pacing toward him. He jumps up, choking the impulse to comment on her exercise. Instead he points up at the spangled sky.

  “Would you like to inspect my friends?”

  Her face turns up. “Hey, they’re really bright here.”

  “If you’re not too chilly I could tell you about a few of them.”

  “All right.” Her aloof voice is amused, more relaxed than he has heard it. Abruptly, she has stretched out in the chaise. He daren’t look.

  “Well, first see that bright one just rising above the trees. That’s not a true star, it’s Mars, a world like ours, shining by reflected sunlight. Notice how red it is. It comes very close, say thirty-four million miles—” He rattles through every picturesque fact he can think of.

  “How far are the others?”

  “Take that very bright blue-white star right overhead there. It’s a sun called Vega, it’s bright because it’s comparatively close. The light that just reached your eyes took only twenty-six years to get here. Call a light-year six million million miles, Vega is about a hundred and fifty million million miles away.”

  “Fifteen times ten to the thirteenth. Um.” In the starlight he can see her flawless profile.

  “Wait. That reddish one just moving up from that oak, that’s Antares. It’s four hundred and forty light-years—”

  A man’s figure has emerged from the woods right behind them.

  “Hi.” It’s Ted Yost’s voice. Dann is gripped by fury.

  “Hi, Ted. Doc’s showing me some stars.”

  “Hello, Ted.” Dann can scarcely control his voice, he is in such dread that the boy will sit down. “Having a stroll?” he croaks.

  “Yeah. Well, goodnight Doc,” Ted says to Dann’s infinite relief. “I thought you might be somebody else.” His footsteps fade away.

  “Ted’s good,” Margaret remarks.

  Dann would call him a saint for his absence, he starts an involuntary word of pity and stops.

  “I know about him. I have all your records.”

  “I see … What did he mean?”

  “Oh, Ted kind of watches. He breaks up the lieutenant’s games.”

  “I see,” Dann repeats, thinking with loathing of Kendall Kirk. And be himself has done nothing to help her, has let that barbarian persecute her while he festered in his selfish fogs.

  She is still staring dreamily upward. The sky is magnificent here, even the air seems charged with mysterious energy. Beautiful Deerfield.

  “How
did you mean, about stars rising? I thought they stayed fixed.”

  “Well, the earth is turning so the whole sky is moving over us toward the West. About fifteen degrees an hour. They rise and set like the sun or the moon.”

  “I didn’t know that. Fifteen degrees, twenty-four hours; three hundred sixty degrees. Hey, neat.”

  Is this what cool means, reducing everything to number?

  “But of course we’re moving around the sun too, so we don’t see them in the same place every night.” He pommels his memory for the star-books of his boyhood. “They rise about four minutes earlier every evening, I believe. That’s about twice the width of the full moon. I’m sorry I can’t give you more figures for your mathematics.”

  She laughs faintly. “Oh, that’s not math, that’s only computation … I count things. Like, there were thirty-four tables in that messhall. Sixteen at each table, allowing two feet each. Five hundred and forty-four.”

  In that beautiful head, numbers whirling endlessly. “I’m surprised,” he says, and catches the glint of change in her eyes. Is she thinking he’ll comment about her being a woman, or a Black? “I’m surpirsed you haven’t gone metric.”

  She really laughs this time and her gaze goes back to the stars. The air seems to be humming with some kind of energy. He hasn’t felt so happy, so alive in … years.

  “That’s east, right?” she says meditatively. “Yeah, I can almost see them rise. Only it’s really the trees that are sinking down. They just stay there. Cool…. Do those stars coming up have names? They’re not much.”

  “Ah, but you’re looking toward the very center of our Galaxy. Those stars are called the Archer. Behind them are clouds of dark gas and dust, and beyond that is a tremendous glory we shall never see. Thousands upon thousands of blazing stars packed in a great central mass. If the clouds weren’t there they would light up our whole sky, and the light would have been on its way thirty thousand years.”

  He makes his mind produce numbers, dimensions, rotations, anything he can summon up in the brimming, tingling night. He is so happy that he has a momentary image of the Archer beaming rays at him, like an astral Cupid. Stop it, calm down.

  She gazes quietly toward the Milky Way, apparently pleased with his talk. The noble poise of her head, the exquisite line of her throat and shoulders exposed by the grey wrap are almost unbearable to him. Daughter of the starry night; he has the absurd feeling that he is introducing her to her proper domain.

  “Funny,” she says when he runs down, “it’s like I can feel them, almost … something out there, a million million million miles away. Cool.”

  It’s touching her, he thinks; she’s dropped the exponents. He rubs his brow to damp the tension. But it doesn’t ease, it seems to be thrumming up around them. I’ve overdone it, he thinks. Must ease off.

  And suddenly it’s worse, a surging, inflooding feeling so strong that he flinches and peers at Margaret under the delusion that she must be feeling it too. She’s sitting quietly, her hand at her throat. Next second it lets go of him; they are alone in the night.

  How wonderful to have her here, resting so companionably. He searches the sky for something else to intrigue her. Perhaps the great circumpolar clock of Dubhe and Merak?

  “Look north, up there—”

  —Oh God, it’s back. A frightening thrum is pouring through him, collapsing his world—a silent tumult that whirls him out of his senses. And he is rushed into total blackness in which a spark blooms into a vision so horrifying that he tries to cry out.

  The shape of horror is a white kitchen table, chipped and cracked; he has never seen anything so evil. He wants only to flee from the ghastly thing, still knowing with some part of him that it is unreal, is only on his inner eye.

  Next instant reality goes entirely, he is swamped by dreadfulness. His limbs are wrenched out, he is struggling, gagged and spreadeagled, trying to scream at the sweating crazy dark faces above him in the smokey glare. A knife shines above him. Mother! Mother! Help me! But there is no help, the unspeakable blade is forced between his young legs, he can’t wrench himself away. Hideous helplessness. Father! No! No! NO! The face that is Father laughs insanely and the knife rips in, slices agonizingly—it is cutting into the root of his penis. Through the pain and screams his ears echo with drumbeats and vile beery stuff splashes onto his face.

  Then everything lets go and he clamps into a knot around his mutlilated sex, rolls and falls hard to the floor in a gale of loud male voices. An old black woman’s face peers into his. He is dying of pain and shame. But as he clasps his gushing crotch he feels alien structure, understands that he is female. His childish body has breasts, his knees are dark-skinned—

  —And abruptly he is back in the empty night, back to his old familiar body: Daniel Dann huddled in a tin chair gasping “No—no—no—”

  He shuts his mouth. Margaret is still there beside him, her hands over her face. The pain in his groin is so real that for a crazy moment he thinks she has done something to him. His hand must feel himself, find his genitals intact under the cloth before he can speak.

  “M-Margaret. Are you all right?”

  Through her fingers he can see the whites of her eyes. She’s shaking.

  “The fire,” she whispers intensely.

  “It’s all right, it’s all right.” He reaches clumsily for her arm.

  What in God’s name happened?

  “The fire,” she repeats. “Burning—the baby—Mary. Mary! Oh-h-h—” Slowly her hands come away from her face, she shakes his arm off, staring at nothing.

  “There isn’t any fire,” he manages to say. But he’s lying, a dread suspicion is flaring up in Daniel Dann, former skeptic. The name she said. He is afraid to think what fire she means.

  “I should have gone back,” she mutters. “I should—what?”

  Oh God, oh God. The unsaid, unceasing nightmare of his life. I could have gone back for them. There was just time. I could have broken away and gone back in.

  “Margaret, Margaret, there isn’t any fire. You’re all right. Only I think, somehow, it sounds crazy, I—” With utmost pain he makes himself go on. “That was my fire, I think. Mary was my wife. I should have gone back and tried to get them out. I think you somehow fell into—I think you read my mind.”

  Her trembling has quieted somewhat, her eyes turn to him in the starlight. “You … this place …” she swallows. “What—”

  “It’s all right, is was only—” He can’t imagine what but sits shakenly touching her fingers. Noises are drifting at them from the far barracks. A commotion seems to be going on, he can hear Rick shouting. Did—whatever—happen to them too? No matter. But his body is still hurting from hallucination; he has to know. Presently he finds courage.

  “Margaret, I experienced, I felt—did something very hurtful happen to you when you were a child? Did someone—hurt you?”

  The hand is yanked away, she is rising to her feet.

  “Wait, please, my dear. Remember I’m only an old doctor who, who—” He is up too, blocking her way. “It was as if I lived it, Margaret.”

  She is silent, one hand gripping the back of the chair. “Yes,” she says distantly. “Very … hurtful. Good night.”

  “Oh, God. My God.” A hideous puzzle is trying to solve itself in his brain. He can find only the child’s appeal. “Please, my dear. You know mine now, my shame.”

  She looks at him in the shadows, receiving perhaps some empathy of the maimed, or something more that floats between them for a moment.

  “Mother married a student from Kenya,” she says in a dead voice. “He took us back there when I was thirteen. He, he went crazy.”

  “Oh, my dear.” Filthy comprehension breaks on him, too filthy to be borne. “Oh, my dear …”

  “Yeah,” Her tone is dreary, final. “Well, good night. Thanks for the stars.”

  The full enormity of what has happened hits him at last. “Margaret, what did we—why—”

  But she
has gone.

  He sits down drained, assaulted by invisible horror and impossibility. His head won’t think, he can do nothing but wait for strength to get to his bag. Suddenly a voice speaks behind him.

  “Doc!” It’s Ted Yost again. “You better come inside: I think Rick is going off the end.”

  Chapter 10

  THE OUTCAST BEHEMOTH OF THE VOID IS TURNING, TAKING CARE NOT TO DISRUPT THE MINUTE ENERGY-FILAMENT THAT LED IT HERE. AS IT DOES SO, A NEW SIGNAL PARTLY CONGRUENT WITH HIS PROPER RECEPTION-MODE BURSTS INTO BEING NEARBY.

  THE GREAT ENTITY PAUSES, INVOLUNTARILY HOPING IT KNOWS NOT WHAT. BUT THIS MUST BE ONLY AN ECHO, SOME ODD REFLECTION OF THE FAR-OFF VOICES OF ITS RACE. MORE PAIN: SHUT IT AWAY. YET THERE IS AN ODDITY. EVEN A REFLECTION SHOULD BE MEANINGFUL, BE UNDERSTOOD. AND THIS WAVE-FRONT IS PECULIAR, AS IF FROM A SINGLE SOURCE.

  LOCATORS ARE DEPLOYED. YES, IT IS COMING FROM A POINT NEARBY. THIS CAN BE NO REFLECTION, BUT SOMETHING TRANSMITTING DIRECTLY, CLOSE AND VERY SMALL. ITS SYMBOL-SYSTEM IS UNINTELLIGIBLE.

  ATTENDING, AN IDEA FORMS ITSELF IN THE COLD IMPALPABLE NETWORK THAT FUNCTIONS AS A BRAIN. COULD THERE BE OTHER INTELLIGENCES OUT HERE? MEMORY STIRS: ONCE THERE HAD BEEN SOME INFORMATION ON SENTIENCE OTHER THAN THE RACE. BUT THE INFORMATION IS CLOUDY, BURIED DEEP. IT HAD SEEMED IRRELEVANT. THE OUTCAST HAD ASSUMED IT WAS FOREVER ALONE. NOW THIS NEW PHENOMENON AWAKENS A PROFOUND EXCITEMENT.

  THE MIGHTY BEING TUNES HIS RECEPTORS TO THE SMALL TRANSMISSION. ONLY GARBLE COMES THROUGH, BUT SOMEHOW URGENT, CONVEYING A DESPERATE DESIRE FOR RESPONSE.

  SHOULD COMMUNICATION BE OPENED?

  HERE IS ANOTHER NEW CRIME, COMMUNICATION NOT ONLY BEYOND THE TASK, BUT WITH AN ALIEN OTHER. BUT WHAT IS TO BE LOST, NOW?

  CAREFULLY THE ALL-POWERFUL TRANSMITTERS ARE TUNED DOWN TOWARD THE LITTLE SOURCE, AND IN WHAT IS NOT SPEECH, AN INTERROGATIVE IS FRAMED.

  INSTANTLY THE SMALL THING RESPONDS BY RAISING OUTPUT AND FOCUSSING DIRECTLY ON THE GREAT INTRUDER’S NEAREST PART. THE SIGNALS ARE STILL INCOMPREHENSIBLE, BUT ANOTHER NOVEL SENSATION STIRS: THIS EAGERNESS OF ANOTHER SEEMS ODDLY MEANINGFUL. WITH IT COMES A REPETITIVE LONGING, OR DESPERATION, AS IF SOMETHING WERE WRONG.