Up the Walls of the World

by James Tiptree

  “Ah, hello,” says Dann, feeling ridiculous. “Don’t be alarmed, I’m here like you. We seem to have got—mixed up. I’m a doc—a Healer, Daniel Dann. Can you tell me your name?”

  The huge being sighs or grunts colorfully, and then seems to come more alert. “Oh, Toctor-Tann,” it says in dreamy high light yellows. “You look just the way I always saw you! Can’t you tell? I’m Winona.”

  The light-signs that are her voice ring so Winonalike that he is staggered. Winona as this great male thing? He begins a confused joke about not knowing he had looked like such a monster.

  “No, I mean your—” she interrupts him, the alien language garbling. “You, your mind. I could always see it, you know. It’s lovely.”

  “Well, thank you,” he says helplessly. These telepaths seem to be more prepared for alien transmogrifications than he. “Have they, ah, told you where we are?”

  “Why, I can see that,” Winona says. “We’re in the spirit world.”

  The tone is so exactly like her voice when they walked together talking of seances, auras, ectoplasm, telepathy—she’s right at home; he almost chuckles. But he ought to prepare her somehow.

  “It’s also a real world, called Tyree,” he says gently. “They have a bad problem here, Winnie. That’s why some of them have stolen our bodies, trying to escape.”

  “Oh no,” she says, troubled now. “Stolen? You mean—” her speech stumbles, sounds a green plaint of fear.

  At this Tivonel exclaims, and the big Father who has been watching them commands sharply, “Do not upset him, Tanel!”

  An edge of his field flows to hers, the green hue dies.

  “Right,” says Dann. “But she’s not a male. May I introduce you? Winona, this is my young friend Tivonel, a female of Tyree.” There doesn’t seem to be any politer term. To the huge presence above he says, “I’m sorry I don’t know your name. This is Winona, a female of my world.”

  “Greetings. I am Elix. But how can you say this?” he demands. “Do I not know a male when I see one? Look at him. Untrained, but obviously a Father.”

  “But I’m not!” Winona protests. “I’m a female, a—a—I’m a female Father!”

  “Nonsense!” Elix says loftily. “Is he insane?”

  Tivonel is laughing incredulously, and several Tyrenni who have been watching the exchange jet closer. “See his field,” one says. Dann recalls his lessons, and scans the life-energies streaming from Winona’s big form. There does seem to be a lot of it, in intricate play. In fact it’s more copious than his own.

  “But she’s a female,” he says stubbornly. “I swear it.”

  “A female Father!” Tivonel’s mantle laughs amazedly. “Whew! Marockee, Iznagel! Come over here!”

  Huge Elix has dropped down closer, scanning hard.

  “If this be true, stranger, how many children have you Fathered?”

  “Four,” Winona signs firmly. “And seven, ah, children’s children.”

  “And you’re really a female?” Marockee demands. “Really, truly?”

  “I certainly am! What’s wrong about that?”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” Dann tells her, trying not to laugh. “They’re surprised because on this world raising children seems to be done by males. That’s why they haven’t a word for you. And your, ah, your mind-aura seems to be very large, like a Father’s, and since you’re in a male body, they can’t believe you’re not.”

  “The males here raise babies?”

  “That’s right. I believe you’ll find you have an, ah, a pouch.”

  “You mean, they feed them and cuddle them and clean them and take care of them every day, all day!” Winona demands in tones of glittering skepticism. “And teach them to talk and do everything, all the time for years? I don’t believe it.”

  “Indeed yes,” big Elix tells her. “I now see you understand well. But I myself have only reared one. Strange female Father-of-four, I salute you.”

  He planes down before her, his mantle a respectful lilac.

  “Well!” Winona softens. “I certainly didn’t mean to be rude. I’d love to hear about your baby.”

  “But this is against nature!” Another Father protests. “It’s unwindly! Before I accept such nonsense I’d like to see this female do some Fathering. Let her try to calm this one if she can!”

  His field ripples, his mantle lifts slightly. Dann sees that he is gingerly controlling a Tyrenni child. The young one suddenly contorts violently, its little mantle breaking into bright green cries. “What—what are you doing to me? Get out of my mind you, get out—!” It rises to terrified yells.

  “Is that one of my people?” Dann asks above the din.

  “Yes. It was Colto’s daughter.”

  “That could be anybody,” he tells Winona, and then cries “Look out! Stop!”

  She has moved straight at it, her field streaming toward its small lashing one.

  “Don’t get caught in its panic. I know.”

  Winona pauses, marshaling her energies.

  “These people have mind methods,” Dann tells her. “You have to watch out it doesn’t grab you.”

  “Poor little thing,” she murmurs absently. And then to his consternation she advances on the screamer, her big field arching out. “Get away!” howls the small one. The other Father recoils, releasing it. Finding itself free the angry youngster jets its small body hard at Winona’s midsection.

  They collide in a confusion of airborne membranes and roiling fields. And then Dann sees that Winona has awkwardly extruded her small claspers and grasped the attacker. Meanwhile her big field has formed a strange dense webwork, englobing and somehow smothering the flailing energies.

  “No, no,” he hears her say calmly above the green squeals. “Stop that, dear. Listen to Winnie. You’re all right now dear, you’re all safe.”

  Her voice is only faintly shaky as the two struggling bodies tumble slowly, fields merged. Dann sees with astonishment that she is mastering the situation; she’s going to be all right. When they come to rest on the wind, the panicky one is calm and quiescent under her grasp.

  “It attacked her!” Elix is saying indignantly. “Fathers, did you see that?”

  Dann realizes now that he has never seen physical conflict, only rare body-contact on this world. More wonders.

  “Who is it, Winnie?” he asks. “Can you tell?”

  “It’s Kendall Kirk,” she replies. The creature gives a last convulsive leap. “No, no, Kenny dear. Don’t worry, you’re in a nice safe place. Winnie’s here. Winnie won’t let them hurt you.”

  Kendall Kirk? Oh, no! thinks Dann. To his ears, the muffled out-cries sound like garbled swearing. What to do with Kirk, here?

  “He’s changed,” Winona murmurs fondly. “He’s like a baby. They frightened him, touching his mind. He wants his—I can’t say it. His pet animal.”

  “Pet animal?” Suddenly Dann remembers. “Tivonel, can you bring over the body that has that animal’s mind? I think it may belong to this one here.”

  “You mean poor old Janskelen’s? Come on, Marockee.”

  As they go, Dann asks Elix, “What did you do to this mind?”

  “I had to drain it very deeply, Tanel, It was wild with fear and rage, you saw it attack your Winona. We re-formed it to a younger plane. It will recover. But is it not one of your wild ones, or a crazy female?”

  “No,” Dann admits. “What you have there is an adult male of my world. Quite a high-status one, in fact.”

  At this news several Fathers’ mantles chime with incredulous disdain. “Surely Young Giadoc spoke the truth when he said other worlds were brutish,” one comments. But Elix adds more gently, “You are not like this, Tanel. Why?”

  He doesn’t know.

  Tivonel and her friends are guiding in the body of old Janskelen. Its small field stirs, its mantle flickers with wordless whining.

  “Winnie, I think Kirk’s animal, its mind or whatever, may be in here. Do you want them together?”

>   At his words the body comes to life. With a flurry of vanes it jets down under Winona and snuggles up beneath her sheltering mantle. Dann can see its field joining with Kirk’s.

  Fantastic. So dogs operate on the spirit plane too, he thinks a trifle crazily. The Labrador’s mind seems calm; perhaps it is a “father” too. He admires the creature’s fidelity while deploring its taste.

  “There now, Kenny dear,” Winona soothes. “Here’s your little old friend! You’re happy now, aren’t you?”

  “Kenny dear,” indeed. Is it possible that the wretched exlieutenant before them is to Winnie’s motherly spirit an appealing small boy? More power to her. Live in the absurd moment. Don’t think of the dread rising Sound, forget what’s ahead for them all.

  The curious Fathers have crowded close.

  “I believe you now, Tanel.” It’s a male he recognizes as Ustan. “The female’s power is there, if poorly formed. But which of us could have coped with such a bodily assault?” His big vanes shiver.

  “Our world is very different,” Dann tells him. “We live without wind and with much contact with many hard things. And we cannot see minds as you do; we deal with each other only by speech and touch.”

  As he says this, a tendril of doubt sneaks through his materialist soul. That really was quite a demonstration Winnie put on with Kirk. Is it possible he has disbelieved too much?

  “Amazing,” the Fathers are murmuring. “I for one would like to learn more of your strange Father-ways,” Ustan says. “They touch our deepest philosophy.”

  “I too,” Elix agrees, and other Fathers echo him.

  “I’m sure she’d love to tell you,” Dann says. “Winona! If Kirk has calmed down, may I present Father Ustan and some friends? It seems they want to talk with you about the Fine points of raising kids. By the way, you better get used to being a top-status person here. You’re something like a visiting—” He wants to say “official” but has to settle for “Elder.”

  “Oh, my!” Winona’s tone has the old flutter, but it doesn’t sound quite so silly here. “Of course, I’d love to. Caring for babies and people is the one thing I know. Now Kenny dear, you’ll be all right. Winnie’s not going away. How do you do, ah, Father—”

  “Ustan.” Dann completes the introduction and moves off, mentally chortling. From surplus person to instant celebrity. Enjoy it while it lasts. If Fathers here are anything like mothers on Earth, Winona will be occupied indefinitely. And he has others to look after.

  Tivonel jets alongside him.

  “Why are you laughing, Tanel?”

  “It’s hard to explain. On my world, fathering is so low-status it isn’t even part of the—” Garble warns him that he simply cannot say “Gross national product.”

  “It’s fit only for females,” he concludes lamely, aware that nothing is getting through.

  “So your females must be very big and strong, to take the eggs.”

  “No, they’re generally weaker than males.”

  “But then why do you let them take them? You must be very unselfish. Or is it your religion? Oh, Giadoc would love to hear about that!”

  “I’ll explain sometime if I can. Where are the rest of my people?”

  “Down there. Oh, look, by Iznagel! How weird.”

  The scarred female who had been guarding Ron is now nervously hovering over a tangle of two confusingly mingled forms. One figure is smaller—a female. For a minute Dann thinks he is seeing some sexual attack, then recalls this world’s ways. Their mental fields are coalescing in a most peculiar way.

  “She came right at him!” Iznagel cries. “I couldn’t stop her!”

  “It’s a mind-push,” Tivonel exclaims. “We better get a Father.”

  “Wait.” Dann planes down beside the rolling figures, half-suspecting what he will find.

  “Ron? Ron? Rick, is that you?”

  From the subsiding swirl of mantles breaks the lacy orange effect Dann hears as laughter, but no words come.

  “Ricky? Ron, I’m Dann. Tell me who’s there.”

  Both mantles break into an echoing golden sound. “We’re here. It’s us. We’re … we’re … at last.”

  “Don’t worry, Iznagel,” Dann tells her. “That’s his ah, egg-brother with him. I think they need to be close.”

  The combined life-energies are settling, forming into a quiet wreath around the two joined forms. The smaller body is plastered on the other’s back.

  “It’s like one big person,” Tivonel exclaims.

  “Well, I never saw that before,” Iznagel comments, scandalized. “You say they’re actually egg-brothers? I thought that was a myth.”

  “No, we have them on our world. Ron, Rick, are you really all right?”

  A vague muttering, and suddenly the topmost, half-hidden form speaks alone. “Ron wants me to do the talking, Doc. Yes, we’re all right. Maybe we really are.” Its tone is bright with joy. “Hey, you better call us something new now, we’re not two people anymore.”

  “What shall I call you?”

  Again the laughter.

  “How about Wax, Waxma—you know, Waxman.”

  The prosaic earthly sound coming from this figure of nightmare in the realms of dream is too much for Dann. He begins to laugh helplessly, hears himself joined by Tivonel. Iznagel, recovering from her shock, joins too.

  “Hey, that’s neat,” the new “Waxman” chuckles. “Waxing means growing. We just did.”

  “Well.” Dann finally composes himself. It’s hard, even in the face of what must come; this world of Tyree seems apt for joy. “I have to find the others. You’ll be all right with Iznagel. Ask her to give you a memory, by the way. A memory about this world. She’ll explain. You’ll love it. I’ll be back later.”

  “Right down there,” says Tivonel, and planes out in a beautiful swerving helix down past huge rafts of twinkling vegetation.

  Dann follows, conscious again of the power and freedom of his new body, refusing to feel the twinges of what must be oncoming ill. How extraordinary that this supernatural disaster has brought joy, even if temporary—joy for Winona, joy for Ron and Rick, joy for himself. Will it be worth it? Don’t think of it. Find out who else is here.

  They draw up beside three bodies well anchored in a plant-thicket, guarded by the old male Omar who had lamented the loss of Janskelen. A big male, a female, and probably a child, Dann decides. As Tivonel sees the male body she checks and draws aside, grey-blue with grief.

  “That was Giadoc’s son, Tanel. Our son Tiavan. He is a criminal, on your world now.”

  “Don’t grieve, Tivonel. As a matter of fact so far your people seem to have made mine very happy. Maybe this will work out well too.”

  She sighs; but the bright spirit cannot stay dimmed long. Tiavan’s foreign life is stirring restlessly, its mantle murmuring with waking lights.

  “Greetings, Father Omar,” says Tivonel. “This is Tanel, the strange Healer.”

  “Greetings, Healer Tanel,” intones the huge old being. “Good. I will leave these to you, with pleasure.”

  “Oh no, please don’t,” Dann protests. “I am only a healer of bodies. We have no skills of the mind like yours.”

  “H’mmm. Well, if you are a Body-healer, do you not feel that the mind grows dangerous at this level?”

  “Yes, I do,” Dann admits. How can he say that they are already probably dead? “We should try to find shelter soon. But first I want to find out who these people of mine are and reassure them.”

  “But don’t you recognize their fields?” Omar’s words are astonished cerise.

  “No, Father,” Tivonel puts in. “He says they can only see their bodies on his world. And they talk, of course. Isn’t it weird?”

  “Weird indeed.” Again the grey eyebrow-lift. “You mean you cannot see that this mind in Tiavan’s body is ill formed, in need of remolding? The product of a criminally inept Father, I should say; possibly a wild orphan. Poor thing, see how it attempts to—”

  The a
lien speech becomes incomprehensible to Dann; evidently concepts for which no earthly equivalents exist. As he studies the “orphan,” Tivonel gathers her vanes.

  “I’m going back to Lomax, Tanel. Maybe they’ve found Giadoc.”

  “Right. I’ll stay close.” She flashes warmth, jetting away.

  An unwelcome suspicion has come to Dann as he notices the close, burrlike way in which this being’s energy hugs its big body. Little exploratory tendrils dart out, recoil snakelike; the mantle is resolutely mute. Does this represent, say, secrecy? Paranoid fears? Or hatred? Is he looking at Major Fearing? Oh no! Well, perhaps better than to have some innocent meet the fate that lies ahead here.

  “Fearing?” he calls reluctantly. “Major Fearing, is that you? It’s Dann here. If you care to talk, maybe I can help you.”

  No response, but an ambiguous contraction of the field. Paranoids don’t want help, Dann reminds himself. But this isn’t Fearing, maybe it’s a Navy workman, some total stranger. On the other hand, so far the Tyrenni Beam seems to have been attracted to Noah’s subjects; their “telepathic” trait perhaps. Try them.

  “Ted? Ted Yost, is that you? Fredo—ah, Fredericka? Val? Valerie Ahlstrom, are you there?”

  Still no reaction from the creature. This feels like the craziest thing he’s ever done. But wait; he almost forgot the little man.

  “Chris! Chris Costakis, is that you?”

  The mind quivers significantly, contracts itself to a knot.

  “Chris? If that’s you, don’t be afraid. It’s Dann here, Doctor Dann, even if I don’t look it. We’ve all been, well, mixed up. Can you speak to me?”

  The mind seems to relax slightly. After a pause a faint syllable forms on its mantle.

  “Doc?”

  The dry nasal light-tone is unmistakable.

  “Yes, it’s me, Chris. How do you feel?”

  “Where are we, Doc? What’s going on?”