Up the Walls of the World

by James Tiptree

  In total disorientation Margaret Omali collapses or fragments backward through or onto Dann, knowing she has done it. Everything has changed. She has power here now. But she is at last truly and inextricably merged with the vast entity in which they ride.

  Dann, she finds, is still here, or part of him, being hugged by the child. Through him she can sense the commotion outside, as human and alien entities reel backward in disorder. And more: All over the great space outside, the power is rising again, the hum of life stirring again to be as it was before.

  But one thing has not changed. As the living energies within the nucleus come slowly to a new organization, the figure against the stars is still there. Presently it half-turns; its carven lips no longer sad but only grave. A voice of silence speaks:

  I WILL FIND A NEW TASK. PERHAPS … IN TIME … I WILL TAKE COUNSEL WITH LIFE.

  Chapter 27

  The curious constellation of negative entropy that still calls itself Daniel Dann is no longer on his life-way, albeit his travels are only beginning.

  He has no idea what he is, or appears as, physically. Most likely a double-ended strand of life-energy, he thinks; I am wedged in the gap in the Destroyer’s nucleus wall and part of me is outside. But the passage is no longer menacing and frightful, he is not squeezed by icy dangers. Indeed, he has indulged himself in comfort. In the high energies of this place he has found it easy to fashion a simulacrum of his old familiar body in its armchair, and he lounges like a watchman at her gate.

  Here he can monitor all approaches from without or call for help if need be, while his inner gaze stays fixed on that which he most wishes to perceive.

  Within is a scene of grandeur. The incandescent beings of space blaze forth in glory. So beautiful, stupendous; by itself it would be almost enough for melancholy eternity. But the magnificence is only background. Limned in starlight, she is remotely there. Her head is turned away; he has only occasional glimpses of her grave, serenely thoughtful profile. His nonexistent heart does not leap when he beholds her; rather, a deep and wordless joy suffuses him. No sadness, no pain is here in the starry night.

  But that is not all. All around, on some other dimension of perception, tier upon tier of mysterious controls reach into the shadows. And sometimes another apparition of Margaret comes to ponder and test the great console. In this form she is as he had known her in life, a mortal woman’s lean body in a white coat. Incarnated so, she will sometimes speak to him quite normally, and what passes for his heart does check when he “hears” her voice. Now and again they have even talked at length, as when they walked a vanished woodland. He has told her of the happenings to the other humans, and of beautiful doomed Tyree and its people, and heard her laugh and sigh. But then the great board claims her, and she goes again to her enigmatic tasks; learning, he guesses, the powers of her new estate.

  But beyond this is the most precious of all: At certain times the child comes back and gazes curiously at him, or asks him questions, mostly of the stars. He answers as best as he can, explaining what wonders he knows. But his knowledge ends pitifully soon, and then the child laughs and goes off to work a small, earthly keyboard below the inhuman console. Together they puzzle out the answers and marvel at the celestial grandeurs she can summon. These moments are surpassingly dear to him. He surmises that what he sees as a child is some deep, enduring core of Margaret’s human wonder and delight.

  Once she asks him, “Why are you such a funny color, Dan’l?”

  Thinking to please her, he imagines his skin darker, his features those of a black man with grey hair. The child bursts out giggling and from the shadows comes Margaret’s brief laugh. “Don’t,” He never tries to change himself again.

  He understands now, of course: There is no question of “rescuing” Margaret, of freeing her from this power and place. She has gone beyond that, beyond humanity. This is her realm now. She is merged, or merging, with the great entity around them. He is seeing only temporary phantasms or facets of her; her real self is involved beyond his ken.

  Once when the familiar Margaret is there he asks her, “Are we in a ship? Is all this a machine?”

  Her dark gaze focusses beyond him.

  “No.”

  He has not cared nor dared to ask her more.

  But there have been events from the outside.

  At first they are merely isolated moments of contact with Waxman. The double being seems to have stationed himself watchfully nearby, content to exist in his new unity, interested in serving as a kind of news-center for humans and Tyrenni. But soon after what Dann thinks of as the great victory, the warm touch he recogines as Winona comes to speak directly to him.

  “Doctor Dann, is Margaret all right in there? I’ve been so worried about her. Could I see her for a moment? I don’t want to bother her, I just want—”

  “I understand,” he tells her. And he does, he cannot mistake pure friendship, or whatever odd human quality “worries” about another so gratuitously. “I’ll ask her. It’s difficult. She’s … busy.”

  The mild presence withdraws patiently.

  When the Earthly incarnation of Margaret comes again into his sight, he asks her. “Can Winona, ah, make contact with you for a few minutes? She was your friend, you know. She’s worried.”

  “Winona?” The dark priestess of the computer hesitates remotely. But her mood seems favorable. “Yes. You can let her

  by.”

  Dann has a selfish moment of gladness at her acceptance of his role of guardian of her gates. Cerberus-Dann. He does not know exactly how to “let” Winona in, but moves his imaginary self aside, calling her name. It seems to work. He feels life coming inward.

  Shockingly, what materializes at the imaginary door is not Winona—it is the trim lush figure of a dark-haired woman in early middle life, with a brilliant, unlined, eager face. His Earthly memories leap up. Here is the incarnation of young mother, a woman he has seen step laughing from a thousand stationwagons full of kids.

  But as he leaps to bar this stranger’s way, she changes. The firm flesh pales and sags, the raven hair goes grey. It is Winona as he knows her, going toward Margaret with both hands held out.

  For an instant he flinches, expecting the giggle and rush of words. But she only takes one of the tall figure’s hands in hers, and holds it to her old bosom, peering in wonder at the strangeness all around. For a moment some contact seems to flow, and then Winona releases the hand and turns away.

  As she passes Dann there is another shimmer of change; it is the radiant young matron who vanishes out through the immaterial chink.

  Dann muses on the dreadful mysteries of time; that which he had seen was really Winona, not the puffy arthritic scarecrow of Deerfield.

  And what is he, really? Some earnest figure of a young MD? No; he is ineluctably old. His dead are dead. He is … content.

  Outside, Winona has gone away. She understands, Dann knows, however she conceives it. Margaret is not to be worried about.

  And something else has happened, he notices. As he resumes his watchman’s pose he senses that the guarded gate of the stronghold seems a little wider now. Less fortified. The Margaret who has her being here will perhaps tolerate contact with life a little more. But she is, Dann realizes, changing. Life is no longer to her what it was. His soul is chilled by foreboding. Will she change beyond recognition, will everything he knows as Margaret disappear into some cloudy matrix of immensity?

  He remembers the calm voice saying, Perhaps, in time, I will take counsel with life. But will it be Margaret who does so? He hopes so; he can do no more.

  His sad thoughts are interrupted by a merry greeting he knows instantly—his little friend Tivonel. She has been by before, to his delight. But this time she brings Giadoc to speak with him.

  “Greetings, Tanel,” comes the strong, sure “voice” of the young Hearer. “Waxman has told us of the great powers your friend wields here.”

  “Yes.” Dann tries to convey a smile; he finds it
impossible not to like this mind.

  “As you know, my son Tiavan was among those who did that criminal deed to your people. Yet I left him, and the others, in danger. Is it possible that your friend’s power can discover anything of what happened to them, back on your world?”

  “I don’t know, I’ll ask. It may take some time.”

  But as it happens the incarnation he knows as Margaret comes soon, and he is able to ask.

  “I’ll put TOTAL on it,” she says quite humanly. “It stored a lot of telecommunications before we were out of range. Tell me their names.”

  Their names? So far, so very far she has drifted away, he thinks. He recites the eight: Winona, the two girls, the twins, Ted, Chris, and Kirk. Only bodies now, housing alien minds; while the real people are out here with him in this uncanny place between the stars.

  “I’ll set it to type out anything it finds, in case I’m … not here.”

  So normal, so efficient a sweet ghost. She does something to the small console and vanishes away.

  The strong compact presence of Giadoc hovers near. Dann asks him again about his stay on Earth, and learns for the first time that the mind he had known as Fearing had ended in the body of the dog. So an elder female, Janskelen, whom he never knew, is the dread Fearing now! The computer won’t search for that name; no matter, it probably wasn’t his real one.

  But whatever can have become of them? How did Noah, not to mention the Navy, take the eruption of nine alien minds? Thinking of it all again, Dann’s memories strengthen around him. He questions Giadoc, fascinated by his alien ability to guide himself by reading human thought. It seems unbelievable; how could they manage to make out? What could they do, send and receive messages for the military? Or be persecuted as a menace?

  And the mix-up of identities: Kirk with the mind of, in effect, a little girl; Winona housing his Father. Frodo as really the son of the Father who is in little Chris. How to stay together? Can they perhaps marry? And the cosmic joke of the rebel Avanil in Valerie’s body, defiantly claiming the right to rear children. And Ron and Rick, no longer twins but Terenc and Palarin, an alien male and female he never knew. And, poetic justice, the wicked Scomber inheriting the moribund body of Ted Yost.

  Funny, Dann reflects, he doesn’t really see Scomber as “wicked.” He can recall so clearly the heart-lifting moment when Scomber offered his life as the pathway to escape from burning Tyree and his own empathy with the young Fathers bearing their children out of the flames.

  And has it all turned out so badly for his kidnapped friends? Not so, he thinks. Whatever this ur-life may prove to be, we were rescued from great mortal misery; we knew our hours of joy in the winds of Tyree.

  He tries to convey some of this to Giadoc, in their shared Tyrenni-English pidgin. But the proud young alien is hard to persuade; he is too deeply ashamed of what his son has done. Just as Dann thinks he is getting the point across, there is a sense of activity from within. He turns to find the spectral teleprinter at work. What looks absurdly like an ordinary printout is emerging. What has TOTAL intercepted? Dann finds that his dream-hands can take it, his “eyes” can read.

  //LAS VEGAS JAN 19 SPECIAL AP. SPIRITUALISTS PULL GAMBLING COUP. A TEAM COMPOSED OF A HOUSEWIFE, A RETIRED ARMY OFFICER AND AN EX-LOCKSMITH BROKE THE BANK AT FIVE MAJOR LAS VEGAS RESORTS OVER THE WEEKEND, PILING UP A POKER TAKE ESTIMATED IN THE MILLIONS. //THE THREE IDENTIFIED THEMSELVES AS PARTNERS IN CATLEDGE ESP CONSULTANTS FIRM. “IT WAS PRIMARILY AN ADVERTISING STUNT,” MRS. EBERHARD, THE HOUSEWIFE, SAID. “WE WANTED TO SHOW WHAT A QUALIFIED ESP CONSULTANT CAN DO,” MAJOR CHARLES SPROUL ADDED. THE THIRD MEMBER, CHRISTOFER COSTAKIS, STATED THAT THEY INTEND TO USE PART OF THE MONEY FOR A NEW HEADQUARTERS AND RESEARCH ESTABLISHMENT. //CATLEDGE ESP CONSULTANTS HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED AS A TIGHTLY KNIT, CLOSEMOUTHED GROUP OF SEVEN MEMBERS UNDERTHE LEADERSHIP OF DR. NOAH CATLEDGE. DR. CATLEDGE, WHO DISCLAIMS ANY MYSTIC ABILITIES, BUILT UP THE TEAM AFTER A LIFETIME IN ESP RESEARCH. OUR SERVICES ARE AVAILABLE FOR ANY PRIVATE PARTIES WHO MEET OUR FEES,” HE SAID TODAY. “HOWEVER, WE EXPECT TO BE PRIMARILY USEFUL AS CONSULTANTS TO NEGOTIATORS IN BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT.” THE LAS VEGAS HOTEL MANAGERS ASSOCIATION ADMIT THAT NO ILLEGALITY APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN THE WEEKEND ACTION. “WE WERE REALLY WATCHING THESE PEOPLE AS SOON AS THEY STARTED TO ROLL,” ONE MEMBER SAID. “SO FAR AS WE’RE CONCERNED THEY’RE CLEAN.” HOWEVER THE ASSOCIATION STRESSES THAT NO ONE ASSOCIATED WITH THE CATLEDGE FIRM WILL BE ADMITTED TO PLAY IN FUTURE. “THEY’RE AT THE TOP OF OUR S … LIST,” A MANAGER CONCLUDED.// //WILLAMETTE, ILL. JAN 19. TWO UNSEASONAL TORNADOES SWEPT—

  As the visionary paper vanishes from his grasp, Dann finds himself laughing so hard that he has difficulty in explaining coherently to Giadoc.

  “Your son is all right, they’re doing fine,” he manages to convey at last. But it is some time before he can satisfy enough of the alien’s curiosity about Earthly customs to convince him that old Noah has indeed found a means of arranging a satisfactory life for the Tyrenni fugitives. The fact that only seven are mentioned seems reasonable too; the two “children” are doubtless being kept and cared for at home.

  When Giadoc at length departs, Dann chuckles again, remembering Noah’s dream of aliens coming to Earth. Practical as ever, the old man had met his culminant fantasy and meshed it with real life. Well, Dann reflects, hadn’t he really been doing that all along? Getting grants for ESP submarine exercises, for God’s sake. He wishes he could congratulate the old maniac, or at least get a glimpse of what must be his ecstatic state. How had they ever got themselves out of Deerfield? No doubt with Janskelen as Fearing/ Sproul it had been pulled off somehow … And will they raise a line of telepathic mutants? Fabulous …

  When Margaret returns he tries to explain it to her. But she is already too remote; he senses it is unreal to her. She seems chiefly pleased that the program has produced. Perhaps this is not a drifting-off into supernal realities, he thinks, but an aspect of Margaret’s human mind; her concern with structure, relations. Not content, not people. He is reminded of a math teacher he’d had who refused to plug comprehensible numerical values into his equations on the blackboard. Even the child shows signs of it.

  His musings are cut short by Waxman’s signal from outside.

  “Doc, we have a problem out here.” The “voice” is startlingly like Rick’s on the lawn at Deerfield.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s so dark and quiet, where we are. You know? The others are trying things, they keep each other busy as well as they can. Chris and Giadoc are trying to understand some of the stuff here: The women do some exploring. But it’s bad. It’s a real big nothings Even those pictures, those announcement things, have faded out. Old Heagran is worried, he thinks we’ll all trip out to dream-worlds like Ted.”

  “I see.” And he does, he understands how selfish he has been. He has had access to the stars, to her, while the others have nothing but the twilight world of individual minds.

  “I should have realized.” Reluctantly he makes himself say, “Do you want to share with me? Touch me, or whatever?”

  “Thanks, Doc. I mean, thanks. But I thought, something simpler. Like, could she relay out a picture? The circuits must be there. If she could hook in monitors we could see where we are. A check on reality.”

  “Of course. I’ll ask her. By the way, how is Ted? Is he still—?”

  “Yeah. Chris and I work on him now and then. But what is there for him to come out for?”

  “I understand. I’ll ask right away.”

  When he relays Waxman’s request to the apparition he knows as Margaret, the beautiful face listens with unusual intentness.

  “I should have thought of that,” she says quickly, as if in self-reproach. To Dann’s surprise, the remote cloudy profile in the stars has also turned slightly, as though attending. Dream-Margaret goes back into the shadows of the great control room.

  Dann is oddly heartened. There seems to be a chord of empathy here, some strand of responsibility to the lives
outside her mystery. Perhaps it is a remnant of the Task, the transcendent impulse toward rescue. Is it possible that the human Margaret has learned some compassion toward life from this unhuman entity?

  Suddenly she is back again, frowning slightly.

  “Your friends, the aliens … You say they are expert in the transmissions of life?”

  “Oh yes. It seems to have been one of their main modes—” He sees that she does not want details.

  “Good. I will relay also some small signal-trains that are … difficult for me. Perhaps they can comprehend better.”

  He is amazed at her openness, amazed that the goddess would accept life’s cooperation. Perhaps it will be true, what she hinted. Eagerly he tells her, “Giadoc, the one who mind-traveled to other worlds, is the nearest thing we have to an expert on alien life. And he can report in our language.”

  She says only, “I will set it up,” and fades away into the cloudy depths.

  He has not long to wait. An exuberant communication bursts upon him from outside.

  “Man, it’s beautiful. It’s all over, like a million windows!”

  Again Dann is jolted by the incongruity of the young voice, the words that could be describing a sports car, used here for transreal marvels. Well, what does he expect, that Ron or Rick should boom like a cinema spook?

  “The whole outside of this place is covered, and there’re screens all over, where those recording places were. And listen, we’re getting other kinds of transmissions too. Bdello and his people are really into it. I’m picking up something too, Doc, maybe like music. I can’t describe it. I think we’re going to find new forms of consciousness like we never dreamed of.”

  “New forms of consciousness?”

  “Yeah. Like whole planets thinking. Everything interconnected, or—I can’t explain but I really dig it. I used to, I don’t know, dream …”