Up the Walls of the World

by James Tiptree

  “I’m not sure.” Margaret’s brow has the so-human line of preoccupation, Heagren might have been asking her for a tricky computation. “Space, yes, and there is the factor of time. I believe we can mark the world you select, and return to it. But the time-lapse may be many generations of lives on that world.”

  “We can ask no more.” The huge old being’s image colors a lilac so beautiful it seems to need no translation, and he vanishes away.

  Margaret-the-human-woman remains gazing at the place where Heagran’s form had been.

  “A new Task must be found soon,” she says quietly, whether to herself or Dann. “We feel the need. I begin to understand our powers and constraints. But I alone have not the vision to do more than the original program of transporting endangered peoples. After we put his people down on their new world it will be time. “She turns a perfectly normal, purposeful face on Dann. “Ask among the others, my old friend. See what visions they have.”

  It could be a young committeewoman asking for ideas. Only the profile in the starry dimensions behind her warns him that the “ideas” will not be of any Earthly mode.

  “Yes.”

  And he is alone again, his brain whirling. Transporting endangered peoples—using the powers of time to revive lost races—choosing among alternative evolutions for whole planets—perhaps intercepting stellar armadas, or seeking ultimate unknowns—Daniel Dann’s human mind blooms with visions, his long-dead imagination stirs, shedding off rusty sparks.

  Reality has already come unhinged, unrooted to sense or time or place. Now it seems it is about to take flight entirely, undergo transmogrification to undreamt-of realms.

  And is it possible that he, whose life has all but ended so many times, he who was for so long an automaton of pain and Earthly ignominy, he the utterly inconsequential, randomly selected, unqualified—except for that gift he shrinks to use—is it possible that he will be witness to such wonders? Will he come to accept them? “Today we rejuvenate a sun. Tomorrow we give a species the terrible boon of self-conscious intellect.”

  Incredible. Impossible.

  But, apparently, slowly about to begin to happen.

  And—for how long? How long will it go on?

  With that, the deepest, most dire and secret shudder of all shakes him. Dann allows consciousness at last to the word that has been working its unadmitted ferment in the bottom of his soul: FOREVER.

  Immortality?

  Yes, or something very like it. At the least, a time measured not in years or lifetimes but astral epochs. Nothing here changes, has changed, apparently will change or run down for millennia. The mysterious cold energies that sustain them have cycled, it appears, for stellar lifetimes. There seems no reason they should not continue to an approximation of eternity.

  An eternity of unimaginable projects? Yes—and an eternity too of Waxman’s young voice, of Heagran’s sublimity, of Frodo’s grief and Tivonel’s laugh and Giadoc’s persistent How and Why and What, and all the rest of it. The trivial, ineluctably finite living bases of their unreal lives loom up before him like an endless desert to be traversed on foot, under a sky raining splendor. The close-up limiting frame around the view of infinity.

  Can we take it? Will we go mad?

  Heagran has said they will all change, he reflects. Perhaps the constant mind-touching will merge them gradually, affect even Margaret. Perhaps we will become like one big multifaceted person, maybe that will be the solution. Or maybe the fused minds will be incompatible. We could become a hydra-headed psychopath.

  But Margaret, he thinks; she’s in control of us all, really. She could do something, put us out or freeze us if it came to that. But then she would be alone forever. Hurt strikes the node of nothing that had been his heart. For her sake we must, I must, stay sane. Hang on. Maybe it will be great, a supernally joyous life.

  But—eternity?

  A cold elation and foreboding mingle in his mind.

  What have I learned, he wonders. Voyager between worlds, I have been privileged beyond mortal man. I have met an alien race, I have encountered endless unknown things. What great changes has all this wrought in me? What transformations have I suffered to make me worthy of a place in such a drama? To witness, perhaps participate in the fates of worlds? To enjoy something like immortal life? What great contribution will I make to the symbiosis?

  Nothing, he reflects wryly. Not one tangible thing.

  I have only what I had before, a little specialized knowledge of the workings of bodies we no longer possess. Beyond that, only my old compound of depressive sympathy and skepticism about brave new claims, however appealing. If we actually meet Jehovah or Allah or Vishnu out here I would still take my stand on the second law of thermodynamics.

  What in the name of life can make mine worthy of such perpetuation? What do I ever learn but the same old lessons—that people are people, that pain is bad; that good is too often allied with vulnerability and evil with power. That absolutes are absolutely dangerous: Bethink ye, my lords, ye may be mistaken. That one can do ill in the name of doing well, and error buggers up the best laid plans. That even the greatest good of the greatest number is no safeguard—Tyree was burned because it was in the path of the destruction that saved a galaxy.

  I don’t know a single distinguished philosophy, he thinks, except perhaps my respect for Bacon’s Great Machine. Or wait—Spinoza, when he changed one word in the ecclesiastical definition of truth. The Church called it the “recognition of necessity.” Spinoza called it the “discovery of necessity,” and for that they persecuted him because it undermined all authority.

  But what new great necessities have I discovered, beyond the old necessity of kindness? And, he thinks, I am apt to be slow to discover any in this future which seems all too unconstrained. Some great thinker should be here in my place. Waxman with his boyish fervors about new modes of consciousness is more deserving of this life than I.

  I’m not going to be reborn as the embryo of humanity transcendent in the cosmos. I’ll just be me.

  As he has been thinking these bleak thoughts beneath the radiant processions of suns within the nucleus, a small presence has come quietly close to him.

  It is the child, he sees, seeming younger than usual; that incarnation of Margaret which perhaps holds all her unscarred wonder and delight. Ordinarily they rarely touch. But such is his distress now that his hand goes out unthinkingly and strokes her thin shoulder. She does not move away but turns on him a smile of elfin beauty.

  As he looks down into her large eyes his worries fade somewhat. Even his lack of intellectual grandeur seems less important.

  Well, he thinks, there is one thing I can do, do always. Even if it comes to eternity, I will still have that. He is almost sure of it, knows it beyond reason.

  No matter how long the future stretches or what it holds, He will carry into it his love.

  Chapter 28

  Tivonel, bright spirit from the winds of Tyree, is still on her life-way although in dark and surpassing strangeness among the stars. The energy-configuration that is her essence glides from point to point in the vastness of the Destroyer—no, we have to call it the Saver now, she thinks—with the skill with which her winged body had once breasted Tyree’s gales.

  Gladly she would travel faster, but she is not alone. Her friends Marockee and Issalin flow alongside, equally impatient. They must all keep to the slow pace of the unskilled Fathers they bring with them.

  She and the others are returning from the great mind-dream of Tyree, or Tyree-Two as the yumans call it. They are escorting Father Daagan and Mercil to confer for a last time with Eldest Heagran. Behind them all comes the big life-field of Father Ustan. And thanks to the winds he was with us, Tivonel thinks; Ustan had remained outside the dream-world to ensure they would be able to pull free.

  “Whew, that was strong. Again, thanks, Tivonel.”

  It is Marockee’s mind-touch. Marockee had almost lost herself in the beauty of the dream-winds, the magic
of remembered life. Tivonel had to pull her to Ustan’s grasp. And all three of them had to use their strengths to help break out the two young Fathers who had stayed so long in the powerful multiminded fantasy of home.

  Tivonel herself had reveled in the false Tyree, in the zestful illusion of flight and her visit to the rich recreation of Deep where the Fathers and children stay. With so many orphans, the surviving Paradomin and any others who wish to try are caring for them under the supervision of real Fathers. They’re doing a pretty good job, too, Tivonel thinks, but of course the children don’t grow. It’s good practice, they’ll all have to do it when they go to that new world.

  But she herself hadn’t been trapped in Tyree-Two, not to forgetfulness To her it had remained a lovely mirage, a tiny island created by living minds in a corner of huge dark reality.

  I’ve changed, she thinks. I used to be just like Marockee, all female action and fun. It’s because of Giadoc; I’ve caught something from him. And maybe my time with that kind, funny alien, Tanel. But I’m not getting Fatherly, I don’t care about status like the Paradomin. And it isn’t sex—yearning for Giadoc, either. Not anymore, not here.

  She chuckles ruefully to herself, acknowledging that she will never know again the ecstasy of physical sex in the Wind. Marockee told her that some couples tried that in Tyree-Two. But of course it didn’t work. With no egg, what could you expect?

  No, it’s not sex, what she feels for Giadoc. It’s the Hearer part of him I’ve caught, she thinks, gliding effortlessly onward in the strange, exciting dark. Yes, and it’s more than that too, it was the waiting and thinking of him, it made me understand more. And when I found him so near death and we merged. Things like that never ordinarily happened on Tyree. Males were just exciting to have sex with until they became Fathers and you sparcely saw them again. I know Giadoc in this deep, funny way, she thinks, not understanding that her language has no word for a human sense of love. She wonders briefly if old Omar felt something like that for Janskelen. Whatever, she will stay here with Giadoc no matter what the others do. She suppresses the mixed tingle of fear and excitement the thought brings.

  “Are you really staying in the Destroyer when everybody goes out to that new world?” It’s Marockee again.

  Tivonel notices that they have outpaced the slower males, and checks.

  “You mean the Saver. Yes, I am.” Again the slight shiver.

  “How can you, Tivonel? What’ll there be to do?”

  “Oh, there’ll be plenty of adventures among the Companions. Ask Giadoc or Tanel. Besides, how do you know they’re going to like being big white plenyas, or whatever those bodies are?”

  “But they’ll have real bodies and real winds. And the Great Field of Tyree will be with them.” Marockee’s mind-tone is full of ambiguous longing. Tivonel knows her friend is in agonies of indecision whether to go or stay. Well, she’ll just have to make up her own mind about that. She replies only. “We’ll have Heagran. He’s the spirit of Tyree, too.”

  “Well, I’m staying here,” puts in Issalin firmly. “You wait, when they get out there the males will take all the eggs again, just like Tyree. Even if those bodies are supposed to be combined male and female, they’ll find some way. And I know the mind that works with the Saver is female, so I’m staying with you.”

  “Well said in friendship,” replies Tivonel. Privately she considers that Issalin’s head is a little wind-blown if those are her reasons, but she’s glad of the company.

  “If we ever find the yuman world where A van went maybe I’d go there,” Issalin goes on. “I’ve been talking a lot with that female-Father Winona. I’d see they got the status!”

  “More power to you. Speaking of things to do,” Tivonel interrupts herself, “There’s Sastro and that wild alien, over that way. I’m going to check on them. Father Ustan!” she sends politely. “I’ll rejoin you later. Eldest Heagran will want news of what they have found.”

  And that’s a fact, she thinks, shooting off at high speed while the others continue on their decorous way. But the real fact is I’m curious.

  From this distance she can just pick up the calm life-signal of big Sastro, one of the elders who are staying with Heagran in the Saver. His signal is modulated by the uncanny flickering emanation of the creature they had picked up out of space. The pulsations were thought to be fear by those who first went out to help him, but now it’s clear that his life-energy is periodic in this odd way. Weird!

  As she approaches she picks up also the emanations of one of the Saver’s pictorial nodes or screens, which for some time now have been showing scenes of the world the Tyrenni will go out to. The group seems to be clustered around it. And now Tivonel can recognize another big life-field—the yuman Valeree with whom she’s had many friendly contacts. Valeree is trying to learn the alien creature’s language—good luck to her. Beside her in the queer flicker of the alien’s field are two other Tyrenni energies; a male and female Tivonel doesn’t know well, from Tyree-Two.

  “Greetings, Father Sastro and to you all.” She extends a decorous receptor-node, ignoring the alien.

  “Hello Tivonel,” Valeree replies. “Listen, try touching it carefully. I think it will answer.”

  Winds, they must have really calmed it down! Cautiously, Tivonel extends a tentative probe. “Greetings.”

  “Gree—tin” it sends faintly, accompanied by such a flash of mental green that Tivonel jumps away.

  “It’s scared to death! Why haven’t you fixed it?”

  “Do not be foolish,” Sastro reproves her. “Do you imagine a Father does not know his work? It appears, young Tivonel, that on this being’s world the color you sensed is the hue of harmony and life.”

  “It’s a good color on ours too, Tivonel,” Valeree adds. “Your people may have to get used to some strange effects when they go down. I see that world as your colors of pain and fear, but on ours they mean fair winds and joy.”

  “Whew.”

  Tivonel slides onto a node near the projection and studies the mental picture again. It’s a beautiful scene, even if it’s at wind-bottom. Great mounds or crags are looming way up into the wind. She can sense feathery spume whirling by. Far below is a great wet foaming surface, what the yumans call an ocean or sea. A huge, pale six-limbed flying form plummets down past her to snatch something from a floating raft, then soars up to perch on solidity, eating the thing from its claspers. High overhead a dozen others are soaring, evidently rejoicing in the gales. The scene is radiant. It does look like a suitable home for life. Of course if all that is going to turn out to be green and blue the Tyrenni will be in for an adjustment. Well, maybe the bodies’ sensors will take care of that.

  “Good that you came by, young Tivonel.” Sastro’s mind-touch cuts short her reverie. “Tell the Eldest that this alien has decided to go to the new world with our people. Tynad and Orcavel here brought word that it is accepted. It seems that it has skills which may be useful to them. For example, it knows how to handle much hard matter. And how to generate heat should that be needed. I confess I understand little of this, but your friend Valeree assures me it could be needed on such a world.”

  “We call it ‘fire’,” Valeree puts in. “Yes, it could be very useful. That’s what got it out here, things made of hard stuffs and fire.”

  “Is it a male or a female?” Tivonel asks, studying the curiously pulsing glow of the alien’s life.

  “It’s both. They mate together and both bear eggs, like those animals down there. So that’s another reason it would fit in. It had eight limbs, like some creatures on my world, and it used to fly on a bag or thread. It showed me mind-pictures, that’s how I learned its words. Their sky was full of flyers. But you have no idea how strange. It says it was sent out of its world as a punishment.”

  “But our people don’t want to take a criminal with them!”

  “I don’t think you’d call it a crime. It seems to have questioned some command about not flying too high.”

&nb
sp; “Great winds, that’s not a crime!”

  “It was there. So they built a, a pod, and sent it out of the sky. They’ve done it before, this being expected it. It hoped to reach another world. It had no idea how far they were.”

  Tivonel digests this extraordinary oddity. “It sounds like a crazy female to me. Wanting to explore right through the High.”

  Valeree laughs. “More like you, Tivonel. We have a word for what it’s really like. Tell Tanel, he’ll explain. It feels like a jock, a typical jock. It’ll do much better in a real place than this mind-world. Like our Kirk and his pet animal, they’re going down too.”

  “A jock? I will, Valeree-friend.” Tivonel makes her farewells, remembering she will never meet the other two Tyrenni again. “Fair winds on your new world.”

  “Fair winds to you who stay, Tivonel.”

  She glides off, reflecting. It’s going to be a lonesome moment when all the other Tyrenni leave. Giadoc has explained how it will be: a sort of wall or shield will form around the nucleus, separating those who stay from the pull of the outgoing Beam. She’ll be inside with Giadoc and the others. But it’ll be lonesome—think of feeling all the lives of her people, the life of Tyree itself, sliding out forever to the dark, down to that strange world, never to be known again. Brr. It’ll be sad for us all.

  But we’ll see them lodge in the bodies of those flying things, come to themselves and take up real life again. They say it will be gentle; people will have time to choose the ones they want. It won’t be like the time she had voyaged to the yuman world and just fallen into the nearest mind. Tanel says that the Destroyer—the Saver—knows how to do this. It was the thing it was supposed to do, if it hadn’t been asleep or crazy or whatever it was before Tanel’s friend came.

  Yes, it’ll be a lonely feeling, she thinks again, counting over those who will remain. Giadoc and Heagran, of course. And Ustan has decided to. And the two elders Sastro and Panad, who won’t part from Heagran. And the young, bitter Father Hiner, whose child was so tragically lost at the last minute on Tyree. We could have Orva the Hearer’s Memory-Keeper too, but Heagran says he must go with the others to carry Tyree’s history to the new world, since Kinto was lost. Hiner is studying with him to be Memory-Keeper here.