James Tiptree Jr. - Up the Walls of the World

“Help, Father Scomber? I do not believe so. You will of course find all details in the transmitted memory. However, you may question our Hearer Giadoc, who has done most of this work.”

Appreciatively, Tivonel watches Giadoc plane forward, his beautiful field so alive with love of knowledge.

“That’s my friend,” she signs to Marockee.

“A male ?” Marockee sparkles with amusement.

“Not what you think. Wait.”

“Briefly, Father Scomber,” signs Giadoc, “we have touched many life-forms without true intelligence. Most living worlds carry only lower animals and plants. Only on seven have we found intelligent beings, and on four of those I was able to merge long enough to understand something of their life. They are all unimaginably different from us. For example, those I touched lived in the depths of their worlds, and their worlds had no Wind.”

“No Wind!” Astonished flickers race across the Deepers’ mantles. “They live in the Abyss?”

“Yes.” Giadoc mind-field is radiant with the intensity of his interest. “And they live among and employ a huge variety of solid matter! They—” With visible effort he checks himself. “But, as to their individual lives, those we know are brutish and short. Their minds are chaotic, resembling animals. They seem unable to communicate normally. Yet despite all this, we came on two worlds whose beings have actually developed the power to transport themselves physically to another nearby world! We are holding contact with one now. But—” He checks himself again. “This cannot possibly help us.”

“I agree.” Scomber’s tone is deep and deliberate, his large field is dense as if with some unknown intent. Behind him several Fathers are holding themselves very rigidly. Even the Paradomin are silent and tense. Tivonel’s own field tingles with their transmitted tension. What is going on here? She finds herself suddenly afraid to guess, afraid for Giadoc.

“Tell us more, Giadoc,” signs Scomber. “When you merged with the intelligent beings, were you, yourself in control? Did others of the race attack you? How long could you remain there?”

“Enough!” Heagran flashes loudly. “Scomber, enough!”

“No, Heagran. It is my Father-right to know. Let Giadoc answer.”

“I condemn this.” Heagran enfurls himself in a gesture of solemn negation. Tivonel sees that all the Deepers’ fields are aroused and pulsing, some eddying near Scomber, some toward Heagran. She doesn’t want to let herself think of what this is leading to.

“Marockee, this is bad.” Her friend flickers assent.

“Well, young Giadoc, tell us what occurred,” Scomber signs firmly.

Slowly, abstractedly, Giadoc replies. “In my last two contacts I found myself in control of the body, the physical habits of the alien being. The nearby aliens did not seem to notice me. I was able to remain as long as the Hearers here held the Beam. You understand, Father Scomber, that by placing ourselves around the circle of the Wall and uniting our efforts, we have created a great amplification of our single efforts? We call this the Beam. It seems to be sensitive to life-energy on other worlds. Perhaps it draws on the Great Field of Tyree itself.”

As he signs, his field and mantle have expanded into a rich, strange play of energies, as if he was dreaming. Tivonel understands; he is so carried away by his love of far knowledge that he is only half-conscious of Scomber and the import of his words. At the mention of the mythical Great Field, several Fathers have darkened their mantles respectfully.

“The Great Field?” whispers Marockee. “Tivonel, is it real?”

“Ssh. I don’t know.” Tivonel is fixed on the menacing figure of Scomber, who has shown only perfunctory reverence.

“I asked you what occurred, not theory,” Scomber flashes. “On this alien world, did you remain yourself? Were you in full control of the body of the being?”

“Yes indeed, Father. It was… extraordinary,” Giadoc signs dreamily. “I could move, in one case I could speak. The mind uses the speech-habits of the body, you see. Of course I knew nothing of the individual’s thoughts or memories—”

“While you were so merged, where did the alien mind-field go? Was it still present around you?”

Giadoc hesitates, his mind-field abruptly changing structure. The dismayed flow of pattern on his mantle tells Tivonel that he has at last grasped Scomber’s thrust.

“It was not… present,” he replies slowly.

“Then where was it? Answer me, young Giadoc!”

“I am not sure, since my own life-mind was there.” Giadoc pauses, and then signs in the grey tones of reluctance, “I am told that another being’s life-field, or traces of it, appeared around my body here.”

“Aha!” Scomber’s mantle flares sharply. His exclamation is echoed by other fathers, and, to Tivonel’s surprise, on the smaller forms of the Paradomin.

“That’s it! We have it!” Scomber turns to the crowd behind him. “Here is our means of escape from the death of Tyree!”

Excitement such as Tivonel has never seen sweeps through the massed crowd. She herself can only think in numbed horror, life-crime. Life-crime.

“Silence!” Old Heagran blazes in commanding light. “This cannot be! Young Giadoc, you have gone too far in your unFatherly pursuit of knowledge. And you, Scomber—your thoughts are criminal! What you propose is vile. In the name of the Winds, are you mad? Are we to listen to a Father openly propose life-crime? Be silent or return to Deep!”

“No, Heagran. Hear me!” Scomber spreads his great mantle in formal, proud appeal, deliberately displaying the margin of his Father-pouch. “It is for our children, Heagran! We face the death of our world, our race, our young. The children! When our children are burning, must we not face the unthinkable if it will save them?”

Several Fathers behind him echo in deep tones, “Our children.” But old Janskelen suddenly speaks out.

“Father Scomber! What about the beings we would bring here to die in our place?”

“You have heard Giadoc,” Scomber answers scornfully. “These beings are little more than animals. Shall we cherish the lives of animals while condemning our own children to die, as you have heard these near worlds die?”

At that instant, as if in echo of Scomber’s words, a far faint transmission comes from the sky, striking them with the now-familiar wave of pain. Somewhere another world is dying. Tivonel and Marockee mind-fold each other, trembling. But this death-cry is faint, occluded by the horizon of Tyree. The pangs pass, leaving them shaken.

As she disengages from Marockee, Tivonel sees the huge forms of Scomber and Heagran still implacably confronting each other. The Deepers behind them have separated into two groups. The larger group is behind Scomber and among them Tivonel sees Avanil and her Paradomin. Low red flickers of unmistakable anger are muttering through the crowd.

Tivonel is aghast; she has seen fits of rage among the Lost Ones, but never anything like this: anger among the civilized Fathers of Tyree!

“Father Heagran! Father Scomber!” Lomax jets forward between them, his mantle brilliant in neutral white.

“Allow me to remind you that we are forgetting vital facts! Perhaps we may solve this problem without loss of ahum. Father Scomber’s Plan, though it is repugnant to me personally, is totally premature. We don’t yet know if it is possible.”

“What do you mean?” growls Scomber.

“Three problems,” signs Lomax determinedly. “First, only highly trained Hearers like Giadoc have so far attempted mind-touch. We don’t know if an untrained person, not to mention a child, could do it. Even if you wish to escape by such abhorrent means, can a child travel the Beam and merge with alien life? Second, it is possible that our alien minds would be detected and regarded as criminal. What good would it do to send our people away only to have them killed as life-stealers? And thirdly, most importantly, we do not know whether our minds can stay on an alien world without the support of the Beam. Will you be drawn back here when the Beam collapses, as it must? All these things must be tested before you can think of such a deed.”