James Tiptree Jr. - Up the Walls of the World

But before she can do more than gasp through strange organs, a horrible vertigo strikes her. Where is the Wind? Oh, terror, there is no wind. She has fallen into the Abyss!

Primal dread tears the frail connection, sweeps her away. Her being ravels instantaneously back into the void, flees homeward on the Beam in helpless fear. Next instant she has condensed into herself, Tivonel, adrift in disorder on the winds of Tyree.

Shame floods her. She has done exactly what Giadoc had warned her of, she has let herself panic in the strangeness of no wind.

But as she collects herself, her natural spirits revive. She hasn’t really failed the important part. Didn’t she merge and possess the body? Next time she would be able to stay. But where is Giadoc?

There: she finds his silent form, barely outlined in a weird trace of life, almost like a dead person. But it must be all right; he’s still mind-traveling, his life is in some being on that world they touched. Yes; a faint tendril of life-energy seems to run upward toward the great matrix of power arching overhead. The Beam is still holding, the world around her feels drained and dreamlike. Far below her even the Deepers are awed and darkly still.

Suddenly Giadoc’s body stirs. The thin trace of field roils and abruptly swells, losing connection of the Beam. But the field is all wrong, it’s chaotic, ragged, shooting out wild eddies. Has something bad happened to Giadoc?

She jets closer and then recoils as Giadoc’s mantle blasts out a green scream of pain and fear. That can’t be Giadoc’s voice!—and understanding breaks.

This is what they were talking about: an alien mind has come here into Giadoc’s body. This must be one of those strange lives she had touched on that far-off world. The creature is evidently scared to death. There ought to be a Father here to help it.

“Be calm, be calm,” she signs to it, feeling futile. What can words do for this disordered creature? But to her relief the blue-green shrieking quiets somewhat and stammers of other colors appear. It must be trying to speak. Tivonel moves closer, appalled by the whirling chaos of its mind. Like an adult baby. A thought-eddy brushes her with incomprehensible meanings. The lights of the alien speech-patterns steady down. Tivonel can make out the words “What—? where—?”

“Be calm, you’re all right,” Tivonel tries to sound Fatherly.

As she speaks the alien field surges at her and the creature apparently perceives her physically for the first time. A jolt of reciprocal horror shoots through them both. Next second Tivonel is flung bodily away, hurled straight out from the wall as if a super sex-field had thrown her.

But we weren’t even biassed, she thinks, jetting hard to extricate herself from cross-currents. The creature hit my body with its mind; it has some weird power. Fantastic! She can see it awkwardly trying to move now, jetting and wobbling on its vanes. She better get to it before it hurts Giadoc’s body. Only, what can she do?

Just as she nears the wind-wall a deep silent sigh runs through the world and the great energy-arch above collapses like a dream. The Beam has been let down.

The world comes back to normalcy—and to her delight Tivonel sees that Giadoc is back too. There is his beautiful great familiar field around his body again! The poor stranger has been sent back to its horrible windless world.

“Giadoc! Are you all right? I was there but I panicked—”

“Yes, Tivonel.” His tone is warm but colored with the tints of unspoken thought, she can see his dense swifting mind-patterns. “Remember, we must now record our memories and report.”

Belatedly Tivonel recollects that she too must organize a memory. As they plane down she begins to do so, thinking, a proud moment to have a memory for the Recorders of Tyree. Too bad she has to report her fear and flight. But then, she has the interesting experience with the alien.

Orva, the Hearers’ Memory-Keeper, is waiting for them by Chief Lomax.

“You won’t have time for recording once you’re down there,” Orva tells them cheerfully. “Never seen such a whirl-field. More Deepers coming up every minute, too. Bad situation.”

As Giadoc and Orva merge, Tivonel scans down. As Orva said, the crowd below is much bigger: a whirl-field of excitement, fear and babble. She can feel strong mind-projections cutting through the commotion. The senior Fathers must be working to establish calm and order. She hopes Virmet and Marockee have thought about supplying more food.

The life-bands tingle as Giadoc and Orva disengage. Giadoc starts on down while Tivonel offers Orva her own modest field-engram. She has never merged with a senior Recorder before. It is a grave, cool experience, as though she looked for a moment into Time itself.

When he releases her she dives down fast and finds herself intercepted.

“Tivonel! Tell us, what was it like? How was it for females?”

It’s Avanil and two of her Paradomin.

“I don’t know, I was only there a second.” She banks past them. “Come, listen to Giadoc!”

Marockee is waiting in the plant-tangle. When Tivonel pulls up beside her, Giadoc and the elder Fathers are just below. He is recounting his experience verbally, his mind-field a great dreamy swirl.

“—As soon as I felt her make contact I merged with the nearest mind. You realize, Fathers, that there is no choice? You may enter a female, a baby, even an animal, whatever the nearest suitable energy configuration is.”

“Yes, yes,” Scomber says impatiently. “So the female was able to do this? She lived in the alien body?”

“Yes. But, Fathers, this is a terrifying world for the untrained. There is no wind. No wind at all. The bodies drop downward, they must rest upon solid matter. It’s impossible to describe. Tivonel became frightened and came back, and so would most people.”

How good he is, Tivonel thinks. She flushes resentfully hearing Scomber say: “But if she hadn’t been so cowardly she could have lived?”

“Oh yes. The bodies are intelligent and strong. One immediately gains all their senses and their physical habits and coordinations, including their habit of speech, which is of course the most important. One’s verbal intentions are translated, so to speak. I tested this again, after I oriented myself.”

“You actually spoke with these aliens?” old Father Omar asks.

“Yes indeed.” Giadoc’s mind is patterned with excited memories; Tivonel realizes that he is so caught up in his love of strangeness that he has forgotten the purpose of their questions, forgotten even the dire threat to Tyree. Now she can understand it; she herself is so excited by her mind-voyage that she is just coming back to the unpleasant realities.

“Yes, I spoke,” Giadoc is saying. “I was able to interact. You have to understand that their mind-fields are totally disorganized. They are transmitting at random, like a crowd of grown infants, if you can imagine such a thing. They seem unaware of themselves. I was quite pleased to be able to sort out names, suitable speech-greetings and so forth, so I could successfully converse with one of them. They speak by jets of air, without any mantle-language. And they are covered with sheets of plant-matter,” he goes on dreamily.

“Never mind that,” says Scomber impatiently. “Tell us the important point. Were you detected? Do they consider mind-entry illegal?”

Giadoc’s field contracts and focuses suddenly; he has remembered why they are here.

“I cannot be sure,” he says reluctantly. “I did pick up an abhorrence of physical violence from several minds, but of course this must be true in any civilized race. I also detected strong unspecified fears in the alien near me, for instance it became upset wben I spoke its name. But I may have violated some small ritual there.”