James Tiptree Jr. - Up the Walls of the World

But imagine being a Father. Father Tivon, she’d be. She has a quick fantasy of herself inventing a new theory of field-forming, or pre-flight training. Conferences, grave excitement. Fame. Reverence. Status. But would she really enjoy being so serious and dedicated, doing nothing but debate with other Fathers? It would mean giving up all hertraditonal low-status life. No more adventures or work; no more planning that barter scheme, for instance. Is Avanil so ambitious she’s forgotten all wildness, all female fun?

Just as she’s thinking how to ask such a personal question, a long-range signal resonates the bands. The Beam is up. Yes—there is the great pale arch of energy above the vortex of the pole.

“We better stop here. Watch.”

“Whew, the Sound is strong up here, Tivonel. Your friend was right, it’s getting dangerous.”

“Never mind that. Hold tight.”

They can see the life-fields of Giadoc and Terenc above them, starting to surge upward toward the focus of the Beam. The energy around them mounts and builds; the two females can feel their own minds being pulled upward. As the flood of power intensifies they lock their field edges together in the effort to hold back.

Just as it seems they must fly upward, the second signal snaps past them and the tension lets go. Above them the great arched dome has towered out of scan. The world below seems drained and flat. Tivonel expands her mind-field from emergency mode.

“That’s it, they’re on the Beam. See how dead they look?”

They jet up to where the two unconscious males are floating darkly, each veiled by only a thin trace of field.

“You stay by Terenc, Avan. See that connection to the Beam? Don’t break it. And listen, don’t get too close when you see the field start to change.”

“How soon will the alien come?”

“It takes awhile. No, look! It’s starting!”

The field around Terenc’s body has begun to thicken and roil as it had with Giadoc. Giadoc himself shows no sign of field-change.

“It’s a smaller field, Avan. It’s not so wild, either. Be careful.”

Terenc’s mantle suddenly screams green with fear. But it’s more of a whimper, not the blazing uproar of Tivonel’s other alien.

“Poor thing.” Confidently, Avan approaches it and deftly flicks back a field-flare that threatens to separate. The stranger does not react. Avan soothes another flare. Then she marshals her own mind-surface firmly toward the ragged stranger. Great winds, she’s making a small Father-field! Tivonel can pick up the waves of reassurance she’s transmitting. This Avan really is something!

Impressed and curious, Tivonel moves closer, keeping a side scan to make sure Giadoc’s body is still quiescent.

“Calm, calm, don’t be afriad,” Avan is sending hypnotically. “ You’re all right, I’m here. I’ll help you understand, just be calm. Smooth yourself, be round like an egg, little one. Speak to your Father Avon. Who are you, little one? Tell Father Avon, are you a female?”

To Tivonel’s awed surprise, the green wailing quiets. Then the creature lights a wobbly cry, “No!” Presently it starts mewling incomprehensible questions: “Where is—I want my—? Help! Rit! Rip! Rik!”

“You’ll have Rit soon,” Avan soothes it, continuing to enfold and drain its field. “Only a little while, now tell me who you are, speak to your Father Avan.”

But the creature jerks in terror and wails anew; apparently it has tried to scan and terrified itself. Fascinated, Tivonel watches Avan Father it back to calmness.

Then she remembers Giadoc’s body—and sees, shocked, that it has drifted out from the wall. While she was preoccupied an alien field has formed around it, and—Oh, no, it’s unfurling Giadoc’s vanes!

Cursing her inattention, Tivonel starts after it. There’s no danger, of course; the currents that flow to the Airfield here are no more dangerous than a baby’s jets. But Giadoc’s big form is catching so much air, it’s tumbling away from her at increasing speed. Better hurry.

As she jets hard across the updraft, Tivonel sees that the alien field around the body is even larger than before, and terribly disorganized. But there seems to be something really wrong; the strange field is lax and trailing weakly, like a dying creature. Giadoc’s mantle is dark, except for a faint blue murmur, “Marg… Marget…”

At any rate it doesn’t appear violent. She’ll be able to haul it back easily, she’s quite near now.

But as she comes in reach, the strange field flares crazily, and Giadoc’s great vanes fan out, catching all the air. A stronger current takes hold and to her utmost horror she sees Giadoc’s body go whirling away, headed straight out to the lethal Airfall.

It’s a race for life now; heedless of her own safety Tivonel pumps all her jets and shoots herself cross-wind, after the huge wheeling form, chasing the body of beloved Giadoc that is carrying the dying alien to both their deaths.

—Pain multiform, unbearable, unending: a gale of knives slashing at helpless flesh, a grey pain-seared universe that bleeds. Daniel Dann is struggling to awake from another of his nightmares. A hell of alien torments assaults his own locked miseries, he is drowning in pain. Oh Christ, stop it!

He struggles up, finds himself in pallid dawnlight in the hot cubicle. The nightmare recedes, leaving him shaking. He tries to focus on the tacky maple chair, the plywood wall. Outside the window mist is wreathing the dim trees.

He is here in this improbable Deerfield, caught up in this insane experiment to take place today. He and the others, who are no longer safe, numbered phantasms but real living people, trapped in their individual predicaments. Oh, no, he doesn’t want this. His hands have found his bag, produced a capsule. Better make it two. Yes, and an antiemetic. Swallow, wait thirty minutes. Why doesn’t he go to the needle? But that he won’t, it’s his last self-respect.

He sits on the sweaty bed looking into the shrouded woods. Beautiful; concentrate on it. Like Oriental art.

But the faces of last night pour relentlessly through his mind. The girls frightened to rigidity, Winona crying bleakly, Costakis cursing and hitting the air with his little fists, Rick hysterical. Noah running about muttering, “A psychic storm, a psychic storm. We may have tapped forces beyond our control!” Only Ted Yost seemed relatively untouched; immunized by his private death perhaps. What the hell had they experienced— each other? The unknown minds in this place? Dann did not inquire but simply distributed phenothiazine shots. “Help us, help us,” Valerie kept whispering. Help us? Save us from this chintz, this plywood, which to her are the tentacles of hostile power. The tentacles perhaps of that Byzantine presence so aptly named Fearing. But what can be do?

He summons up sensible, soothing phrases, fending off a worse threat that he will not, will not think of. This place, this test is inducing mass delusion. Let’s get back to sanity. Since he clearly isn’t going to sleep any more, the thing to do is to get dressed.

But as he lifts a sock, memory bursts through him. Oh God, Margaret! He collapses on the bed, the sock clutched to his face; he is riven by the memory of helplessness and pain and shame! It happened to her. My father went crazy. To mutilate a child. His hand remembers the obscene wound his/her hand had touched. In his head are ghastly clinical photos of ritually mutilated girls. Clitoridectomy. Some tribes practiced it. They did that to her. Unspeakable, bestial.

His throat convulses, threatening nausea. He rubs his fists roughly across his face, thinking, to live on in so damaged a body. What her life must be, the never-ending tension. No relief, no release. I have nothing in common with women… But the beauty of her. The strength. I like cool things…