James Tiptree Jr. - Up the Walls of the World

“The Beam is down! Giadoc—they’ve got to find him!”

Tivonel is jetting past, heading up for Lomax. Dann follows dazedly. If the Beam, the connection with Earth is gone, is he marooned here to die of radioactivity? He doesn’t really mind; he has, it seems, died several times over already. Another won’t hurt. Maybe he can help Ron.

He becomes aware that his only real emotion, as he jets up through the gales of Tyree, is irritation with this unknown character Giadoc. If he and Tivonel are to perish together, it would be nice if she would forget about Giadoc long enough to remember him. The absurdity of his thought strikes him; he chuckles inwardly. Extraordinary what one does in apocalypse. Extraordinary, too, to think that this Giadoc is somewhere on Earth, walking about in Daniel Dann’s old body. Dann wishes him joy of it, consciously savoring his winged youth and strength. Pity it won’t last. Well, good to have known it… The green screeches coming from below nag at him, but he puts them aside.

They reach Lomax to find him pale and drained but steady. His aide, Bdello, is still feebly righting himself, his life-field in disarray. Dann is reminded of an exhausted medium, or perhaps an inventor crawling out of the wreckage of his latest effort.

Beside them hovers the huge form of Father Heagran. Tivonel halts respectfully.

“Lomax, I have changed my view,” Heagran is saying. “We cannot watch the children die. I cannot. But neither will I commit life-crime upon intelligent beings. Therefore I request you and your Hearers to find a world with only simple life-forms. Animals only, you understand. If you can find one such we will bear the children there. It will not be life as we know it,” he says in deep sadness. “It will be degradation. But perhaps in centuries to come, perhaps something of Tyree will grow again.”

The tragic colors of his voice are echoed on the mantles of the Elders nearby.

“But Heagran,” Lomax protests, “my people are exhausted, in shock. Some are already scorched at the high stations. We cannot raise a Beam. And the accursed Destroyer is blocking half the sky.”

“You must try.”

“Very well. Those of us who can will probe singly, as we used to do.”

“Chief Lomax!” bursts out Tivonel. “You have to rescue Giadoc, you must. You know he’s trying to return.”

The others darken in disapproval, but Lomax says gently, “Giadoc is beyond reach if he is on the alien world, little Tivonel. The Destroyer is between us. If he was on the Beam, he is already lost.”

“He’s trying to get back, I know it!”

“Then it is possible he will sense our probes.” Lomax turns away with finality.

“He’ll find a way,” Tivonel mutters rebelliously.

I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though Hell should bar the way, Dann quotes to himself. Or is he thinking of the poem about the girl who waited in Hell for her false lover? Never mind—the meaning of the terrified shrieks has suddenly got through to him.

“Tivonel! Haven’t more of my people come here! In those bodies, the way Ron and I did? I should go to them, I must help them if I can.”

“Why, the Fathers are fixing them, Tanel. Winds, you don’t think they’d let that go on!”

Dann look-listens; in fact the agonized green has subsided to intermittent squalls coming from the group below them, where Scomber was. Only the body containing Ron is nearby, its mantle murmuring in dreamy light, Iznagel still faithfully guarding it.

“I should go down there to them anyway, Tivonel.”

“Right. Iznagel, you better bring that one further down too. Here, I’ll help.”

She and Iznagel start gliding with Ron’s huge body down the wind. As they go Dann hears Iznagel saying, “It’s like an animal, Tivonel. I think they’re crazy.” Tivonel shushes her, explaining that Dann is one of the “crazy” aliens. “Oh, Tanel, meet Iznagel of the High.”

Dann accepts the introduction absently; he has made out three or four small groups around bodies from which shrill yells are still erupting. Who will these new displaced human minds be? People from Deerfield? Good Lord, what if it’s Major Fearing? Or is the Beam physically random? Could these be members of the French senate, or a group of Mongolians?

The figures are shrouded in plant-life, but he can clearly see a big male hovering over each, his energies blanketing the form beneath. Green cries flash, mind-flares are being pursued, recaptured, somehow molded down to dark. It reminds Dann of firemen converging on stubborn little blazes. Only the big body of Scomber appears to be permanently dark, untenanted. It must be truly dead.

“We can’t go closer, not till they’re drained.”

The idea of electroshock jumps to his mind.

“What do you mean, drained? Are they being hurt, will they be all right?”

“Of course. Drained means drained, like Ustan did you. Resolving all the bad emotions, channeling the energy back. My father used to do it to me a lot when I was a child, I had tantrums. You don’t know anything, do you?”

“Apparently not.”

He watches the nearest group, marveling. Is he actually seeing the direct reconstruction of a human mind, the reformation of a Psyche? What a therapeutic technique! But who are these human minds?

Father Heagran has joined the group; there seems to be still some problem, judging by the uncontrolled screams.

“Oh!” Iznagel cries. “They’re taking the babies out of the Father’s—Oh, how dreadful! I can’t look.”

“They have to,” Tivonel tells her. “Don’t you understand? Those probably aren’t babies. I mean the minds may be grown-up adults. And the Fathers aren’t their Fathers. They have to take them apart.”

But Iznagel only mutters bluely, “It’s indecent,” and furls herself in disapproval. Dann has the impression that she is peeking, like a matron caught at a porno film.

“Will they be all right? I mean, as babies?”

“Oh yes. Those are pretty big kids.”

I should get over there. I’m a—” He tries to say doctor but it comes out “Body-Healer.”

“Not while they’re Fathering, Tanel. Listen, if you’re a Healer, don’t you think it’s getting bad up here? I feel more burning, and it’s like I’d eaten something dead. Shouldn’t they move down?”

“Yes.” What’s the use of saying that he thinks it is much too late. These bodies must have taken a lethal dose already unless their nature is very different. “Yes. You should go down right away.”

“Not me, them. I’m staying by Lomax. Giadoc will come, you’ll see.”

“Then I must stay with you. I have his body.”

“Well… yes.” A warm thought brushes him; he is mollified.

The activity around the nearest bodies is apparently completed. All but one Father move away.

“I’m going to them.”

“I guess it’s all right now. Fair winds, Iznagel.”

The bodies turn out to be small; two females, Dann guesses. What minds lurk there? They are being guarded by a seemingly elderly big male, his vanes noded, his huge life-aura complexly patterned but pale.

“Greetings, Father Omar. This is the alien Tanel, he is a Healer.”

The old being signs a formal response, then says abruptly, “To think that my Janskelen has committed life-crime! It is beyond bearing. After all our years!”

“I’m sure she didn’t mean to go, Father. She was trying to stop them. That Beam pulls you.”

“Nonetheless, she went.”

They survey the bodies. Dann notices that the life-auras seem quiet and lax. Is it possible he is seeing human minds?

“That’s Janskelen,” Tivonel flicks a vane. “And that’s Avan’s friend Palarin. I hope they like your world.”