James Tiptree Jr. - Up the Walls of the World

One of the “minds” is moving.

As assuredly as he can, Dann concentrates on it, saying “Don’t be afraid. I’m a Healer, I’m here like you. Can I help you?”

To his surprise tbe other’s field condenses up sharply, the mantle flickers.

“Ra… Ron… Ron? Ron?”

The light-tone is sleepy, but unmistakable.

“Rick, is that you? Rick! It’s Doctor Dann here, don’t be afraid.”

The field veers sharply toward him, Dann just recalls in time to jerk his attention away. Not another panic!

“Ronnie, are you all right?” The uncertain voice is asking.

“Ron’s all right, Rick. I’m Doctor Dann. Ron is right here, he’ll be awake soon.”

“I know.” Warm color is returning to the words, the life-field is rearranging itself. Almost like a small Tyrenni, Dann thinks. The voice is so absurdly like Rick; was it only hours or an eternity ago that he had heard it tell the yarn about the Japanese time-machine? Incredibilities swamp him.

“I better explain what happened, if I can,” he says.

“I know what’s happened,” the voice says dreamily. “We’re on another world. We’ve been kidnapped by alien telepathic monsters.”

Dann is so taken aback that he can only say feebly, “As a matter of fact… you’re quite right. But don’t worry. They’re friendly, they really are.”

“I know that too,” says the voice of Richard Waxman, drifting in horrendous form upon the far winds of Tyree. Next minute his mind-aura subsides, his body darkens.

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”

“He’s just asleep,” Tivonel says briskly. “You always sleep awhile after you’ve been deep-drained. But look here, Tanel. Janskelen has something really wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

The body of the old female seems to be floating easily, adjusting itself automatically on the uprushing air. It takes Dann an instant to recall that he should look at the important thing, the “field.” When he does he sees that the nebulosity wreathing the body seems decidedly smaller and less structured.

“Do you have plenyas on your world?” Tivonel demands.

“What’s a plenya?”

Instead of answering, Tivonel’s mind-field extends and brushes the sleeping one. She recoils.

“Oh, for wind’s sake, No! How awful.”

“What? What’s awful?”

“That’s an animal’s mind, Tanel. Poor old Janskelen has landed in some dumb animal. Oh, how sad.”

Dann considers. In the back of his mind a Labrador’s tail thumps. Good God. Apparently this Beam stayed focussed right on his group. And will Fearing, God knows who from Deerfield, be here too?

“Tanel, do you realize?” Tivonel is asking. “That’s what’ll happen to us if we do what Heagran says. We’ll be animals. Nothing but beasts. I don’t want to live that way, losing everything. I’m going to stay here and die as myself. I know that’s what Giadoc’ll want. We’ll die here together.”

Another far fire-shriek splits the heavens. Milder this time. It’s starting, all right, Dann thinks. As the uproar dies away he says gently.

“If worst comes to worst Tivonel, it looks as if you may have to die here with me.”

It is so easy this time!

The thread of essence that is Giadoc has felt the tension-release which means that Terenc has left the Beam for an alien mind. Now Giadoc must enter one.

Life is near him; he touches, prepared to push. But there is no need—he finds himself being called, almost pulled into a strangely welcoming matrix. No fear here. He condenses into embodiment so gently that it occurs to him to greet the alien creature. As the displaced mind slides out on the Beam, it seems to leave him with a message: Danger. Take Care.

Extradorinary! What superior creatures, he thinks, establishing himself in the alien sensorium. To show Fatherly concern in the midst of what must be a terrifying experience. There will be no life-crime here; Giadoc resolves it. If he survives this test he will break the Beam rather than send such people to die on Tyree.

Remembering the stranger’s warning he makes no move, but lets the body lie in dark silence as he has found it, while he accustoms himself to the dead air and the weird somatic sensations. Thought flares are flooding around him, extra-energetic in the Beam’s power. He examines them, looking for Terenc. Seven minds in his immediate vicinity, but no Terenc. All are disorganized and seem totally unconscious; he can read them as if he were among animals. He has, he finds, returned to the same place as before. What is exciting them so?

The nearest mind-field is intent on his physical body, its owner is in fact actually touching his limbs. It thinks of itself as Doctoraris, a Body-Healer. And three others nearby seem to be Healers too. They are focussed on a dead person or animal. How bizarre to have so many Healers! It must be due to their dangerous life among solid matter at the bottom of the wind.

Beyond the Healers is a small, excited, simple field—a child or a female? No; it knows itself as “Kirk,” an adult male. Disgraceful!

Beside “Kirk” is the energy-phenomenon he remembers from his last visit: an unidentifiable complex of cold semisentience concentrated in a pod, with tendrils leading farther than he can scan. Some kind of intelligent plant? He probes Kirk’s mind, finds its image as a “console” or “computer,” apparently not alive. Fascinating!

All this has taken Giadoc only an instant, when suddenly a crude alien fear-probe bounces off him and he recalls that there may be danger here. Who tried to probe him? Ah—it came from the mind he met before, the being with multiple names, “Sproul,” “Barr,” or “Fearing,” whom he had greeted. Now it’s stationed apart in a high state of energy, violently compressed and yet drawing attention to itself by a barrage of hostile flares, mainly directed toward himself. This must be the problem the friendly alien had warned him of. This alien seems insanely concerned with ideas of concealment and control; Giadoc decides it would be unwise to attempt to interact with it again until it has calmed down. But he deciphers a useful fact from the repellent chaos of its thought: the body he is in is named “Doctordan.”

Meanwhile the “Doctoraris” mind beside him is clamorously willing him to show signs of bodily life. Giadoc makes a final distance scan-sweep but Terenc does not seem to be in range. Very well. Deliberately he opens Doctordan’s eyes.

The extraordinary silent light of this world bursts upon him, and the wealth of close, rigid outlines, surfaces, discrete movements, disorients him for a moment. It’s hard to identify the mad mute shapes with the mind-fields in his scan. He sorts out the forms of two Healers carrying a sagging thing away; doubtless the dead body they were concerned with. Giadoc is amazed again at the way everything drags downward in this windless place. Even the energy of the Beam seems muted here.

Now Doctoraris is projecting impatience, and, alarmingly, the intention to have him transported elsewhere and do unclear things to his body. Surely Giadoc must prevent this; it wouldn’t be fair to return the friendly alien to some unpleasant situation. Doctoraris’ mouth is opening and closing oddly. As Giadoc notices this he recalls the air-jet language of this world. He has forgotten to activate his “ears.”

He does so in time to hear speech coming from the “Fearing” alien.

“Kirk, you will tell the others that the Omali woman is under treatment for a heart problem. A minor heart problem. Is that clear, Harris?”

The words mean nothing to Giadoc except that they elicit fear-deference from the others. Amazing. But now he must do something if his body is not to be carried away too; his quiescence is being taken as a serious sign.