James Tiptree Jr. - Up the Walls of the World

“Indeed yes,” big Elix tells her. “I now see you understand well. But I myself have only reared one. Strange female Father-of-four, I salute you.”

He planes down before her, his mantle a respectful lilac.

“Well!” Winona softens. “I certainly didn’t mean to be rude. I’d love to hear about your baby.”

“But this is against nature!” Another Father protests. “It’s unwindly! Before I accept such nonsense I’d like to see this female do some Fathering. Let her try to calm this one if she can!”

His field ripples, his mantle lifts slightly. Dann sees that he is gingerly controlling a Tyrenni child. The young one suddenly contorts violently, its little mantle breaking into bright green cries. “What—what are you doing to me? Get out of my mind you, get out—!” It rises to terrified yells.

“Is that one of my people?” Dann asks above the din.

“Yes. It was Colto’s daughter.”

“That could be anybody,” he tells Winona, and then cries “Look out! Stop!”

She has moved straight at it, her field streaming toward its small lashing one.

“Don’t get caught in its panic. I know.”

Winona pauses, marshaling her energies.

“These people have mind methods,” Dann tells her. “You have to watch out it doesn’t grab you.”

“Poor little thing,” she murmurs absently. And then to his consternation she advances on the screamer, her big field arching out. “Get away!” howls the small one. The other Father recoils, releasing it. Finding itself free the angry youngster jets its small body hard at Winona’s midsection.

They collide in a confusion of airborne membranes and roiling fields. And then Dann sees that Winona has awkwardly extruded her small claspers and grasped the attacker. Meanwhile her big field has formed a strange dense webwork, englobing and somehow smothering the flailing energies.

“No, no,” he hears her say calmly above the green squeals. “Stop that, dear. Listen to Winnie. You’re all right now dear, you’re all safe.”

Her voice is only faintly shaky as the two struggling bodies tumble slowly, fields merged. Dann sees with astonishment that she is mastering the situation; she’s going to be all right. When they come to rest on the wind; the panicky one is calm and quiescent under her grasp.

“It attacked her!” Elix is saying indignantly. “Fathers, did you see that?”

Dann realizes now that he has never seen physical conflict, only rare body-contact on this world. More wonders.

“Who is it, Winnie?” he asks. “Can you tell?”

“It’s Kendall Kirk,” she replies. The creature gives a last convulsive leap. “No, no, Kenny dear. Don’t worry, you’re in a nice safe place. Winnie’s here. Winnie won’t let them hurt you.”

Kendall Kirk? Oh, no! thinks Dann. To his ears, the muffled out-cries sound like garbled swearing. What to do with Kirk, here?

“He’s changed,” Winona murmurs fondly. “He’s like a baby. They frightened him, touching his mind. He wants his—I can’t say it. His pet animal.”

“Pet animal?” Suddenly Dann remembers. “Tivonel, can you bring over the body that has that animal’s mind? I think it may belong to this one here.”

“You mean poor old Janskelen’s? Come on, Marockee.”

As they go, Dann asks Elix, “What did you do to this mind?”

“I had to drain it very deeply, Tanel, It was wild with fear and rage, you saw it attack your Winona. We re-formed it to a younger plane. It will recover. But is it not one of your wild ones, or a crazy female?”

“No,” Dann admits. “What you have there is an adult male of my world. Quite a high-status one, in fact.”

At this news several Fathers’ mantles chime with incredulous disdain. “Surely Young Giadoc spoke the truth when he said other worlds were brutish,” one comments. But Elix adds more gently, “You are not like this, Tanel. Why?”

He doesn’t know.

Tivonel and her friends are guiding in the body of old Janskelen. Its small field stirs, its mantle flickers with wordless whining.

“Winnie, I think Kirk’s animal, its mind or whatever, maybe in here. Do you want them together?”

At his words the body comes to life. With a flurry of vanes it jets down under Winona and snuggles up beneath her sheltering mantle. Dann can see its field joining with Kirk’s.

Fantastic. So dogs operate on the spirit plane too, he thinks a trifle crazily. The Labrador’s mind seems calm; perhaps it is a “father” too. He admires the creature’s fidelity while deploring its taste.

“There now, Kenny dear,” Winona soothes. “Here’s your little old friend! You’re happy now, aren’t you?”

“Kenny dear,” indeed. Is it possible that the wretched ex-lieutenant before them is to Winnie’s motherly spirit an appealing small boy? More power to her. Live in the absurd moment. Don’t think of the dread rising Sound, forget what’s ahead for them all.

The curious Fathers have crowded close.

“I believe you now, Tanel.” It’s a male he recognizes as Ustan. “The female’s power is there, if poorly formed. But which of us could have coped with such a bodily assault?” His big vanes shiver.

“Our world is very different,” Dann tells him. “We live without wind and with much contact with many hard things. And we cannot see minds as you do; we deal with each other only by speech and touch.”

As he says this, a tendril of doubt sneaks through his materialist soul. That really was quite a demonstration Winnie put on with Kirk. Is it possible he has disbelieved too much?

“Amazing,” the Fathers are murmuring. “I for one would like to learn more of your strange Father-ways,” Ustan says. “They touch our deepest philosophy.”

“I too,” Elix agrees, and other Fathers echo him.

“I’m sure she’d love to tell you,” Dann says. “Winona! If Kirk has calmed down, may I present Father Ustan and some friends? It seems they want to talk with you about the fine points of raising kids. By the way, you better get used to being a top-status person here. You’re something like a visiting—” He wants to say “official” but has to settle for “Elder.”

“Oh, my!” Winona’s tone has the old flutter, but it doesn’t sound quite so silly here. “Of course, I’d love to. Caring for babies and people is the one thing I know. Now Kenny dear, you’ll be all right. Winnie’s not going away. How do you do, ah, Father—”

“Ustan.” Dann completes the introduction and moves off, mentally chortling. From surplus person to instant celebrity. Enjoy it while it lasts. If Fathers here are anything like mothers on Earth, Winona will be occupied indefinitely. And he has others to look after.

Tivonel jets alongside him.

“Why are you laughing, Tanel?”

“It’s hard to explain. On my world, fathering is so low-status it isn’t even part of the—” Garble warns him that he simply cannot say “Gross national product.” “It’s fit only for females,” he concludes lamely, aware that nothing is getting through.

“So your females must be very big and strong, to take the eggs.”

“No, they’re generally weaker than males.”

“But then why do you let them take them? You must be very unselfish. Or is it your religion? Oh, Giadoc would love to hear about that!”

“I’ll explain sometime if I can. Where are the rest of my people?”

“Down there. Oh, look, by Iznagel! How weird.”

The scarred female who had been guarding Ron is now nervously hovering over a tangle of two confusingly mingled forms. One figure is smaller—a female. For a minute Dann thinks he is seeing some sexual attack, then recalls this world’s ways. Their mental fields are coalescing in a most peculiar way.