James Tiptree Jr. - Up the Walls of the World

“She came right at him!” Iznagel cries. “I couldn’t stop her!”

“It’s a mind-push,” Tivonel exclaims. “We better get a Father.”

“Wait.” Dann planes down beside the rolling figures, half-suspecting what he will find.

“Ron? Ron? Rick, is that you?”

From the subsiding swirl of mantles breaks the lacy orange effect Dann hears as laughter, but no words come.

“Ricky? Ron, I’m Dann. Tell me who’s there.”

Both mantles break into an echoing golden sound. “We’re here. It’s us. We’re… we’re… at last.”

“Don’t worry, Iznagel,” Dann tells her. “That’s his ah, egg-brother with him. I think they need to be close.”

The combined life-energies are settling, forming into a quiet wreath around the two joined forms. The smaller body is plastered on the other’s back.

“It’s like one big person,” Tivonel exclaims.

“Well, I never saw that before,” Iznagel comments, scandalized. “You say they’re actually egg-brothers? I thought that was a myth.”

“No, we have them on our world. Ron, Rick, are you really all right?”

A vague muttering, and suddenly the topmost, half-hidden form speaks alone. “Ron wants me to do the talking, Doc. Yes, we’re all right. Maybe we really are.” Its tone is bright with joy. “Hey, you better call us something new now, we’re not two people anymore.”

“What shall I call you?”

Again the laughter.

“How about Wax, Waxma—you know, Waxman.”

The prosaic earthly sound coming from this figure of nightmare in the realms of dream is too much for Dann. He begins to laugh helplessly, hears himself joined by Tivonel. Iznagel, recovering from her shock, joins too.

“Hey, that’s neat,” the new “Waxman” chuckles. “Waxing means growing. We just did.”

“Well.” Dann finally composes himself. It’s hard, even in the face of what must come; this world of Tyree seems apt for joy. “I have to find the others. You’ll be all right with Iznagel. Ask her to give you a memory, by the way. A memory about this world. She’ll explain. You’ll love it. I’ll be back later.”

“Right down there,” says Tivonel, and planes out in a beautiful swerving helix down past huge rafts of twinkling vegetation.

Dann follows, conscious again of the power and freedom of his new body, refusing to feel the twinges of what must be oncoming ill. How extraordinary that this supernatural disaster has brought joy, even if temporary—joy for Winona, joy for Ron and Rick, joy for himself. Will it be worth it? Don’t think of it. Find out who else is here.

They draw up beside three bodies well anchored in a plant-thicket, guarded by the old male Omar who had lamented the loss of Janskelen. A big male, a female, and probably a child, Dann decides. As Tivonel sees the male body she checks and draws aside, grey-blue with grief.

“That was Giadoc’s son, Tanel. Our son Tiavan. He is a criminal, on your world now.”

“Don’t grieve, Tivonel. As a matter of fact so far your people seem to have made mine very happy. Maybe this will work out well too.”

She sighs; but the bright spirit cannot stay dimmed long. Tiavan’s foreign life is stirring restlessly, its mantle murmuring with waking lights.

“Greetings, Father Omar,” says Tivonel. “This is Tanel, the strange Healer.”

“Greetings, Healer Tanel,” intones the huge old being. “Good. I will leave these to you, with pleasure.”

“Oh no, please don’t,” Dann protests. “I am only a healer of bodies. We have no skills of the mind like yours.”

“H’mmm. Well, if you are a Body-healer, do you not feel that the mind grows dangerous at this level?”

“Yes, I do,” Dann admits. How can he say that they are already probably dead? “We should try to find shelter soon. But first I want to find out who these people of mine are and reassure them.”

“But don’t you recognize their fields?” Omar’s words are astonished cerise.

“No, Father,” Tivonel puts in. “He says they can only see their bodies on his world. And they talk, of course. Isn’t it weird?”

“Weird indeed.” Again the grey eyebrow-lift. “You mean you cannot see that this mind in Tiavan’s body is ill formed, in need of remolding? The product of a criminally inept Father, I should say; possibly a wild orphan. Poor thing, see how it attempts to—”

The alien speech becomes incomprehensible to Dann; evidently concepts for which no earthly equivalents exist. As he studies the “orphan,” Tivonel gathers her vanes.

“I’m going back to Lomax, Tanel. Maybe they’ve found Giadoc.”

“Right. I’ll stay close.”

She flashes warmth, jetting away.

An unwelcome suspicion has come to Dann as he notices the close, burrlike way in which this being’s energy hugs its big body. Little exploratory tendrils dart out, recoil snakelike; the mantle is resolutely mute. Does this represent, say, secrecy? Paranoid fears? Or hatred? Is he looking at Major Fearing? Oh no! Well, perhaps better than to have some innocent meet the fate that lies ahead here.

“Fearing?” he calls reluctantly. “Major Fearing, is that you? It’s Dann here. If you care to talk, maybe I can help you.”

No response, but an ambiguous contraction of the field. Paranoids don’t want help, Dann reminds himself. But this isn’t Fearing, maybe it’s a Navy workman, some total stranger. On the other hand, so far the Tyrenni Beam seems to have been attracted to Noah’s subjects; their “telepathic” trait perhaps. Try them.

“Ted? Ted Yost, is that you? Frodo—ah, Fredericka? Val? Valerie Ahlstrom, are you there?”

Still no reaction from the creature. This feels like the craziest thing he’s ever done. But wait; he almost forgot the little man.

“Chris! Chris Costakis, is that you?”

The mind quivers significantly, contracts itself to a knot.

“Chris? If that’s you, don’t be afraid. It’s Dann here, Doctor Dann, even if I don’t look it. We’ve all been, well, mixed up. Can you speak to me?”

The mind seems to relax slightly. After a pause a faint syllable forms on its mantle.

“Doc?”

The dry nasal light-tone is unmistakable.

“Yes, it’s me, Chris. How do you feel?”

“Where are we, Doc? What’s going on?”

As Dann fumbles through an explanation he realizes this is the first time one of these telepaths have asked him to explain anything. But Chris was different. His specialty was numbers. “These people are friendly, Chris,” he tells him. “They don’t approve of the one who switched bodies with us. There’s seven of us here so far as I know. And Kirk’s, ah, pet animal,” he concludes, thinking the craziness of it might help Chris.

It seems to work. “The—!” His words garble, apparently trying to say “dog.” “Poor old boy.”

Inappropriate term for the visibly female Labrador; Dann recalls the little man’s mysognyny. I can’t pick up anything from a woman. Was this what old Omar meant?

The alien body before him seems to be coming more alive; subvocal murmurs flicker across its mantle. But its field is still furled close. Suddenly Chris whispers sharply: “Doc. Are these characters all—you know—can they read your mind?”

A sick telepath indeed.

“Only if you want them to, Chris. See that hazy stuff around my body? They call it your field. No one can see your thoughts unless your field touches theirs. Then you can read them too.”

At these words the little man’s life-aura contracts even closer, his great form furls so that he drops abruptly into the nearest; plant.

“Wait, Chris.” Dann follows, trying to think of some way to calm him. “They never do it unless you want them to. It’s considered rude. I assure you, there’s nothing to be frightened of here, in that way.”