James Tiptree Jr. - Up the Walls of the World

In his thought also is a strong directional urge: Giadoc must show him how to move at once toward some kind of nucleus or central control point. “ We have to find the bridge! The captain will help us.”

Giadoc considers. The idea of a monstrous pod is fantastic, but Tedyost’s notion about a central nucleus is promising. If this is an animal it should have a brain, and the dead or dying brain should have more of the strange energy than the ganglia out here. If they could reach it, perhaps he could draw on its power to send out a signal, perhaps the Hearers on Tyree could detect him and restore the Beam. A long chance and a faint hope, but what better?

Only, in which direction should we seek? The Destroyer’s brain, if it exists, must be composed of this nonliving power which does not register on the life-bands. And aside from the clamor of Tedyost’s mind, he can detect nothing but emptiness around them. Nevertheless, he must try.

He transmits back agreement with the plan of finding the nucleus or “bridge,” and a strong desire that Tedyost learn to damp himself so they can listen for some emanation which will tell them where to go.

After some confusion, Tedyost achieves a creditable silence, and Giadoc bends all his attention to the structure of this place. But he detects nothing; no discrepancy of any sort distinguishes one direction from another.

Tedyost reacts stoically to this information, and sends back an image of an expanding spiral course which he calls a “search pattern.”

Well, if they must set off blindly, they must. But Giadoc recalls that there is one more thing they can try. It’s embarrassing, permitted only to very young children. For an adult, conceivable only in extreme emergency. Well, is this not an extreme emergency? Any embarrassment is irrelevent here—although to a proud Hearer of Tyree, it is real.

Sternly repressing his queasiness, Giadoc transmits an image of the method, in a matrix of apology-for-crudeness.

To his surprise, the other does not seem disturbed. Perhaps he doesn’t realize the depth and intimacy of the procedure. Giadoc amplifies. “ This is a thing no adult would tolerate on my world. It means our minds will be open to each other at every level. Do you truly understand?”

Still the other doesn’t hesitate. “ You’re the expert. Go ahead.”

What an extraordinary creature! Very well.

“Hold your whole mind as relaxed as possible while I merge. If I detect any signal you will receive it too. Bear the location tightly in mind; it will vanish when we separate.”

“Right.”

Distasteful, self-conscious, Giadoc brings himself into full close confrontation with the other life-field, following its delicate play of biassing energies precisely. Then abruptly, he sends the complementary configuration through his own field surface—and with a soundless snap the two minds fuse tight together.

It is dizzying—he is doubled, swamped with alien emotions, meanings, life. Alien energies rush through him and he has to fight from shrinking away, from knowing himself known. For moments his purpose is lost. But then his greater strength asserts itself; he pushes all else aside and draws the doubled energies into receptor focus. This is their one chance. He tunes their joint sense-power hungrily for the faintest discrepancy in the unknown void around.

At first nothing comes. He strains harder, pulling on all Tedyost’s strength. Then suddenly he is rewarded.

There —on that bearing—is a faint spark. A life-source!

He allows a moment for the perception to strike through their joined minds. Then with an effort he begins the work of rebiassing himself, disentangling his configuration area by area from their combined world of thought. As he does so he holds desperately to the now-vanishing directional vector he had perceived.

The act of separation is disorienting and curiously saddening. As the opposing bias peels them apart, he feels he is leaving behind his own thoughts, dreams, understandings, a part of his very self. But he is a Hearer; he manages to bring his mind out smoothly, in the physical direction in which he believes the far point lay.

“Did you perceive it?”

“Yes. Hey, man, I see what you mean! I felt —”

“No time. Come, stretch yourself this way.”

And thus fumblingly, in tenuous touch, the two tiny sparks of life begin to traverse the immense icy blackness. It is a long journey, increasingly interrupted by course-corrections in which Giadoc feels less and less confidence. Has the invisible source moved, or are they simply lost? And will the unknown cold energy-points on which they move continue to hold out?

He could of course again perform the overwhelming merger that would double their sensory range. But he shrinks from it, even were Tedyost willing. In his weak state here, he cannot be sure that he could again achieve complete separation of identity. Even now he feels traces of a peculiar, unTyrennian comradeship that warns him that something of Tedyost will always linger with him. What if he were to become permanently mingled with this crazy untrained alien mind? And yet, as the enormous emptiness presses on him, he begins to wonder if there is any other way.

Just as he is coming reluctantly to consider it, the emptiness is broken by a point of presence. Yes—the strange signal is there, only somewhat to one side.

“Can you sense it, Tedyost?”

“No, nothing.”

“Come, then. This way!”

Movement remains possible. The emanation strengthens.

Finally Tedyost senses it too. “ That’s — life?”

“Yes. But strange, strange. I don’t recognize it.”

The peculiar signal strengthens as they make their way closer. It comes to resemble a confined cloud or mist of energic veins, threaded with life like a huge flickering plant-form. Giadoc has doubts. Is this only a plant, or some system of dead energy like those he had seen in Tedyost’s world?

But no; fused in among the blurred flickerings is the strong output of a living mind. It seems calm, not at all troubled. And it does not appear dead or injured. Evidently it belongs here, wherever here is. A great cool hatred laps at the margins of Giadoc’s thoughts, stronger than any he has ever felt. Is he perceiving the actual mind of a killer of worlds? Is this the brain of the Destroyer? Perhaps his duty is to kill it, if such a thing is possible here.

“That’s the captain! He’ll help us!” Tedyost is transmitting excitedly.

At that moment Giadoc’s outstretched being touches, not more life-points, but a wall of deathly cold. He recoils, searching out gingerly. The barrier seems to extend in all directions and its very substance is frightening. Moreover it is impossible to tell distance; the brain may be far beyond it or very close.

“We are blocked. We cannot go closer.”

“There has to be a way to call to him.”

Giadoc starts to suggest that they explore the circumference of the barrier. But Tedyost isn’t listening. He draws himself together and roars out a strong, mad signal: “ Captain! Captain, help!”

The brain behind the barrier does not stir.

“It’s an animal,” Giadoc transmits impatiently. “ It can’t understand you.”

But Tedyost will not be swayed from his delusion.

“Captain, Sir, please listen. It’s Ensign Yost here, Ensign Theodore Yost. We’re stuck out here in the dark. Listen, sir, please let us see out. We just want to have a look at the ocean.”

Again nothing happens except that the brain or nucleus seems to coil or stir slightly.