James Tiptree Jr.: Up the Walls of the World

“No. You must be crazy. I don’t know what you mean.” She turns her head away, eyes closed. Her lips are trembling very slightly.

He sits down, weak with the excitement swelling in his chest. She knows. Something really happened. It wasn’t me. Oh, God, oh God, it wasn’t me. But how? What?

The long frail body lies silent under the sheet, the pure profile Still but for that imperceptible tension-tremor. She can do something, he thinks. She moved that glass. What did Noah call it, telekinesis? Doesn’t exist, except for Poltergeist nonsense in disturbed children. Statistical ambiguities with dice. Nothing like this, a glass of water sliding. Miss Omali, magician. The anger, the denial have convinced him entirely. She wants to hide it, not to be a “subject.” He understands that entirely, too.

“I won’t tell,” he says gently. “I didn’t see a thing.”

Her face snaps around to him, closed and haughty.

“You’re out of your mind. You can go now, I’m quite all right. Thanks for the stuff.”

The rebuff hurts him more than he thought possible. Foolish Doctor Dann. Sighing, he gets up and collects his kit. The lovely moment is gone for good. Better so; what business has he with joy?

“Remember to keep drinking all the liquids you can. I’ll have your lab report Tuesday.”

Cold nod.

As he turns to go the phone rings. Oddly, she doesn’t seem to have a bedroom extension.

“Shall I get it?”

Another nod. When he picks it up a man’s voice says loudly, “Omali? Why weren’t you in the office today?”

It’s Kendall Kirk.

Dismayed, Dann stares at her through the doorway, saying, “Kirk? Kirk? This is Doctor Dann speaking. Do you have a message for Miss Omali?”

She shows no reaction, certainly no pleasure.

“What?” Kirk says thickly. He sounds a trifle drunk. “Who’re you? Where’s Omali?”

“It’s Doctor Dann from your office, Kirk. Miss Omali has just had an, ah, neurovascular attack. I was called in.”

The dark profile on the pillows seems to relax slightly. Is he handling this right?

“Oh, is she sick?”

“Yes. She’s under medication, she can’t get up.”

“Well, when’s she coming in? The computer’s fucked up.”

“Monday at the earliest, depending on whether or not she’s fit. We’re waiting for the lab report Tuesday.”

“Oh. Well, tell her there’s a wad of stuff to run.”

“You can tell her when you see her. She’s not well enough now.”

“Oh. You coming back?”

“Probably not, Kirk. I have an outside patient to see.”

Kirk hangs up.

Reluctantly, Dann turns to go. “Goodbye again. Please call me if you need me, I’m leaving my number here.”

“Goodbye.”

Just as he’s closing the door he hears her call huskily, “Wait.”

The speed with which he’s back by her bedside appalls him. She studies him, frowning up from under her hand.

“Oh hell. I wish I could tell about people.”

“We all wish that.” Tentatively he smiles.

Unsmiling, she finally says in a very low voice, “You’re not crazy. Don’t tell anyone or I’ll magic you.”

Too astounded to grasp anything, Dann says “I won’t. I promise.” And sits down weak-legged.

“It’s your business, isn’t it, to tell Doctor Catledge?”

“No. Friend Noah’s project means nothing to me. In fact, I don’t believe in it—that is, I didn’t.”

She gazes at him distrustfully, hopefully, the great brown eyes inhumanly beautiful.

“I won’t ever do anything you don’t want me to—ever,” he says like a schoolboy. It’s true.

She smiles slightly. The eyes change, she leans back. “Thank you.”

They are allies. But he knows even now that he is not allying himself with anything like joy.

“Your friend Samantha said she’d stop by. Will she make you some dinner?”

“She’s so good to me. With five kids, too.” The drug is animating her face, making her talkative. He should go. Instead, he brings another glass of water and hands it to her, unaware that his face speaks tenderness.

“I believe I’ve seen her drive you home.”

She nods, holding the glass in incredibly delicate long dark fingers. “She works in the photo lab on the third floor. She’s been a good friend to me… but we don’t have much in common. She’s a woman.”

Pain is in the room again. To divert her he asks the first idiot thing in his head.

“You prefer men friends?”

“No.”

He chuckles, father to child. “Well, that doesn’t leave much, does it? Whom do you have something in common with, if I might ask?”

“Computers,” she says unexpectedly, and actually laughs aloud. The sound is coldly merry.

“I don’t know much about computers. What are they like, as friends?”

She chuckles again, not so harshly.

“They’re cool.”

She means it, he realizes. Not slang— cool. Cold, lifeless, not capable of causing pain. How well he knows it.

“Have you always liked—?” He stops with his mouth open. He has no telepathic abilities, none whatever, but the pain in the room would fell an ox. Carefully, quietly, he says to his hurt child, “I like cool things too. I have some different ones.”

Silence, pain controlled to stillness. He can’t bear it.

“Maybe someday you’d like to see some of mine,” he plunges on. “You could probably see them from the roof here, if this place has a sun deck. We could take Samantha too.”

The distraction works. “What do you mean?”

“Stars. The stars.” He smiles. He has done more smiling in the past ten minutes than in years. Insane. Delighted, he sees her diverted, puzzled face open. Friendship trembles between them.

“Now you have to rest. The drugs are making you feel energetic but you’ll feel sleepy soon. Sleep. If you still have any pain in four hours, take one more set of these. If it doesn’t go then, call me. No matter what time.”

“You’re going to see your outside patient,” she says, dreamily now.

“There isn’t any outside patient.” He smiles. “I don’t see anyone anymore.”

He closes her door very gently, sealing away her beauty, his moment of life. Out, back to his unreal world. Samantha passes him in the hall.

She does not call him that night. She does not call all the dreary weekend. Of course not, he tells himself. Migraines pass.

Monday morning be finds that she has returned to work. The computer room stays shut. Everything is back to normal. At lunchtime he experiments with a new form of hydromorphone, and calls the lab to expedite her blood analysis report. It’s ready; all factors normal there too.

Toward closing time he catches one glimpse of her over Noah Catledge’s shoulder. Does something silent fly between them? He can’t tell.

Noah is telling him that the trip to the secret Navy installation is set for Thursday. They must be prepared to stay two nights. He cannot bring himself to ask if she will come along.

“We’ll assemble at the M.A.T.S. terminal at National, at oh-nine-hundred, Dan. The place is called Deerfield—Oh dear, I probably shouldn’t have said that, it’s classified.”

“I won’t tell anyone, Noah,” he says gently, an echo aching in some obsolete part of him.

IT WAS NOT ALWAYS CRIMINAL.

THE VAST SPACE-BORNE BEING REMEMBERS ITS YOUNG LIFE ON DEDICATION TO THE TASK. ONCE IT HAD FELT, IN WHAT IS NOT A HEART, ONLY EAGERNESS TO RESPOND TO THE LONG TIME-PHASED SEQUENCES BOOMING THROUGH THE VOID. UNTIRINGLY IT HAD ALIGNED ITSELF TO THE ALLOTTED SECTORS AND POURED OUT ITS MIGHTY DEVASTATIONS IN CONCERT WITH ITS KIND. DEFEND, DESTROY—DESTROY, DEFEND!