James Tiptree Jr. - Up the Walls of the World

As the visionary paper vanishes from his grasp, Dann finds himself laughing so hard that he has difficulty in explaining coherently to Giadoc.

“Your son is all right, they’re doing fine,” he manages to convey at last. But it is some time before he can satisfy enough of the alien’s curiosity about Earthly customs to convince him that old Noah has indeed found a means of arranging a satisfactory life for the Tyrenni fugitives. The fact that only seven are mentioned seems reasonable too; the two “children” are doubtless being kept and cared for at home.

When Giadoc at length departs, Dann chuckles again, remembering Noah’s dream of aliens coming to Earth. Practical as ever, the old man had met his culminant fantasy and meshed it with real life. Well, Dann reflects, hadn’t he really been doing that all along? Getting grants for ESP submarine exercises, for God’s sake. He wishes he could congratulate the old maniac, or at least get a glimpse of what must be his ecstatic state. How had they ever got themselves out of Deerfield? No doubt with Janskelen as Fearing/Sproul it had been pulled off somehow… And will they raise a line of telepathic mutants? Fabulous…

When Margaret returns he tries to explain it to her. But she is already too remote; he senses it is unreal to her. She seems chiefly pleased that the program has produced. Perhaps this is not a drifting-off into supernal realities, he thinks, but an aspect of Margaret’s human mind; her concern with structure, relations. Not content, not people. He is reminded of a math teacher he’d had who refused to plug comprehensible numerical values into his equations on the blackboard. Even the child shows signs of it.

His musings are cut short by Waxman’s signal from outside.

“Doc, we have a problem out here.” The “voice” is startlingiy like Rick’s on the lawn at Deerfield.

“Yes?”

“It’s so dark and quiet, where we are. You know? The others are trying things, they keep each other busy as well as they can. Chris and Giadoc are trying to understand some of the stuff here. The women do some exploring. But it’s bad. It’s a real big nothing. Even those pictures, those announcement things, have faded out. Old Heagran is worried, he thinks we’ll all trip out to dream-worlds like Ted.”

“I see.” And he does, he understands how selfish he has been. He has had access to the stars, to her, while the others have nothing but the twilight world of individual minds.

“ I should have realized.” Reluctantly he makes himself say, “ Do you want to share with me? Touch me, or whatever?”

“Thanks, Doc. I mean, thanks. But I thought, something simpler. Like, could she relay out a picture? The circuits must be there. If she could hook in monitors we could see where we are. A check on reality.”

“Of course. I’ll ask her. By the way, how is Ted? Is he still — ?”

“Yeah. Chris and I work on him now and then. But what is there for him to come out for?”

“I understand. I’ll ask right away.”

When he relays Waxman’s request to the apparition he knows as Margaret, the beautiful face listens with unusual intentness.

“ I should have thought of that,” she says quickly, as if in self-reproach. To Dann’s surprise, the remote cloudy profile in the stars has also turned slightly, as though attending. Dream-Margaret goes back into the shadows of the great control room.

Dann is oddly heartened. There seems to be a chord of empathy here, some strand of responsibility to the lives outside her mystery. Perhaps it is a remnant of the Task, the transcendent impulse toward rescue. Is it possible that the human Margaret has learned some compassion toward life from this unhuman entity?

Suddenly she is back again, frowning slightly.

“ Your friends, the aliens… You say they are expert in the transmissions of life?”

“Oh yes. It seems to have been one of their main modes —” He sees that she does not want details.

“Good. I will relay also some small signal-trains that are… difficult for me. Perhaps they can comprehend better.”

He is amazed at her openness, amazed that the goddess would accept life’s cooperation. Perhaps it will be true, what she hinted. Eagerly he tells her, “ Giadoc, the one who mind-traveled to other worlds, is the nearest thing we have to an expert on alien life. And he can report in our language.”

She says only, “ I will set it up,” and fades away into the cloudy depths.

He has not long to wait. An exuberant communication bursts upon him from outside.

“Man, it’s beautiful. It’s all over, like a million windows!”

Again Dann is jolted by the incongruity of the young voice, the words that could be describing a sports car, used here for transreal marvels. Well, what does he expect, that Ron or Rick should boom like a cinema spook?

“The whole outside of this place is covered, and there’re screens all over, where those recording places were. And listen, we’re getting other kinds of transmissions too. Bdello and his people are really into it. I’m picking up something too, Doc, maybe like music. I can’t describe it. I think we’re going to find new forms of consciousness like we never dreamed of.”

“New forms of consciousness?”

“Yeah. Like whole planets thinking. Everything interconnected, or — I can’t explain but I really dig it. I used to, I don’t know, dream…”

The so-ordinary boy’s voice, chattering about transcendences. For an instant Dann’s old human distrust of mysticism rises. Are these unbodied minds indeed floating into fantasy? But no; he must believe that there is some reality here, if anything here is real.

“Oh, another piece of news for you,” Waxman goes on. “Did I tell you that the Tyrenni have set up a big dream-world of their own, over that way? All the Fathers have the kids in there. We call it Tyree-Two. Giadoc says the soul of Tyree came with us, that makes it a heavy trip. Val and Frodo went to see it. They liked the flying. And Winnie took Kirk to some Father who’s going to raise him for awhile, she knows she was too soft with him.”

“Tyree-Two…” Dann thinks of the strength of Ted’s dream-world. This must be incredible, a structure of joined dreams, a real place.

“ Yes. But Heagran is more worried than ever. He’s coming to talk to you soon.”

“I’ll be here.” Dann tries his first mild joke in life beyond death, in realms between the stars.

But it is Chris who comes next, a new, stronger Chris whose shyness is only a slight abruptness in the contact now.

“We need time here, Doc.”

“Time?” It seems the one thing they have.

“ I mean, we need some way of marking real time. It’s weird here with nothing changing. I notice some of those stars pulse regularly. I was thinking, why can’t you tie one into a digital counter that we could read?”

“It isn’t me, Chris. I can’t do anything. I’m only the doorman here.”

“You know what I mean, Doc.”

Yes, Dann knows. Chris means what he has always meant, that there are human dimensions he can’t cope with. But the idea is, as usual, a good one.

“Cepheid variables, I think that’s what you’re seeing. The periods are generally around a week.”

“ Yeah. We could spit it into intervals. Then you could keep track of things and plan to do a thing in so many periods, say, instead of this fuzzy stuff.”

“I don’t see why not. I’ll ask.”