James Tiptree Jr. - Up the Walls of the World

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2024-12-18 0 0 647.42KB 274 页 5.9玖币
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UP THE WALLS OF
THE WORLD
James Tiptree, Jr.
Copyright © 1978, by James Tiptree, Jr.
To H. D. S.
For dreams that never die.
Chapter 1
COLD, COLD AND ALONE, THE EVIL PRESENCE ROAMS THE
STAR-STREAMS. IT IS IMMENSE AND DARK AND ALMOST
IMMATERIAL: ITS POWERS ARE BEYOND THOSE OF ANY OTHER
SENTIENT THING. AND IT IS IN PAIN.
THE PAIN, IT BELIEVES, SPRINGS FROM ITS CRIME.
ITS CRIME IS NOT MURDER: INDEED, IT MURDERS WITHOUT
THOUGHT. THE SIN WHICH SHAMES AND ACHES IN EVERY EDDY
OF ITS ENORMOUS BEING IS DEFALCATION FROM THE TASK OF ITS
RACE.
ALONE OF ITS RACE IT HAS CONCEIVED THE CRIMINAL ACT OF
SKIPPING LINK, OF DRIFTING AWAY IN PURSUIT OF NAMELESS
THIRSTS. ITS TRUE NAME TOLLS UPON THE TIME-BANDS, BUT TO
ITSELF IT IS THE EVIL ONE.
FROM THE DEBRIS AROUND THE CENTRAL FIRES OF THIS
STAR-SWARM IT HEARS THE VOICES OF ITS RACE REVERBERATE
AMONG THE LITTLE SUNS SUMMONING EACH TO THE
CONFIGURATIONS OF POWER. DEFEND—DESTROY, DESTROY!
ALONE, IT DOES NOT, CAN NOT OBEY SOLITARY AND HUGE, IT
SAILS OUT ALONG THE DUSTY ARMS, A HURTING ENTITY
SLIGHTLY DENSER THAN A VACUUM ON THE CURRENTS OF
SPACE-VAST, BLACK, POTENT, AND LETHAL.
Chapter 2
The evil strikes Tivonel in the bright joy of her life. But she is not at first
aware of its coming.
Zestfully she hovers above High Station, waiting for the floater coming
up from Deep. Her mantle is freshly cleaned and radiant, she has fed in
civilized style for the first time in a year. And it's a beautiful morning.
Below her, three females of the Station staff are planing out to the edge of
the updraft in which High Station rides, looking for the floater. The
bioluminescent chatter of their mantles chimes a cheery orange.
Tivonel stretches luxuriously, savoring life. Her strong, graceful jetter's
body balances effortlessly oh the howling wind-rush, which to her is a
peaceful wild meadow. She is thirty miles above the surface of the world of
Tyree, which none of her race has ever seen.
Around her corporeal body the aura of her life-energy field flares out
unselfconsciously, radiating happiness. It's been a great year; her mission
to the upper Wild was such a success.
And it's time now for the treat she has been promising herself: before
returning to Deep she will go visit Giadoc at the High Hearers' Post
nearby.
Giadoc. How beautiful, how strange he was! What will he be like now?
Will he remember her? Memories of their mating send an involuntary
sexual bias rippling through her life-field. Oh, no! Hastily she damps
herself. Did anyone notice? She scans around, detects no flicker of
laughter.
Really, Tivonel scolds herself, I have to mend my manners before I get
down among the crowds in Deep. Up here you forget field-discipline.
Father would be ashamed to see me forgetting ahum,
mind-privacy-smoothness..
She forgets it again immediately in her enjoyment.
It's such a lovely wild morning. The setting Sound is sliding behind
Tyree's thick upper atmosphere, fading to a violet moan. As it fades comes
the silence which to Tivonel is day, broken only by the quiet white tweet of
the Station's beacon. Above her in the high Wild she already hears the
flickering colorful melody that is the rich life of Tyree's winds. And faintly
chiming through from the far sky she can catch the first sparks of the
Companions of the Day. Tivonel knows what the Companions really are, of
course: the voices of Sounds like her own, only unimaginably far away. But
she likes the old poetic name.
It's going to be a fine long day too, she thinks. High Station is so near
Tyree's far pole that the Sound barely rises above the horizon at this time
of year. At the pole itself, where Giadoc and the Hearers are, it won't rise
at all, it'll be endless silent day. Vastly content, Tivonel scans down past
the station at the dark layers below. They are almost empty of life. From
very far down and away she can make out a tiny signal on the life-bands;
that must be the emanation of the far, massed lives in Deep. Where's the
floater? Ah—there! A nearby pulse of life, strengthening fast. The station
team is jetting down to help; moments later Tivonel catches the faint
yellow hooting of its whistle. Time for the males to leave.
The big males are grouped by the woven station rafts, their mantles
murmuring deep ruby red. Automatically, Tivonel's mind-field veers
toward them. They were her companions in the years' adventure, she has
monitored and helped them for so long. But of course they don't notice her
now that they are Fathers. Safe in their pouches are the proud fruits of
their mission, the children rescued from the Wild. The little ones were
frightened by their first taste of relatively quiet air here; Tivonel can
detect an occasional green squeal of fear from under the edges of the
males' mantles. The Father's huge life-fields furl closer, calming the small
wild minds. At a respectful distance hovers the Station staff, trying not to
show unseemly curiosity.
The males were tremendous, Tivonel admits it now. She didn't really
believe how superior they were until she saw them in action. So
fantastically life-sensitive, such range! Of course they had to get used to
the wild wind first—but then how brave they were, how tireless. Tracking
the elusive signals of the Lost Ones while they tumbled free down the
thickly whirling streams of the Great Wind itself, gorging themselves like
savages. They must have circled Tyree a hundred times while they
searched, found, followed, lost them, and searched again.
But they couldn't have done it without me guiding them and keeping
them in contact, she thinks proudly. That takes a female. What a year,
what an adventure up there! The incredible richness of life in the Wild, an
endless rushing webwork of myriads of primitive creatures, plants and
animals all pulsing with energy and light-sounds, threaded with the lives
of larger forms. The rich eternal Winds where our race was born. But oh,
the noisy nights up there! The Sound blasting away overhead through the
thin upper air—it was rough even for her. The sensitive males had suffered
agonies, some of them even got burned a little. But they were brave; like
true Fathers, they wanted those children.
That was the most exciting part, she thinks: when the males at last
made tenuous mind-contact with the Lost Ones and slowly learned their
crude light-speech. And finally they won their confidence enough to
achieve some merger and persuade them to let the children be taken down
to be properly brought up in Deep. Only a male could do that, Tivonel
decides; I don't have the patience, let alone the field-strength.
And how pathetic it was to find the Lost Ones had preserved patchy
memory from generations back, when their ancestors had been blown up
to the Wild by that terrible explosion under Old Deep. These are surely the
last survivors, the only remaining wild band. Now the children are saved.
Very satisfactory! But tell the truth, she's sorry in a way; she'd love to do it
again.
She'll miss all this, she knows it. The Deep is getting so complicated and
ingrown. Of course the mates want to stay down there and let us feed
them, that's natural. But even some of the young females won't budge up
into the real Wind. And now they have all those tame food-plants down
there.... But she'll never stay down for good, never. She loves the Wild,
night-noise and all. Father understood when he named her Tivonel,
far-flyer; it's a pun that also means uncivilized or wild-wind-child. I'm
both, she thinks, her mantle flickering lacy coral chuckles. She casts a
goodbye scan up to where Tyree's planetary gales roar by forever, unheard
by any of her race.
"The floater's here!"
The flash is from her friend Iznagel, the Station's eldest-female. They're
wrestling the floater into balance on the Station updraft.
The floater is a huge vaned pod, a plant-product brought from the
lowest deeps above the Abyss. One of the proud new achievements of the
Deepers. It's useful for something like this, Tivonel admits it. But she
prefers to travel on her own sturdy vanes.
The pod-driver covers the yellow hooter and climbs off to stretch. She's
a middle-aged female Tivonel hasn't met. Iznagel presents her with
food-packets and the driver sparkles enthusiastic thanks; it's a long trip
up and the fresh wild food is a treat after the boring rations in Deep. But
first she must offer Iznagel her memory of conditions in the wind-layers
below. Tivonel sees the two females' mind-fields form in transmission
mode, and feels the faint life-signal snap as they merge.
"Farewell, farewell!" The Station crew is starting to flicker their
goodbyes. It's time for the males to embark. But they are not to be
hurried.
Tivonel planes down to the pod-driver.
"A message for Food-Supply Chief Ellakil, if you will," she signs politely.
"Tell her Tivonel will be down later. I'm going first to Far Pole to see the
Hearers."
The driver, munching embarrassedly, signals assent. But Iznagel asks in
surprise, "Whatever for, Tivonel?"
"The Father-of-my-child, Giadoc, is there." Just in time she remembers
to restrain her thoughts. "I want to hear news," she adds—which is true, as
far as it goes.
Iznagel's mantle emits a skeptical gleam.
"What's a Father doing at Far Pole?" the driver demands, curiosity
overcoming her shyness at public eating.
"He became a Hearer some time ago, when Tiavan was grown. He's
interested in learning about the life beyond the sky."
"How unFatherly." The driver's tone is tersely grey.
"You wouldn't say so if you knew him," Tivonel retorts. "Someone
should gain knowledge, and our fields aren't big enough. It takes a
Father's sensitivity to probe the sky." But as she speaks, something in her
agrees a little with the driver. Never mind; my Giadoc is a true male.
"Here they come at last. Move back."
The big males are jetting somewhat awkwardly out to the floater. As
they near it, a clamor of shrill green shrieks breaks out from under their
mantles: The youngsters are appalled anew at the prospect of entering the
pod. They scream and struggle shockingly against their new Fathers,
contorting their little mind-fields against the huge strange energies that
envelop and soothe them. They're strong young ones, deformed by
premature activity in the Wild. Even big Ober seems to be striving for
composure.
As they go by, Ober's mantle flaps upward, revealing his bulging
Father's pouch and a glimpse of the child's jets. The pod-driver squeaks
bright turquoise with embarrassment. Iznagel only averts herself, glowing
amusedly under the conventional rosy flush of appreciation for the sacred
Skills. Tivonel is used to the sight of such intimate gathering after the last
months. That silly driver—Deepers forget the facts of life, she thinks. It's
better up here where people are more open to the Wind.
Behind her she notices the two young Station males, their life-fields
flaring straight out with intense emotion. Probably seeing grown Fathers
in action for the first time. Belatedly, she checks her own field, and tunes
her mantle to the correct flush. The last of the Fathers are going in.
"Goodbye, goodbye! Wind's blessing," she signals formally, unable to
check an eddy of her field toward them, hoping for a last warm contact.
But of course there's no response. Don't be foolish, she chides herself.
Their important, high-status life has begun. Do I want to be an abnormal
female like the Paradomin, wanting to be a Father myself? Absolutely not;
winds take the status! I love my female life—travel, work, exploration,
trade, the spice of danger. I am Tivonel!
The party is all inside, their life-emanations crowded into one massive
presence. The driver climbs onto the guide-seat. "Farewell, farewell!" the
Station-keepers' mantles sing golden. The floater's vanes tilt up, the
helpers jet forward with it into the wind.
Abruptly it angles up, the wind takes it, and the pod leaps away and
down. The departing life-fields she has known so well shrink to a fleeing
print, dwindle downwind into the lifeless dark. A gentle yellow hoot
sounds twice and ceases. All is silent now; the Sound has set.
Tivonel lifts her scan and her spirits bounce back in the lovely day. Time
for her to start upwind, to Far Pole and the Hearers. To Giadoc.
But first she should inquire about the trail. She hesitates, tempted to
strike off on her own skill. It would be easy; already she has detected a very
tiny but stable life-signal from far upwind. That has to be the Hearers.
And her mantle-senses have registered a pressure gradient which should
lead to an interface between the windstreams, easy jetting.
But it's polite to ask. Ahura, ahura, she tells herself. If I go down to
Deep acting this way they'll take me for a Lost One.
Iznagel is directing the stowage of a raft of food-plants destined for
Deep that will have to await the next floater.
Tivonel watches the scarred senior female with affection. I'll be like her
one day, she thinks. So rugged and work-tempered and competent. She's
been up to the top High, too, look at those burn-scars on her vanes. It's a
big job keeping the Station stable here. But a good life; maybe I'll end here
when I'm old. Worry dims her momentarily; now people are starting to
grow so much stuff down by Deep, how long will they keep the Station up
here? But no use to fret—and that tame food tastes awful. Iznagel finishes;
Tivonel planes down.
"May I know the path to the Hearers?" she asks in formal-friend mode.
Iznagel flashes cordial compliance and then hesitates.
"Tell me something, Tivonel," she signs privately. "I could hardly believe
what your memory gave us, that those Wild Ones tried to do—well,
criminal things."
"Oh, they did," Tivonel shudders slightly, remembering the nastiness of
it. "In fact I didn't put it all in your memory, it was so bad. The males can
tell the Deep Recorders if they want."
"They actually struck at your life-fields?"
"Yes. Several of them tried to mind-cut us when we came close. A male
attacked me and tried to split my field! I was so startled I barely got away.
They're untrained, thank the Wind, but they're so mean. They do it to each
other—a lot of them looked as if they'd lost field."
"How hideous!"
"Yes." Tivonel can't resist horrifying her a little more. "There was worse,
Iznagel."
"No—what?"
"They weren't just trying to mind-cut us. They... pushed."
"No! No—you don't mean life-crime!" Iznagel's tone is dark violet with
horror.
"Listen. We found a Father who had pushed his own son's life-field out
and stolen his body!" Tivonel shudders again, Iznagel is speechless. "He
wanted to live forever, I guess. It was vile. And so pathetic, seeing the poor
child's life around the Father's ragged old body. Ober and the others drove
him out of his own body and got the child back in his. It was the most
thrilling sight you can imagine."
"Life-crime.... Imagine, a Father doing that!"
"Yes. I never realized how awful it was. I mean, they tell you there could
be such a bad thing, but you can't believe what it's like till you see."
"I guess so. Well, Tivonel, you certainly have had experience."
"And I intend to have some more, dear Iznagel." Tivonel ripples her field
mock-flirtatiously. "If you will kindly show me the trail."
"Certainly. Oh, by the way, speaking of bad things, you might tell the
Hearers there's more rumors in Deep. Localin the driver says the Hearers
at Near Pole have been noticing dead worlds or something. The Deepers
think maybe another fireball is coming in."
"Oh, Near Pole!" Tivonel laughs. "They've been spreading rumors since I
was a baby. They eat too many quinya pods."
Iznagel chuckles too. Near Pole is a bit of a joke, despite its beauty and
interest. Its lower vortex is so near Deep that many young people go on
holiday out there, scanning the sky and each other and playing at being
Hearers. Some real Hearers are there too of course, but they keep to
themselves.
Iznagel's mind-field is forming for memory-transfer. Tivonel prepares to
receive it. But just then a small child jets up, erupting in excited light.
"Let me, Iznagel! Let me! Father—say I can!"
Behind her comes the large form of Mornor, her Father, twinkling
indulgently. Tivonel respects him doubly—a Father enterprising enough to
come up here and give his daughter experience of the Wild.
"If the stranger doesn't mind?" Mellowly, Mornor flashes the formal
request for child-training contact. He must have few chances for his child
to practice, up here at Station.
"Accept with pleasure." Tivonel bends her life-field encouragingly
toward the child. After months of receiving the chaotic transmissions of
the Lost Ones, she is unafraid of being jolted by a child.
The young one hovers shyly, marshalling her mind-field, pulsing with
the effort to do this right. Jerkily her little thoughts gather themselves and
extend a wobbly bulge.
Tivonel guides it to correct merger with her own field and receives a
nicely organized sensory memory of the trail, quite clear and detailed. It
contains only one childish slip—a tingling memory of an effort at
self-stimulation. After the tumult and suspicion of the Wild Ones' minds
Tivonel finds her charming.
She flashes formal thanks to the little one, showing no awareness of the
slip.
"Did my daughter warn you of the time-eddies?" Mornor inquires.
Tivonel consults her new memory. "Yes indeed."
"Then farewell and may the Great Wind bear you."
"Farewell and come again, dear Tivonel," Iznagel signs.
"To you all, thanks," Tivonel replies, warmly rippling Iznagel's
name-lights as she turns away. "Goodbye." As she had suspected, the start
of the trail is indeed that upwind interface.
She jets out past the Station, remembering to start at decorous speed.
As she passes the Station rafts, her field brushes an unnoticed life-eddy
from the group beyond. She reads a genial appreciation of the rescue
mission—and a very clear, unflattering image of her own wild self, dirty
and food-smeared as they had arrived here. Tivonel chuckles. People up
here aren't so careful to control their minds. Ahum!
How will she really stand being back in crowded, civilized Deep?
No matter! As the first wind-blast takes her she forgets all worry in the
exhilaration of using her strong body. Twisting and jetting hard, she
reaches the interface and shoots upwind along it, the lights of her mantle
laughing aloud. Why worry about anything? She has so much to do,
marvels to see, life to live, and sex to find. She is Tivonel, merry creature of
the Great Winds of Tyree, on her life way.
Chapter 3
Doctor Daniel Dann is on his life way too. But he is not merry.
He finishes dating and signing the printouts from Subject R-95,
thinking as usual that they don't need an M.D. on this asinine project. And
telling himself, also as usual, that he should be glad they do. If he decides
to go on existing.
Subject R-95 is wiping imaginary electrode-paste out of his hair. He is a
husky, normal-looking youth with a depressed expression.
"All the dead aerosols," he remarks tonelessly.
Nancy, the assistant technician, looks at him questioningly.
"Great piles of them. Mountains," R-95 mutters. "All the bright colored
aerosol cans, all dead. You push them but they don't spray. They look fine,
though. It's sad."
"Was that what you received?" Nancy asks him.
"No." R-95 has lost interest. It's only another of his weird images,
Doctor Dann decides. R-95 and his twin brother R-96, have been with
Project Polymer three years now. They both act stoned half the time. That
makes Dann uneasy, for the best of reasons.
"Doctor! Doctor Dann!"
The front-office girl is rapping on the cubicle glass. Dann goes out to
her, ducking to make sure he clears the substandard doorway.
"Lieutenant Kirk has cut his leg open, Doctor! He's in your office."
"Okay, Nancy, hold the last subject. I'll be back."
Dann lopes down the corridor, thinking, My God, a genuine medical
emergency. And Kendall Kirk—how suitable.
In his office he finds Kirk crouched awkwardly in a chair, holding a
bloody wad of paper towel against his inner thigh. His pant leg is hanging
cut and sodden.
"What happened?" Dann asks when he has him on the table.
"Fucking computer," Kirk says furiously. "What'd it do to me? Is—Am
I—"
"Two fairly superficial cuts across the muscle. Your genitals are okay if
that's what you mean." Dann investigates the trouser fabric impressed
into the wound, meanwhile idly considering the fury in Kirk's voice, the
computer room, and, obliquely, Miss Omali. "You say a computer did
this?"
"Ventilator fan-blade blew off."
Dann lets his fingers work, visualizing the computer banks. Motors
somewhere behind the lower grills, about thigh level, could be fans. It
seems bizarre. Much as he dislikes Kendall Kirk, the man has come close
to being castrated. Not to mention having an artery sliced.
"You were lucky it wasn't an inch one way or the other."
"You telling me." Kirk's voice is savage. "Does this mean stitches?"
"We'll see. I'd prefer to make do with butterfly clamps if you'll keep off
the leg awhile."
Kirk grunts and Dann finishes up in silence. At this hour of the morning
his hands move in pleasing autonomy—maximum blood level of what he
thinks of as his maintenance dosage. A normal working day. But the
accident is giving him odd tremors of reality, not dangerous so far. He
摘要：

UPTHEWALLSOFTHEWORLDJamesTiptree,Jr.Copyright©1978,byJamesTiptree,Jr.ToH.D.S.Fordreamsthatneverdie.Chapter1COLD,COLDANDALONE,THEEVILPRESENCEROAMSTHESTAR-STREAMS.ITISIMMENSEANDDARKANDALMOSTIMMATERIAL:ITSPOWERSAREBEYONDTHOSEOFANYOTHERSENTIENTTHING.ANDITISINPAIN.THEPAIN,ITBELIEVES,SPRINGSFROMITSCRIME.I...

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