Up the Walls of the World

Chapter 11

Wildly excited, Tivonel jets upward after Giadoc; they are heading for the highpoint where they will launch into the focus of the Beam which will carry their lives to an alien world. They have just passed the level where Chief Hearer Lomax waits for his Hearers to move out to their stations around the great vortex.

Near Lomax hovers a small cluster of females—Avanil and her Paradomin friends. Tivonel can hear the bright orange tone of their mantle-lights, evidently intended to carry: “Why should this all be controlled by males?”

“They know how, they have the fields,” a sister replies.

“We can learn,” Avanil says defiantly.

Jetting upward against the gales of the Wall, Tivonel recalls her own childish attempt to touch the life-signals from the sky. If she tried to increase her field-strength by doing Fathering, like Avanil, could she have attained that power? More likely she’d just have become like a normal male, absorbed in the Skills of infant-care. Like those status-stiff Fathers down in Deep now, who can’t believe any danger could strike Tyree. And what would become of the world if females abandoned themselves to Fathering? Crazy.

Far down below Lomax are the massed life-fields of the Deepers. Tivonel can still pick out the brilliance of Scomber, pulsing with aggressive resolution. Beside him is the strong furled energy of old Heagran, dark with disapproval. The Fathers around them are in high states of energy, their mantles flickering with scarlet hope, cold blue distaste. There is a vermillion exclamation she is sure comes from Tiavan, Giadoc’s son and her own. He would do anything, even life-crime, to save his child. How sad for Giadoc.

But there is no time to think of that now, she must begin to prepare herself for the Test, as Giadoc has instructed her. Yet the view up here is so grand, she lets herself take one more scan around. They are all alone near the top of the Wall of the World, so high that almost the whole of the great polar vortex can be made out. The wind-wall is a fantastically beautiful swirling cliff, richly patterned with the rushing lights and life-emanations of the Wild. Above them are the perilous heights where the top of the winds start to converge to form the deadly Airfall in the center; Tivonel can just perceive the upper fringes of the funnel, grey with dying life. Up here too can be sensed a deep background energy. Giadoc has told her that it may be the life-field of Tyree itself, transmitting into space. How thrilling… Giadoc is slowing down, they must be nearly there.

Guiltily Tivonel comes to herself and starts sorting and ordering her life-field, trying to recall the disciplines her Father had taught her. Encapsulate nuclear identity and essential memory, damp emotion; self-will relaxed yet alert. Very difficult. And all to be well-connected, so she won’t fly apart. There, it’s coming.

Giadoc halts just above her, his huge field already attenuated and coiled in a strange helical form. She stretches awareness, tries to copy with her own smaller life. As she does so, a life-signal resonates around the Wall. The Hearers are in place.

“Ready?” Giadoc brushes her with a testing thought.

“Yes.” She mutes the last excited eddy from her field-form.

“Remember, your first act must be to try to calm the being’s fear.”

“I will, dear-Giadoc.”

“And be brave. The sensations will be very strange. Especially don’t panic when there is no wind.”

“No.”

She waits, hardly able to breathe for the effort to remain in the correct calm mode. It’s like being a child again, waiting for her Father to help her stretch her baby mind to distant-touch. But this isn’t play, she’s waiting to go with Giadoc to touch the life beyond the sky!

The sky… Incredibly clear and cold the voices of the Companions call to her from above. Will she really touch them, ride out on the Beam to merge with unimaginable alien life? A deep excitement wells up almost ungovernably. All around she can feel the energies of the Hearers’ linked fields building, growing without limit. The World is bursting with tension.

Just as it seems she must fly apart, a second life-signal crackles through them—and she feels her mind gripped, pulled free, thrust out upon forces she had never dreamed of. Almost she flinches in fear before she lets it take her. Giadoc and the immense combined power of the ring of Hearers are sucking her life up to the focus at the heart of the Beam, to send it stretching out—out—out to—

She yields, launches totally, lets herself dwindle to a filament riding a storm of power, an energy that looms and blooms upward like a world-bubble. She is only a thread in an immense thrusting tower of bodiless vitality, shooting forever outward as it intensifies and narrows from a pinnacle to a needle, from a needle to a dimensionless thread driving instantaneously to its goal. And as her life attenuates, recruitment comes—a deep life-force as if she and the Beam were cresting on a planetary power.

For an everlasting instant she feels herself stretched through an infinity of nothing, an unbodied vector still companioned by a strand of nameless strength. Then—joy, strangeness, glory— she feels the goal just ahead!

Yes. In the unknown is something. Life-contact! Without senses she touches, knows it for a living being. Remember!

She pushes like a baby against the alien life, feeling for the fear she must deflect. Yes, terror is here at the contact-point. With all her might she counters it, projecting warm-friendship, and pushes again.

And suddenly physical sensation crashes in upon her. Lights, colors, nameless perceptions, concrete life-signals! All in one overwhelming instant she is seeing through alien eyes!

Enchanted, she gulps in comprehension, registering shapes, hues, sounds, smells, volumes. A world bombards her. She has done it, she has merged with an alien mind! She has a body, she can fit her will into its half-comprehensible brain, live, act!

But before she can do more than gasp through strange organs, a horrible vertigo strikes her. Where is the Wind? Oh, terror, there is no wind. She has fallen into the Abyss!

Primal dread tears the frail connection, sweeps her away. Her being ravels instantaneously back into the void, flees homeward on the Beam in helpless fear. Next instant she has condensed into herself, Tivonel, adrift in disorder on the winds of Tyree.

Shame floods her. She has done exactly what Giadoc had warned her of, she has let herself panic in the strangeness of no wind.

But as she collects herself, her natural spirits revive. She hasn’t really failed the important part. Didn’t she merge and possess the body? Next time she would be able to stay. But where is Giadoc?

There: she finds his silent form, barely outlined in a weird trace of life, almost like a dead person. But it must be all right; he’s still mind-traveling, his life is in some being on that world they touched. Yes; a faint tendril of life-energy seems to run upward toward the great matrix of power arching overhead. The Beam is still holding, the world around her feels drained and dreamlike. Far below her even the Deepers are awed and darkly still.

Suddenly Giadoc’s body stirs. The thin trace of field roils and abruptly swells, losing connection of the Beam. But the field is all wrong, it’s chaotic, ragged, shooting out wild eddies. Has something bad happened to Giadoc?

She jets closer and then recoils as Giadoc’s mantle blasts out a green scream of pain and fear. That can’t be Giadoc’s voice!—and understanding breaks.

This is what they were talking about: an alien mind has come here into Giadoc’s body. This must be one of those strange lives she had touched on that far-off world. The creature is evidently scared to death. There ought to be a Father here to help it.

“Be calm, be calm,” she signs to it, feeling futile. What can words do for this disordered creature? But to her relief the blue-green shrieking quiets somewhat and stammers of other colors appear. It must be trying to speak. Tivonel moves closer, appalled by the whirling chaos of its mind. Like an adult baby. A thought-eddy brushes her with incomprehensible meanings. The lights of the alien speech-patterns steady down. Tivonel can make out the words “What—? where—?”

“Be calm, you’re all right,” Tivonel tries to sound Fatherly.

As she speaks the alien field surges at her and the creature apparently perceives her physically for the first time. A jolt of reciprocal horror shoots through them both. Next second Tivonel is flung bodily away, hurled straight out from the wall as if a super sex-field had thrown her.

But we weren’t even biassed, she thinks, jetting hard to extricate herself from cross-currents. The creature hit my body with its mind; it has some weird power. Fantastic! She can see it awkwardly trying to move now, jetting and wobbling on its vanes. She better get to it before it hurts Giadoc’s body. Only, what can she do?

Just as she nears the wind-wall a deep silent sigh runs through the world and the great energy-arch above collapses like a dream. The Beam has been let down.

The world comes back to normalcy—and to her delight Tivonel sees that Giadoc is back too. There is his beautiful great familiar field around his body again! The poor stranger has been sent back to its horrible windless world.

“Giadoc! Are you all right? I was there but I panicked—”

“Yes, Tivonel.” His tone is warm but colored with the tints of unspoken thought, she can see his dense swifting mind-patterns. “Remember, we must now record our memories and report.”

Belatedly Tivonel recollects that she too must organize a memory. As they plane down she begins to do so, thinking, a proud moment to have a memory for the Recorders of Tyree. Too bad she has to report her fear and flight. But then, she has the interesting experience with the alien.

Orva, the Hearers’ Memory-Keeper, is waiting for them by Chief Lomax.

“You won’t have time for recording once you’re down there,” Orva tells them cheerfully. “Never seen such a whirl-field. More Deepers coming up every minute, too. Bad situation.”

As Giadoc and Orva merge, Tivonel scans down. As Orva said, the crowd below is much bigger: a whirl-field of excitement, fear and babble. She can feel strong mind-projections cutting through the commotion. The senior Fathers must be working to establish calm and order. She hopes Virmet and Marockee have thought about supplying more food.

The life-bands tingle as Giadoc and Orva disengage. Giadoc starts on down while Tivonel offers Orva her own modest field-engram. She has never merged with a senior Recorder before. It is a grave, cool experience, as though she looked for a moment into Time itself.

When he releases her she dives down fast and finds herself intercepted.

“Tivonel! Tell us, what was it like? How was it for females?”

It’s Avanil and two of her Paradomin.

“I don’t know, I was only there a second.” She banks past them. “Come, listen to Giadoc!”

Marockee is waiting in the plant-tangle. When Tivonel pulls up beside her, Giadoc and the elder Fathers are just below. He is recounting his experience verbally, his mind-field a great dreamy swirl.

“—As soon as I felt her make contact I merged with the nearest mind. You realize, Fathers, that there is no choice? You may enter a female, a baby, even an animal, whatever the nearest suitable energy configuration is.”

“Yes, yes,” Scomber says impatiently. “So the female was able to do this? She lived in the alien body?”

“Yes. But, Fathers, this is a terrifying world for the untrained. There is no wind. No wind at all. The bodies drop downward, they must rest upon solid matter. It’s impossible to describe. Tivonel became frightened and came back, and so would most people.”

How good he is, Tivonel thinks. She flushes resentfully hearing Scomber say: “But if she hadn’t been so cowardly she could have lived?”

“Oh yes. The bodies are intelligent and strong. One immediately gains all their senses and their physical habits and coordinations, including their habit of speech, which is of course the most important. One’s verbal intentions are translated, so to speak. I tested this again, after I oriented myself.”

“You actually spoke with these aliens?” old Father Omar asks.

“Yes indeed.” Giadoc’s mind is patterned with excited memories; Tivonel realizes that he is so caught up in his love of strangeness that he has forgotten the purpose of their questions, forgotten even the dire threat to Tyree. Now she can understand it; she herself is so excited by her mind-voyage that she is just coming back to the unpleasant realities.

“Yes, I spoke,” Giadoc is saying. “I was able to interact. You have to understand that their mind-fields are totally disorganized. They are transmitting at random, like a crowd of grown infants, if you can imagine such a thing. They seem unaware of themselves. I was quite pleased to be able to sort out names, suitable speech-greetings and so forth, so I could successfully converse with one of them. They speak by jets of air, without any mantle-language. And they are covered with sheets of plant-matter,” he goes on dreamily.

“Never mind that,” says Scomber impatiently. “Tell us the important point. Were you detected? Do they consider mind-entry illegal?”

Giadoc’s field contracts and focuses suddenly; he has remembered why they are here.

“I cannot be sure,” he says reluctantly. “I did pick up an abhorrence of physical violence from several minds, but of course this must be true in any civilized race. I also detected strong unspecified fears in the alien near me, for instance it became upset wben I spoke its name. But I may have violated some small ritual there.”

“You’re evading the point. Did they suspect a change of identity?”

Giadoc hesitates, his mantle glowing blue-gray in muted disapproval. “No,” he admits finally. “The only doubts I received were concerned with the health of the body’s owner. But Fathers, I don’t think you could go undetected long, because I discovered that this group of aliens are actually attempting to learn to transmit life-signals. Fantastic.” His field expands again at the wonder of it. “So ignorant and chaotic. Some of them have considerable power, but hopelessly untrained. That must be why our Beam stabilizes there so readily. An extraordinary coincidence!”

“Whatever they may learn in the future is no danger to us now,” Scomber declares. “The point is that even these aliens who have some crude mind-skills didn’t suspect you. Is that right?”

“Yes, Father Scomber.”

“And if your Beam is stabilized on them it should be easier to send people in a unified group, isn’t that correct, Lomax?”

“Well, yes, that’s true, Scomber.” The Chief Hearer is furled in dislike. Near him old Heagran is glowing dark indigo in wordless anger. But more and more young Fathers are clustering behind Scomber, their fields aligned with his. Among them is Tiavan.

“Wait, Scomber,” old Omar interjects. “Let us hear from the female before we think of sending untrained people.”

“Very well, Tivonel!”

She banks down among them, trying to think what she can do to dissuade them from their rotten plan.

“Yes,” she concedes, “with Giadoc’s guidance it was easy to travel the Beam. And the merger does itself, you only have to push. But Fathers, it was a horrible world. You Deepers may think you’re used to living at the bottom of the Wind, but it’s much worse than that. It panics you.”

Several Fathers glint angrily at her daring, but Scomber ignores her. “Will a Father saving his child panic so easily?” he demands in loud lights. “You have heard the female. Summon your Fatherly courage. On this Beam our children and our people can escape!” Flickers of assent greet his words; more Fathers throng around him.

Tivonel can contain herself no longer.

“What about the poor beings you bring here?” she flares. “While Giadoc was away I was with his body, I saw the alien mind he sent here, I saw it was hurt and afraid. And they’re intelligent beings like us. If Tyree is really in danger, how can a Father send these people here to be burned or die? I know that’s wrong.”

At this rebuke from a female the Father’s mantles light angrily. But old Heagran unfurls himself and silences them with an icy snap on the life-bands.

“She is right!” His voice is a commanding purple. “This female is a better life-Father than you! I say again, Scomber, this is a criminal plan. What right have we to steal intelligent bodies and bring these people here to suffer and die? You who try to escape by such means debase the name of Tyree. If you survive, you will be criminals, not Tyrenni; and the Great Wind will reject you forever. Saving Tyree does not mean saving our bodies alone. It is the spirit of Tyree we must save, or die with it. I for one will stay and perish in the arms of our sacred Wind rather than crawl out a few extra years as a mind-stealer in some alien abyss.”

“Well said!” “Nobly spoken, Heagran!” Several Fathers move to station themselves with Heagran and Lomax. “I stand with you,” declares Eldest-female Janskalen. More Fathers and females drift away from Scomber’s group.

But there is still a resolute crowd behind Scomber and Terenc. Avanil and many of her Paradomin are there too.

All fields are radiating tension. Is it possible there is going to be actual strife, a mind-fight like the Wild Ones here among the Fathers of Tyree? Tivonel shudders, scanning around over the throng. For the first time she realizes how huge it is. The plant-thickets at the Wall are dense with people, young and old—even some children jetting loose. A group of big-field males that must be the Near Pole Hearers is resting in a thicket. And more coming up from Deep all the time. They’re scared; she can hear the green flicker of fear flash from group to group. It wouldn’t take much to generate a terrible panic-vortex, here, she thinks. Some of the elders must think so too, she can see them awkwardly moving among the crowd, trying to restore calm.

The formal white of Lomax’ voice breaks into the tensions.

“Fathers, again I must remind you, your decision is premature. Your plan may be impossible. Only two of the three tests have been made. Even if we can send untrained people, undetected, we still do not know the most vital point: Will the exchange hold when the Beam collapses? Can you stay alive there without the Beam? We must test by withdrawing the Beam. I say again, I and my Hearers condemn this plan to steal lives. But we will make this last test in the hope that it will fail and put an end to discord.”

“Another test? Another delay until we all burn!” Scomber flashes.

“If you go without testing you may well all die at once,” Lomax replies. “The Beam cannot be held long. Then you would lose all chance of any other way of escape.”

“Very well,” Scomber concedes angrily. “Let this last test begin!”

“As soon as our Hearers are rested. They are drained and tired now, they require at least six hours. And in that time the turning of the alien world will complicate our contact. And furthermore, the lone Destroyer has approached our Beam, may the Wind blast him. We must wait a day for optimum conditions and to give the Destroyer time to move away.”

“A day! Nonsense!” Scomber explodes in fiery rage. “People are dying, the Wind is burning! We cannot wait a day, Destroyer or no Destroyer. If you Hearers are tired, let them use the help of these Near Pole Hearers over there! Bdello!” Scomber jolts the life-bands. “You, Bdello, bring your Hearers to Chief Lomax at once.”

“But they have never formed a Beam,” Lomax objects. “Also, see, they are exhausted from the journey—

“Then teach them!” Scomber orders. “Bdello! The Fathers summon you!”

Bdello and his travel-weary band start out toward the angry group of Fathers. Tivonel moves to Giadoc’s side.

“Let someone else go this time, Giadoc. Don’t risk yourself again.”

“I must, I am the most experienced. As to risk, it appears that none of us on Tyree have long to live. But I promise you, dear-Tivonel, if I’m alive when the Beam returns, I will come back to you and to our son.”

“If you’re alive—Oh, Giadoc!”

“Tivonel,” he dims his voice. “Between ourselves, I believe one can remain on an alien world without the Beam. Once I secretly tried disengagement. It was unpleasant but I survived. So I fear that this crime is indeed possible. But I swear to you, I will come back to join you here and we will face our fate together.”

The flashing uproar around Scomber and Lomax has resolved itself. Lomax agrees to try to form a Beam with the help of Bdello’s Hearers. “But it must be raised not once but twice,” he warns. “First to send and second to retrieve, if Giadoc proves to be alive.”

Giadoc turns away to start the long climb up to the launch-station, and the new Hearers prepare to jet out to the posts around the Wall.

“Marockee, you and Virmet see that they get food,” Tivonel says. “I must find a Father to stand by Giadoc’s body while he is away. The poor alien who comes here may injure it. Elders!” she calls formally. “A Father’s care is needed to stand by Giadoc!”

No one answers. Dismayed, she realizes how tired and unwind-worthy the senior Fathers are. And no help can be expected from those who bear children in their pouches. But there are Terenc and Padar and Tynad, strong young males with newly empty pouches.

“Father Tynad, Father Padar, will you not help?”

“What harm can come to his body in so short a time?” asks Tynad.

“The alien could hurl his body into the Abyss,” Tivonel says. “Besides, don’t you understand? The poor person who was brought here was terrified, it almost fragmented. It has need of your Fatherly skill.”

“We have no duty to Father animals.” Glinting sarcastically, Padar and Terenc move away.

“They’re not animals,” Tivonel cries. “It was a person like us, it spoke! And we are stealing them from their world. Very well—if none of you great ones will help, I will go up again and try, female though I am.”

From behind her a male voice speaks. “This female shames us. I am Ustan. Though I am not skilled enough to climb the heights of your wild winds, I will try to make my way to Hearer Lomax. If you are in need, perhaps I can reach you from there, Tivonel.”

“Honour to you, Father Ustan,” Tivonel flashes gratefully.

As she turns away there is an angry flare of argument around Lomax and Scomber.

“I insist on going with Giadoc,” Father Terenc is saying. “I shall not become fearful and flee, like your female.”

“It is easy enough to send you, Terenc,” Lomax replies. “But you don’t realize the danger. You may be lost forever when the Beam withdraws.”

“So be it,” Terenc signs firmly. “With great respect, Hearer Lomax, I see that this entire test is being conducted by Hearers who, as you say, hope that it will fail. I feel it would be well for Giadoc to be accompanied by one who will try to make it succeed.”

Lomax has been paling and flushing with insult, his field is furled around him like a storm. But he only replies curtly, “Very well. Follow Giadoc if you wish instruction.”

The big male spreads vanes and pumps upward after Giadoc, making up in determination what he lacks in skill.

Tivonel flaps her mantle to clear her mind; never has she heard such dissension among the Fathers of Tyree. Anyone would take them for squabbling females! Then she planes skillfully out onto a slender updraft and soars up past him, thinking, Now I have two bodies to watch over. Well, Terenc’s can look after itself.

As she climbs toward Lomax’ eddy her name is called.

“Wait, Tivonel! I’ll go with you and help watch!” It’s Avanil, with one of her Paradomin.

“Welcome, Avan.” Tivonel uses the unfamiliar name carefully, pleased by the chance to learn more of this strange young female. But what about the plenya encumbering her pouch?

“A moment.” With odd formality, Avanil turns to her friend, and her field alters. Tivonel sees that she is transferring the young plenya to the other with ritual reassurances—exactly like a small Father! It gives her a weird shudder.

“Let’s go.”

They jet upward together. Tivonel enjoys the sense of comradeship, like the old days on the hunting teams. She’s been away from female things too long.

“We mustn’t get too close until they’re actually on the Beam,” she warns. “You’ve no idea what it’s like, your field could get pulled in. Afterwards they look almost dead. It’s uncanny.”

“I envy your trip on the Beam,” says Avan/Avanil. “Listen. I intend—”

At that moment a life-signal bursts at them. Someone is jetting fast out through the Wall. As the mind-field appears, Tivonel exclaims.

“Iznagel! What are you doing here? She’s my friend from High Station,” she explains to Avanil.

“Well met, Tivonel.” Iznagel hangs panting below them. “I seem to be a little off course, don’t I? The time-eddies are getting so bad I’m not sure I’m here. I came to warn Hearers that something terrible is wrong with our Sound. Last night the high stream from mid-world veered over us; it’s full of death. Whole packs of curlu are burnt, they’re screaming so you can’t think. Two of our people went up to investigate and got burned too. Look at me!” She unfurls her vanes to show fresh blisters.

“The path you came on isn’t even safe by day now, Tivonel. Father Mornor is taking the children down to Deep and the rest of us are trying to move the Station lower down, if we can find a stable crest. Everybody should get out of the High—What in the name of the Wind is going on down there, Tivonel? What are all those Deeper Fathers doing here?”

“They’ve come here because there’s trouble all over,” Tivonel says. “It’s complicated, Iznagel, I can’t explain right now. I have to go.”

“They should go down at once!” Iznagel dives abruptly away from them down the wall of the wind.

“It’s beginning,” Avanil says somberly. “Soon there’ll be no safe place. The Sound doesn’t reach here at nights now, but when Tyree turns it’ll burn here too.”

“Feel the Beam starting,” Tivonel says. “It’s as if they drained the whole Wind—Oh, look at Lomax.”

They are passing Chief Hearer Lomax; Hearer Bdello from Near Pole is beside him. The two Hearers’ huge fields are streaming up in an arc toward the juncture far above; spectacular. Lomax’ power is an awesome sight; even Avanil must doubt that females could ever develop such life-sensitivity.

But a curious thing is happening: the mantles of both Lomax and Bdello are murmuring with light-speech. Surely they aren’t talking to each other in their state? No; it must be unconscious fragments, like sleep-talk. Suddenly Lomax forms a word with such blue-green hatred that Tivonel stops in mid-jet.

“The Destroyer!”

And Bdello echoes, “The Destroyer… the Beam…”

Great winds, she forgot that Destroyer out there somewhere. Can it be intruding on the Beam? She recalls Giadoc’s memory, the cold, vast alien deathliness. Could it attack Giadoc?

As the two females hover, Lomax’ dreaming voice flickers clearly, “No … but near… Something intrudes… disturbance…”

“Disturbance,” Bdello seems to agree, amid a mumble of meaningless lights. Then Lomax signs, “Gone… small, what?… Wait… no: clear. Clear…” And the two unconscious glimmers sink to a low hum of concentration.

Tivonel scans up to where Giadoc and Terenc are. Their life-fields look normal.

“Whatever it was, it wasn’t the Destroyer,” she tells Avanil. “We better get moving; they’ll get it fixed.”

As they jet on upwards through a world growing strange and hushed, Avanil asks, “That alien you touched—was it a female?”

“I haven’t an idea, it was all over so quick. Avan, I hate myself for getting scared.”

“You’re not a coward. But listen, Tivonel: The one you saw in Giadoc’s body, was it female or male?”

“I couldn’t tell. It was a mess, it was too scared to make sense. And then it threw me. You better watch out for that, you know.”

“But it had a big field?” Avanil persists.

“Oh yes—at first I thought it was Giadoc, until I saw how weird it was.”

“So it could have been a female with a big field.”

“Maybe the males are even bigger,” Tivonel says teasingly.

“Be serious, Tivonel. Somewhere out there must be a world where we aren’t like this. Where the females are able to do Fathering and all the high-status activities… Of course the egg has to be exposed before it’s fertilized,” she goes on reflectively. “That’s so basic. And I guess that means the males have to catch it. But the rest could be different. Maybe where there isn’t any wind, females could get their eggs back and raise them!” She laughs fiercely. “Maybe there’s a world where the females are so strong they just hold the males and squeeze them out onto the egg and keep the eggs themselves! And we’d have all the Skills and respect!”

Both young females are laughing now, the picture is so ludicrous. But Tivonel has been noticing that Avanil’s field really is unusually large and complex. Is her mock-Fathering really changing her? Could a female develop the sacred Fatherly skills? Infant-Empathy, Developmental-Responsibility, Mind-Nurture, all those big things?

But imagine being a Father. Father Tivon, she’d be. She has a quick fantasy of herself inventing a new theory of field-forming, or pre-flight training. Conferences, grave excitement. Fame. Reverence. Status. But would she really enjoy being so serious and dedicated, doing nothing but debate with other Fathers? It would mean giving up all hertraditonal low-status life. No more adventures or work; no more planning that barter scheme, for instance. Is Avanil so ambitious she’s forgotten all wildness, all female fun?

Just as she’s thinking how to ask such a personal question, a long-range signal resonates the bands. The Beam is up. Yes—there is the great pale arch of energy above the vortex of the pole.

“We better stop here. Watch.”

“Whew, the Sound is strong up here, Tivonel. Your friend was right, it’s getting dangerous.”

“Never mind that. Hold tight.”

They can see the life-fields of Giadoc and Terenc above them, starting to surge upward toward the focus of the Beam. The energy around them mounts and builds; the two females can feel their own minds being pulled upward. As the flood of power intensifies they lock their field edges together in the effort to hold back.

Just as it seems they must fly upward, the second signal snaps past them and the tension lets go. Above them the great arched dome has towered out of scan. The world below seems drained and flat. Tivonel expands her mind-field from emergency mode.

“That’s it, they’re on the Beam. See how dead they look?”

They jet up to where the two unconscious males are floating darkly, each veiled by only a thin trace of field.

“You stay by Terenc, Avan. See that connection to the Beam? Don’t break it. And listen, don’t get too close when you see the field start to change.”

“How soon will the alien come?”

“It takes awhile. No, look! It’s starting!”

The field around Terenc’s body has begun to thicken and roil as it had with Giadoc. Giadoc himself shows no sign of field-change.

“It’s a smaller field, Avan. It’s not so wild, either. Be careful.”

Terenc’s mantle suddenly screams green with fear. But it’s more of a whimper, not the blazing uproar of Tivonel’s other alien.

“Poor thing.” Confidently, Avan approaches it and deftly flicks back a field-flare that threatens to separate. The stranger does not react. Avan soothes another flare. Then she marshals her own mind-surface firmly toward the ragged stranger. Great winds, she’s making a small Father-field! Tivonel can pick up the waves of reassurance she’s transmitting. This Avan really is something!

Impressed and curious, Tivonel moves closer, keeping a side scan to make sure Giadoc’s body is still quiescent.

“Calm, calm, don’t be afriad,” Avan is sending hypnotically. “You’re all right, I’m here. I’ll help you understand, just be calm. Smooth yourself, be round like an egg, little one. Speak to your Father Avon. Who are you, little one? Tell Father Avon, are you a female?”

To Tivonel’s awed surprise, the green wailing quiets. Then the creature lights a wobbly cry, “No!” Presently it starts mewling incomprehensible questions: “Where is—I want my—? Help! Rit! Rip! Rik!”

“You’ll have Rit soon,” Avan soothes it, continuing to enfold and drain its field. “Only a little while, now tell me who you are, speak to your Father Avan.”

But the creature jerks in terror and wails anew; apparently it has tried to scan and terrified itself. Fascinated, Tivonel watches Avan Father it back to calmness.

Then she remembers Giadoc’s body—and sees, shocked, that it has drifted out from the wall. While she was preoccupied an alien field has formed around it, and—Oh, no, it’s unfurling Giadoc’s vanes!

Cursing her inattention, Tivonel starts after it. There’s no danger, of course; the currents that flow to the Airfield here are no more dangerous than a baby’s jets. But Giadoc’s big form is catching so much air, it’s tumbling away from her at increasing speed. Better hurry.

As she jets hard across the updraft, Tivonel sees that the alien field around the body is even larger than before, and terribly disorganized. But there seems to be something really wrong; the strange field is lax and trailing weakly, like a dying creature. Giadoc’s mantle is dark, except for a faint blue murmur, “Marg… Marget…”

At any rate it doesn’t appear violent. She’ll be able to haul it back easily, she’s quite near now.

But as she comes in reach, the strange field flares crazily, and Giadoc’s great vanes fan out, catching all the air. A stronger current takes hold and to her utmost horror she sees Giadoc’s body go whirling away, headed straight out to the lethal Airfall.

It’s a race for life now; heedless of her own safety Tivonel pumps all her jets and shoots herself cross-wind, after the huge wheeling form, chasing the body of beloved Giadoc that is carrying the dying alien to both their deaths.