Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (S.F. MASTERWORKS)

by James Tiptree Jr.

  He held himself on and in her until her body and breathing calmed to relaxation, and they slipped naturally apart. It came to him that this sex activity seemed to have more possibilities, as a thing to do, than he had realized. His family had imparted to him nothing of all this. Perhaps they didn’t know it. Or perhaps it was too alien to their calm philosophy.

  “How do you know about all this?” he asked Peachthief sleepily.

  “One of my aunts did literature, too.” She chuckled in the darkness. “Different literature, I guess.”

  They slept almost as movelessly as the body flying with them on the other couch a world away.

  A series of noisy bumpings wakened them. The windows were filled with pink mist flying by. The airship seemed to be sliding into a berth. Jakko looked down and saw shrubs and grass close below; it was a ground-berth on a hillside.

  The computer panel lit up: RESET PROGRAM FOR BASE.

  “No,” said Jakko. “We’ll need it going back.” Peachthief looked at him in a new, companionable way; he sensed that she believed him now. He turned all the drive controls to standby while she worked the food synthesizer. Presently he heard the hiss of the deflating lift bags, and went to where she was standing by the dead stranger.

  “We’ll take her, her body, out before we go back,” Peachthief said. “Maybe the River will touch her somehow.”

  Jakko doubted it, but ate and drank his breakfast protein in silence.

  When they went to use the wash-and-waste cubby he found he didn’t want to clean all the residues of their contact off himself. Peachthief seemed to feel the same way; she washed only her face and hands. He looked at her slender silk-clad belly. Was a child, his child, starting there? Desire flicked him again, but he remembered he had work to do. His promise to his father; get on with it. Sooner done, sooner back here.

  “I love you,” he said experimentally, and found the strange words had a startling trueness.

  She smiled brilliantly at him, not just off-on. “I love you too, I think.”

  The floor-portal light was on. They pulled it up and uncovered a stepway leading to the ground. The moondogs poured down. They followed, coming out into a blowing world of rosy mists. Clouds were streaming around them, the air was all in motion up the hillside toward the crest some distance ahead of the ship berth. The ground here was uneven and covered with short soft grass, as though animals had cropped it.

  “All winds blow to the River,” Jakko quoted.

  They set off up the hill, followed by the moondogs, who stalked uneasily with pricked ears. Probably they didn’t like not being able to smell what was ahead, Jakko thought. Peachthief was holding his hand very firmly as they went, as if determined to keep him out of any danger.

  As they walked up onto the flat crest of the hilltop the mists suddenly cleared, and they found themselves looking down into a great shallow glittering sunlit valley. They both halted to stare.

  Before them lay a huge midden heap, kilometers of things upon things upon things, almost filling the valley floor. Objects of every description lay heaped there; Jakko could make out clothing, books, toys, jewelry, myriad artifacts and implements abandoned. These must be, he realized, the last things people had taken with them when they went on the River. In an outer ring not too far below them were tents, ground- and aircars, even wagons. Everything shone clean and gleaming as if the influence of the River had kept off decay.

  He noticed that the nearest ring of encampments intersected other, apparently older and larger, rings. There seemed to be no center to the pile.

  “The River has moved, or shrunk,” he said.

  “Both, I think.” Peachthief pointed to the right. “Look, there’s an old war-place.”

  A big grass-covered mound dominated the hillcrest beside them. Jakko saw it had metal-rimmed slits in its sides. He remembered history: how there were still rulers of people when the River’s tendrils first touched Earth. Some of the rulers had tried to keep their subjects from the going-out places, posting guards around them and even putting killing devices in the ground. But the guards had gone themselves out on the River, or the River had swelled and taken them. And the people had driven beasts across the mined ground and surged after them into the stream of immortal life. In the end the rulers had gone too, or died out. Looking more carefully, Jakko could see that the green hillslopes were torn and pocked, as though ancient explosions had made craters everywhere.

  Suddenly he remembered that he had to find his father in all this vast confusion.

  “Where’s the River now? My father’s mind should reach there still, if I’m not too late.”

  “See that glittery slick look in the air down there? I’m sure that’s a danger-place.”

  Down to their right, fairly close to the rim, was a strangely bright place. As he stared it became clearer: a great column of slightly golden or shining air. He scanned about, but saw nothing else like it all across the valley.

  “If that’s the only focus left, it’s going away fast.”

  She nodded and then swallowed, her small face suddenly grim. She meant to live on here and die without the River, Jakko could see that. But he would be with her; he resolved it with all his heart. He squeezed her hand hard.

  “If you have to talk to your father, we better walk around up here on the rim where it’s safe,” Peachthief said.

  “No-oo,” spoke up a moondog from behind them. The two humans turned and saw the three sitting in a row on the crest, staring slit-eyed at the valley.

  “All right,” Peachthief said. “You wait here. We’ll be back soon.”

  She gripped Jakko’s hand even tighter, and they started walking past the old war-mound, past the remains of ancient vehicles, past an antique pylon that leaned crazily. There were faint little trails in the short grass. Another war-mound loomed ahead; when they passed around it they found themselves suddenly among a small herd of white animals with long necks and no horns. The animals went on grazing quietly as the humans walked by. Jakko thought they might be mutated deer.

  “Oh, look!” Peachthief let go his hand. “That’s milk—see, her baby is sucking!”

  Jakko saw that one of the animals had a knobby bag between its hind legs. A small one half-knelt down beside it, with its head up nuzzling the bag. A mother and her young.

  Peachthief was walking cautiously toward them, making gentle greeting sounds. The mother animal looked at her calmly, evidently tame. The baby went on sucking, rolling its eyes. Peachthief reached them, petted the mother, and then bent down under to feel the bag. The animal sidestepped a pace, but stayed still. When Peachthief straightened up she was licking her hand.

  “That’s good milk! And they’re just the right size, we can take them on the airship! On the waycars, even.” She was beaming, glowing. Jakko felt an odd warm constriction in his chest. The intensity with which she furnished her little world, her future nest! Their nest . . .

  “Come with us, come on,” Peachthief was urging. She had her belt around the creature’s neck to lead it. It came equably, the young one following in awkward galloping lunges.

  “That baby is a male. Oh, this is perfect,” Peachthief exclaimed. “Here, hold her a minute while I look at that one.”

  She handed Jakko the end of the belt and ran off. The beast eyed him levelly. Suddenly it drew its upper lip back and shot spittle at his face. He ducked, yelling for Peachthief to come back.

  “I have to find my father first!”

  “All right,” she said, returning. “Oh, look at that!”

  Downslope from them was an apparition—one of the white animals, but partly transparent, ghostly thin. It drifted vaguely, putting its head down now and then, but did not eat.

  “It must have got partly caught in the River, it’s half gone. Oh, Jakko, you can see how dangerous it is! I’m afraid, I’m afraid it’ll catch you.”

  “It won’t. I’ll be very careful.”

  “I’m afraid so.” But she let him lead her on, towing the
animal alongside. As they passed the ghost-creature Peachthief called to it, “You can’t live like that. You better go on out. Shoo, shoo!”

  It turned and moved slowly out across the piles of litter, toward the shining place in the air.

  They were coming closer to it now, stepping over more and more abandoned things. Peachthief looked sharply at everything; once she stooped to pick up a beautiful fleecy white square and stuff it in her pack. The hillcrest was merging with a long grassy slope, comparatively free of debris, that ran out toward the airy glittering column. They turned down it.

  The River-focus became more and more awesome as they approached. They could trace it towering up and up now, twisting gently as it passed beyond the sky. A tendril of the immaterial stream of sidereal sentience that had embraced Earth, a pathway to immortal life. The air inside looked no longer golden, but pale silver-gilt, like a great shaft of moonlight coming down through the morning sun. Objects at its base appeared very dear but shimmering, as if seen through crystal water.

  Off to one side were tents. Jakko suddenly recognized one, and quickened his steps. Peachthief pulled back on his arm.

  “Jakko, be careful!”

  They slowed to a stop a hundred yards from the tenuous fringes of the River’s effect. It was very still. Jakko peered intently. In the verges of the shimmer a staff was standing upright. From it hung a scarf of green-and-yellow silk.

  “Look—that’s my father’s sign!”

  “Oh, Jakko, you can’t go in there.”

  At the familiar-colored sign all the memories of his life with his family had come flooding back on Jakko. The gentle rationality, the solemn sense of preparation for going out from Earth forever. Two different realities strove briefly within him. They had loved him, he realized that now. Especially his father . . . But not as he loved Peachthief, his awakened spirit shouted silently. I am of Earth! Let the stars take care of their own. His resolve took deeper hold and won.

  Gently he released himself from her grip.

  “You wait here. Don’t worry, it takes a long while for the change, you know that. Hours, days. I’ll only be a minute, I’ll come right back.”

  “Ohhh, it’s crazy.”

  But she let him go and stood holding to the milk-animal while he went down the ridge and picked his way out across the midden heap toward the staff. As he neared it he could feel the air change around him, becoming alive and yet more still.

  “Father! Paul! It’s Jakko, your son. Can you still hear me?”

  Nothing answered him. He took a step or two past the staff, repeating his call.

  A resonant susurrus came in his head, as if unearthly reaches had opened to him. From infinity he heard without hearing his father’s quiet voice.

  You came.

  A sense of calm welcome.

  “The cities are all empty, Father. All the people have gone, everywhere.”

  Come.

  “No!” He swallowed, fending off memory, fending off the lure of strangeness. “I think it’s sad. It’s wrong. I’ve found a woman. We’re going to stay and make children.”

  The River is leaving, Jakko my son.

  It was as if a star had called his name, but he said stubbornly, “I don’t care. I’m staying with her. Good-bye, Father. Goodbye.”

  Grave regret touched him, and from beyond a host of silent voices murmured down the sky: Come! Come away.

  “No!” he shouted, or tried to shout, but he could not still the rapt voices. And suddenly, gazing up, he felt the reality of the River, the overwhelming opening of the door to life everlasting among the stars. All his mortal fears, all his most secret dread of the waiting maw of death, all slid out of him and fell away, leaving him almost unbearably light and calmly joyful. He knew that he was being touched, that he could float out upon that immortal stream forever. But even as the longing took him, his human mind remembered that this was the start of the first stage, for which the River was called Beata. He thought of the ghost animal that had lingered too long. He must leave now, and quickly. With enormous effort he took one step backward, but could not turn.

  “Jakko! Jakko! Come back!”

  Someone was calling, screaming his name. He did turn then, and saw her on the little ridge. Nearby, yet so far. The ordinary sun of Earth was brilliant on her and the two white beasts.

  “Jakko! Jakko!” Her arms were outstretched, she was running toward him.

  It was as if the whole beautiful Earth was crying to him, calling to him to come back and take up the burden of life and death. He did not want it. But she must not come here, he knew that without remembering why. He began uncertainly to stumble toward her, seeing her now as his beloved woman, again as an unknown creature uttering strange cries.

  “Lady Death,” he muttered, not realizing he had ceased to move. She ran faster, tripped, almost fell in the heaps of stuff. The wrongness of her coming here roused him again; he took a few more steps, feeling his head clear a little.

  “Jakko!” She reached him, clutched him, dragging him bodily forward from the verge.

  At her touch the reality of his human life came back to him, his heart pounded human blood, all stars fled away. He started to run clumsily, half-carrying her with him up to the safety of the ridge. Finally they sank down gasping beside the animals, holding and kissing each other, their eyes wet.

  “I thought you were lost, I thought I’d lost you,” Peachthief sobbed.

  “You saved me.”

  “H-here,” she said. “We b-better have some food.” She rummaged in her pack, nodding firmly as if the simple human act could defend against unearthly powers. Jakko discovered that he was quite hungry.

  They ate and drank peacefully in the soft flower-studded grass, while the white animals grazed around them. Peachthief studied the huge strewn valley floor, frowning as she munched.

  “So many good useful things here. I’ll come back someday, when the River’s gone, and look around.”

  “I thought you only wanted natural things,” he teased her.

  “Some of these things will last. Look.” She picked up a small implement. “It’s an awl, for punching and sewing leather. You could make children’s sandals.”

  Many of the people who came here must have lived quite simply, Jakko thought. It was true that there could be useful tools. And metal. Books, too. Directions for making things. He lay back dreamily, seeing a vision of himself in the far future, an accomplished artisan, teaching his children skills. It seemed deeply good.

  “Oh, my milk-beast!” Peachthief broke in on his reverie. “Oh, no! You mustn’t!” She jumped up.

  Jakko sat up and saw that the white mother animal had strayed quite far down the grassy ridge. Peachthief trotted down after her, calling, “Come here! Stop!”

  Perversely, the animal moved away, snatching mouthfuls of grass. Peachthief ran faster. The animal threw up its head and paced down off the ridge, among the litter piles.

  “No! Oh, my milk! Come back here, come.”

  She went down after it, trying to move quietly and call more calmly.

  Jakko had gotten up, alarmed.

  “Come back! Don’t go down there!”

  “The babies’ milk,” she wailed at him, and made a dash at the beast. But she missed and it drifted away just out of reach before her.

  To his horror Jakko saw that the glittering column of the River had changed shape slightly, eddying out a veil of shimmering light close ahead of the beast.

  “Turn back! Let it go!” he shouted, and began to run with all his might. “Peachthief—come back!”

  But she would not turn, and his pounding legs could not catch up. The white beast was in the shimmer now; he saw it bound up onto a great sun- and moonlit heap of stuff. Peachthief’s dark form went flying after it, uncaring, and the creature leaped away again. He saw her follow, and bitter fear grabbed at his heart. The very strength of her human life is betraying her to death, he thought; I have to get her physically, I will pull her out. He for
ced his legs faster, faster yet, not noticing that the air had changed around him, too.

  She disappeared momentarily in a veil of glittering air, and then reappeared, still following the beast. Thankfully he saw her pause and stoop to pick something up. She was only walking now, he could catch her. But his own body was moving sluggishly, it took all his will to keep his legs thrusting him ahead.

  “Peachthief! Love, come back!”

  His voice seemed muffled in the silvery air. Dismayed, he realized that he too had slowed to a walk, and she was veiled again from his sight.

  When he struggled through the radiance he saw her, moving very slowly after the wandering white beast. Her face was turned up, unearthly light was on her beauty. He knew she was feeling the rapture, the call of immortal life was on her. On him, too; he found he was barely stumbling forward, a terrible serenity flooding his heart. They must be passing into the very focus of the River, where it ran strongest.

  “Love—” Mortal grief fought the invading transcendence. Ahead of him the girl faded slowly into the glimmering veils, still following her last earthly desire. He saw that humanity, all that he had loved of the glorious Earth, was disappearing forever from reality. Why had it awakened, only to be lost? Spectral voices were near him, but he did not want specters. An agonizing lament for human life welled up in him, a last pang that he would carry with him through eternity. But its urgency fell away. Life incorporeal, immortal, was on him now; it had him as it had her. His flesh, his body, was beginning to attenuate, to dematerialize out into the great current of sentience that flowed on its mysterious purposes among the stars.

  Still the essence of his earthly self moved slowly after hers into the closing mists of infinity, carrying upon the River a configuration that had been a man striving forever after a loved dark girl, who followed a ghostly white milch deer.