The Caterpillar's Question by Piers Anthony and Philip José Farmer (26 page)

What about Malva, then? She hadn't worn a mask. But she hadn't been in the company of any Gaol, either; she probably had her own sealed atmospheric chamber. He really had taken too much for granted.

He returned to the present situation. Once Tappy was aboard the big ship, she would have to make her way to the Nexus Gaol, or what Jack called the captain. She would use the facilitator to corrupt that individual, and then he would help her corrupt the rest of the ship. Jack didn't argue about the term "corrupt"; he knew that Garth did not mean any affront.

But how could Tappy ever accomplish such a thing? The odds were against her. There were so many things that could go wrong!

"What are the odds?" he demanded grimly. Then he had to explain to them what he meant.

Candy and Garth held a dialogue, and came to agreement. "The odds of the host's success in this endeavor are approximately one in three. But if she fails, the odds are nine to one that the host will be dead, and the Imago will be free. That, too, is success. So the endeavor, taken as a whole, is worthwhile."

"Great," Jack said, sick at heart.

"If I am to leave you, perhaps forever," Tappy said, "I want to make love with you one last time."

"Of course," Jack said numbly.

But when they went to the bed, the specter of her death loomed so large in his mind that he was impotent. It was as if he were sending her into it, and somehow it seemed that if he renounced this part of it, she would not suffer the other part. "I'm sorry, Tappy," he said.

"I know. I feel your guilt and sorrow. Just hold me."

That much he could do.

"If I do not return," she said after a while, "you must take Candy as your lover. It will not mean anything to her, but it will help you to forget."

"I don't want to forget!" he exclaimed.

"You would not be here, except for me. I could not live or die in peace if I left you to the emotions you now feel. Promise me that you will take her."

"I promise," he said. Because otherwise she would have been even more unhappy, and it would be his fault. There were ways in which this newly adult Tappy was harder to accept than the lame blind child had been.

Then they slept, embraced but without great solace

They set it up. Tappy gave Jack the hatchling, which had come back to her after converting Garth. It was able to eat human food, because its flesh was from a human being. She returned to the coffin and Candy locked her in. Then Garth selected a sensor and sent a piercing whistle through it. Jack was aware of no change, but both Garth and Candy assured him that the sensor was now malfunctioning, and would attract the attention of the monitoring ship.

They assumed their stations. Since no one was supposed to be aboard the isolation ship except Tappy, they had to hide in shielded areas so that their life forces would not be detected by the robot. Jack's station was by the entrance port; he would use a tiny wire Garth had provided to nullify the robot's programming switch from behind. Then Garth would fix the sensor, and Tappy would take the hatchling and enter the other ship in lieu of the robot. Then they would wait. Perhaps for a long time.

Suddenly a small alarm sounded for the approach of a body in space. This was in order; the robot would pick up that alarm and know that the isolation ship was functioning properly, despite the one bad sensor. The robot ship was not velocity limited; it had passed from the master ship to the isolation ship almost instantaneously. But the final approach was slower, so that the locks could be merged. Though the robot did not require atmospheric pressure, the isolation ship was pressured for the sake of the drugged host, and that pressure and composition would be maintained throughout.

The lock opened-- and a man stepped through.

Jack gaped. It was supposed to be a robot! What had happened? His little wire was useless, because the man had no external programming switch. And he was not alone; there was the sound of footsteps behind him.

The man turned and saw Jack. His eyes seemed to widen in similar surprise. His mouth opened to cry warning to his companion.

Jack threw the hatchling. It struck the man on the forehead and clung, quickly fading out of sight. Then Jack ducked around the man and flung himself into the other ship, hoping to catch the second man by surprise.

He did. He plowed right into the other, wrapped his arms around him, and bore him down. Jack scrambled to put a hand on the other's chest, to hold him down long enough to look at.

And discovered that it was a woman. Her face was petite, and her chest was--

Embarrassed, Jack removed his hand. "I don't suppose you speak my language?" he asked.

"We are programmed for the language of the host of the Imago," she replied.

"And I don't suppose I can trust you not to attack me if I let you up?"

"We are not attack androids. We are maintenance personnel."

Oh. No wonder it had been so easy. She had not fought him at all. Then something else registered. "Androids -- you mean you're not alive?"

"We are not alive," she agreed.

"And you could lift me off you with one hand?"

"Like this?" She grasped him by the belt and lifted him into the air with one hand.

"But you obey the directives of living creatures?" he cried desperately. "We do."

"Well, I'm a living creature. You must obey my directives."

"Of course. What are they?"

"First, put me down. Then vacate your ship. Then signal the home ship that all is well."

She put him down. She got to her feet. She walked to the other ship. There stood the android man.

"Give me the hatchling-- unharmed," Jack directed him. Because of course the hatchling had had no effect. He had to describe the hatchling.

The man reached up to strip something from his forehead. He handed it to Jack. The hatchling did not seem to be harmed. Jack realized that this arrival of the androids instead of the robot was better than what they had anticipated. Not only did this allow two individuals to return with the ship, one of them could be a human-seeming woman without causing any alarm.

After that it was easy, physically. Tappy emerged from the coffin, and she and Garth took the places of the two androids. With Garth's direct guidance, they judged that the odds of success were now three to one in their favor.

The locks sealed and the ships separated. Jack settled back to wait. He was now the only living thing in the isolation ship, but the three others looked human and would obey his directives. He would be fine, if he could just keep his mind from the challenges facing Tappy. Since he couldn't do anything about them at the moment, there was no point dwelling on them. He needed to distract himself.

"Say, do you folk want to learn to play strip poker?" he inquired brightly.

Chapter 12

Jack had never felt so lonely. Like most creative people, he did not suffer from isolation for long periods. Not as long as he could paint or read thought-stimulating books.

But Tappy was gone, and he might never see her again. He felt as if he were a lone figure standing in the middle of a surrealist painting, say, in one of Salvador Dali's white plains stretching toward a horizon much farther away than Earth's, a tiny figure, the only human being on a vast malignant world. Nothing Terrestrial existed there except him. He could walk forever with only increasing loneliness for a companion, though black depression might also join him.

Since her ship had gone, ten minutes had dripped as if from a stalactite. When it had disappeared, seemingly erased from this continuum, it was like his heart had been anchored to the ship and had been ripped out when it had shot away. That was, of course, poetic exaggeration, but it came close to expressing his agony at her departure.

He paced back and forth, passing by the three androids. They stood without moving, their eyes open and unblinking. After a while, unless he ordered them to do something, they would seem to be furniture. His imagination worked hard to envision what Garth and Tappy could be doing now. But it was like an ancient Roman slave pushing on a huge grinding-wheel spoke. It just went around and around and the pushing got heavier every minute.

He tried to think of something else.

The Imago? What could its true nature be? How had it originated? It seemed to be some sort of divine entity. But, as far as he knew, it had no mind. Or, in fact, a body. No material body, anyway.

What was it? A chip off God's block? What did that phrase mean? Nothing. A child of God or a special envoy? Or a manifestation of God? But "manifestation" was just a word which signified nothing in this situation. It was a word to conceal ignorance. Just as most words in philosophy or in theology masked lack of knowledge about reality.

But Tappy had murmured in her sleep, "Reality is a dream." "I give up!" he said loudly.

He began weeping. After several seconds, he quit, and he dried his eyes. He felt better then, though not much better.

Suddenly, glass shattered without sound around him. There was no glass, but it seemed as if there had been. Sharp things without edges pierced him. The largest thing, a piece, a shard, whatever it was, slanted through his brain, bringing light with it. Then the "glass" evaporated. Through the broad but, at the same time, thin triangular space left by the passage of the "glass," light poured into the "wound."

The light expanded like a nuclear fireball, then divided into two photonic amoebas. One was still in his head; one seemed to hang before his eyes. Through the latter, he saw Tappy. Then she moved from directly in front of his vision. No. Whatever he was seeing through had moved. She turned toward him and looked into his eyes. But her face was expressionless. She did not see him.

He cried out, "Tappy!" as if she could hear him. Her lips moved, and he could hear her. The words were somewhat blurred, but it was evident that they were not addressed to him.

Immediately thereafter, the clearness of the vision faded. A ripple passed through it, then all he saw was wrinkled and distorted. Tappy and the off-white wall behind her and some partially revealed machines and instruments behind her stretched out as if they had been painted on a rubber band being pulled out lengthwise.

He realized that he was seeing part of the interior of the Gaol spaceship to which she and Garth had gone. They had gotten into it, though just where they were and what their situation was, he could not tell.

Suddenly, the scene seemed to be squeezed on both sides, making Tappy and the machines tall and thin. That state held for several seconds before abruptly becoming normal. He realized that, whoever or whatever the transmitter was, it was having trouble controlling the output.

He was in some kind of telepathic communication with Tappy. No. Not communication. It was a one-way transmission. But definitely via a medium he had not believed could exist. Telepathy.

Then he no longer saw her. He was looking at the Gaol cyborg, Garth, and he was hearing human voices and clicking sounds.

The hatchling! It was his transmitter. It had been on Garth, allowing a view of Tappy from Garth's vantage. Then the hatchling had leaped from it to somewhere. Ah! Now he knew. It was on her shoulder. Her hand and part of her arm had risen to block partially his view, then dropped.

By means Jack would never know, the hatchling was showing him what it saw and heard through its peculiar receptors and transmitter.

Or was the Imago doing this with the hatchling as its transmitter?

But how and who did not matter. Being and doing did.

He stood for a long time, almost as motionless as the androids near him, while he watched. Tappy had turned about one hundred degrees to the left. She and Garth were at one end of a large room. Men and women in loose green robes were seated at desks and consoles. Many of these bore three-foot-wide square crystals. Their faces bore strange symbols and images. Most of them seemed to be operated by verbal commands. Once, a crystal extruded part of its face in the shape of a human hand with one finger. The finger bent to point back to the screen. Its operator spoke, and the hand sank back and became one with the face of the block.

What kind of computer was that?

Large green vines festooned with huge many-colored flowers and clusters of berries covered the ceiling and parts of the walls. Since Jack could not smell them, he supposed that the hatchling's telepathic powers did not include odor. The vegetation was primarily to supply oxygen and secondarily to relieve the sterility and monotony of bare walls.

The room vanished. He swore. Was this to be the end of the transmission?

Several minutes passed during which he paced back and forth. Had something bad happened to Tappy and the hatchling or did telepathy demand so much energy that the hatchling could no longer project the view? What? What?

As suddenly as it had gone, the scene was back. But the hatchling seemed to be on top of Tappy's head now. He saw that two of the berry stems on the wall just ahead of Tappy no longer bore a berry. Also, one berry was half- eaten. For several seconds, he did not realize the implication, then he struck his right palm with his left fist.

Of course! The hatchling, like all creatures, had to have food. It had leaped to the cluster and eaten its fill.

Though Jack had seen no mouth on it, it had one or it ingested as an amoeba did.

He also knew now that the creature could not see or hear as Tappy and Garth did. It used their brains and eyes to transmit what they saw and heard. He was looking through Tappy's eyes, hearing through her ears. When the hatchling was on Garth, it functioned as it did on Tappy. He should have understood that before now. But he was somewhat numb from the shock of the unexpected transmission.

Tappy and Garth began to stroll across the room. Some operators glanced up at them. Nobody made a move toward or questioned them. The two intruders were regarded as part of the crew, though some may have wondered why the woman was not in uniform. However, the crew might know only what their duties were. They might not even know why the ship was located here or what its overall mission was.