THE CATERPILLARS QUESTION

by Piers Anthony

  "And Tappy herself-you would never harm her, or go against her wish?"

  "This is approximately true. Were she to desire something harmful to herself, we would decline-"

  "Got it. You really are her agents, no matter what."

  "This is the situation."

  "Thanks."

  "It is her will that you be given full infonyiation."

  Jack was satisfied with that. Since he also wanted what was best for Ta ppy, there should be no trouble. If these humanoids real y I were to be trusted.

  They returned to the main chamber. There was now a table there, with fairly familiar food on it. Tappy was standing behind a chair, dressed in a clean and well-fitting blouse and skirt, her hair brushed out and tied back by a red ribbon. Only the scar on her face marred her dawning prettiness. That and the slightly unfocused eyes.

  "You look wonderful, Tappy," he said.

  She broke into a smile, extending her hand to him. He saw that though she was the mistress here, she remained eager for his company and reassurance.

  He took her hand and squeezed it. Then they sat down to their meal, catered by Abbie and Brie.

  It consisted of a small lettuce and tomato salad, mashed potatoes, and a steak, with a glass of milk on the side. But the lettuce was red, which was possible, and the tomato green, also possible depending on the variety. The milk was brown, which could mean chocolate. The steak was blue.

  It was that last that made him conclude that this was not ordinary food after all. It was artificial food, surely with the requisite nutritive elements. But the Agents of the Imago-the Alvidently had no direct experience with the world Jack had known. That showed in their clothing and in the food. Either they were color-blind, or they had misinterpreted the colors. Tappy could not correct them, because she couldn't see the food.

  But it took only a moment for Jack to conclude that he should keep his mouth shut, except for eating. This was his first direct evidence that the AI were fallible. There were things they didn't know. That was reassuring. It also argued for their legitimacy, in a perverse way. They were here to help Tappy, who didn't care about the fit of their clothing or the color of the food, so they didn't pay proper attention to that. They hadn't expec ed Jack, who could see and who knew, so were caught short. Malva would have put him under a mind-probe or something and gotten the details right even if it burned out his brain. The AI had left his mind alone. He had better encourage them to continue doing that.

  Tappy was already eating. He dived into his meal, and the taste was close enough. Probably everything was made from hydroponic soybeans and with taste and color, but for all he could tell, the steak was from a dragon. It would do.

  For dessert Abbie brought green pumpkin pie, and Brie brought cheese. Jack looked at her, and at the cheese, and stifled a laugh. It wasn't that the cheese was blue, literally; it was the coincidence of the name.

  Tappy became aware of his reaction. Her face turned toward him.

  "It's nothing," he said. "Just that I named her Brie, and Brie is a variety of cheese."

  She smiled. Brie, the seeming woman, did not. She did not seem to be offended; she just did not have emotions, and would not have understood the humor anyway.

  These were indeed robots. They And there was another key.

  might be conscious, and know a lot, but they were not feeling. It seemed that it was not feasible for even this advanced civil'zation to duplicate a living creature to that extent.

  They completed the meal, and the AI brought small hand-held units that blinked by their mouths, making them suddenly clean.

  No toothbrushes needed here!

  Now that he was fed, Jack realized how tired he was. It had been an extremely trying sequence of several days, physically and emotionally. The frenzied trek up the mountain in the night, the crossing through the portal, encounters with the honkers, big dome-ship of the Gaol, the capture and interrogation by Malva, the flight in the airplane, the struggle to get through the cloud, the nullification of volition-he realized that he had had no problem with that since Tappy had had him eat the paper with the symbol on it; he felt free-willed now. But tired.

  "Maybe it's time to rest," he said. "If it's okay with you folk."

  He suspected that they had a lot for Tappy to do, but he was sure she was as tired as he was.

  Tappy nodded agreement, and that forestalled whatever the AI might have had in mind. "There are bedrooms," Abe said.

  They got up, and Tappy managed to catch his hand. Her fingers clung to his, not letting go. She wanted him with her for what passed for night in this building.

  Should he argue the case? On the one hand, he did not want to give the AI the notion that he regarded the Imago as a sex object, so it was better to sleep apart. On the other, he still didn't really trust this situation, and feared that once he separated from Tappy for any length of time, he might not be allowed to get together with her again. The AI could kick him out, and tell her that he had decided to go home. Then there would be no living person to watch out for her interests. Maybe the AI really wanted what was best for the Imago-but what of Tappy? There was a living, feeling girl there who was in some ways just like any other, but in other ways a truly tragic figure. Jack was no psychiatrist, but he honestly felt that in this situation, he was the only one who could truly relate to that girl.

  So he went with her to the bedroom they had designated for her. The AI expressed no objection. Abe and Abbie came in to undress them.

  "Uh-" Jack began. Then it occurred to him that he valued the things the AI did not know about him, and shouldn't give them away. They didn't know that human beings who chose to share a bedroom did not necessarily have strangers undress them. Let them remain ignorant.

  So he let them do it. He was facing away from Tappy, and left it that way. In due course he and Tappy were in pajamas and nightie and in the bed, which was large enough for two. The AI withdrew through the doorway, which seemed to close behind them. The -ight faded, leaving them in darkness.

  Tappy found his hand again and drew it to her. She wanted him closer.

  Jack knew he had gone wrong once, but he wasn't going to do it again. Not this way. Tempting though the prospect might be, on one not-quite-secret level. If she was the Imago, she was probably beyond his aspirations. If she was a hurt blind girl, she was underage. Either way, forbidden.

  "I am here to help you, Tappy," he murmured. "I think I can help you best just by being near you. Until you achieve your destiny." Then he drew his hand loose, rolled onto his stomach, and tried to sleep.

  For a moment he was afraid she would start crying. Then she rolled over, too, toward him, and set her hand on his back. with that contact she seemed to be satisfied. Her breathing became even.

  He was relieved. He knew that had she insisted on more, he would in the end have succumbed. He had before. It was not easy doing what he believed was right. But it was best. He could never fully redeem the wrong he had done her, there in the cabin in the Green Mountains of Vermont, so far away in more than one sense. Maybe his recent efforts to get her to wherever she was Meanwhile he could at least going represented his need to atone.

  avoid making it worse.

  He slept, and dreamed, and in one dream he was approaching Tappy, desiring her, and feeling guilty for it. He knew, even asleep, that she was beside him, and it was his duty to leave her alone. But there was that in him that wanted it otherwise.

  He knew it was morning, because it was light, and Abe and Abbie were there to get them dressed. Jack felt greatly refreshed; maybe there was something restorative in slept well, and it seemed that Tappy had, to note that the two AI had gotten mixed tending to Jack, and Abe to Tappy. An evidently not of great significance to them.

  They took turns in the shower, stripping managed to avoid looking at Tappy's nude body the night before, but realized that he could not do so now without making more of his human foibles apparent than he cared to. Fortunately he had a reflex that prevented him from ha
ving a masculine reaction in public. So he affected neutrality, as he had during the night.

  Whatever the AI did not know about any aspect of his relationship with Tappy was fine by him.

  Her body was and was not what he expected. She was slender, but not thin; her legs were nicely fleshed, her hips and buttocks rounding into womanhood, and her breasts were well enough formed. Yet neither was she at the adult level. He judged that she was about halfway across her transition from childhood to womanhood, physically. In some countries, as he understood it, a girl was considered to be old enough if she appeared old enough; mere years did not define statutory rape. In such a country, he would have been in trouble anyway.

  But there was something else. That intangible glow. She turned her face to him and smiled, fathoming where he stood, and it was as if there were an aura about her. She knew what they had done, and she regretted it not at all. She had in that sense proven herself.

  Perhaps it had been at that point that she became independent of the need for the leg brace. She had begun to assume command of the situation, to choose her own course. To lead. She had led him to the portal between worlds. The Imago had begun to manifest, and surely it permeated her now. She had power, and knew it, and her growing confidence manifested in a straighter stance, a certainty of acceptance, and a subtle knowing. In a country that judged by attitude, she would be deemed old enough.

  When she was dressed, that aura remained. She took his arm, guiding him rather than being guided by him. She squeezed, indicating that she was by no means through with him. Oh, yes, she was changing!

  After breakfast it was time for talk. They sat in comfortable chairs in a three-quarter circle. "There is more to clarify, Jack, and it is best if your ignorance is quickly abated," Abe said.

  "We think you will be more receptive if you learn it in your own manner. Please make the remaining inquiries in your mind."

  Jack reminded himself that this was not a living man. He should not react to the seeming condescension. But he was slightly irritated. So he became slightly unreasonable. "I have no remaining inquiries, thank you."

  Tappy's face turned to him. Her tongue was between her teeth, as if she needed to bite it. She was amused.

  "Surely you do, Jack," Bart said, neither amused nor annoyed.

  "You folk are interchangeable?" Jack inquired, now playing to his audience of one living person. "You alternate on sentences?"

  ."Yes, if you wish," Abe said.

  "What about the missing two'! Why haven't we seen Cole or Candy?"

  "They have been at work on maintenance, But you need have no concern; their responses would be identical to ours."

  This was getting nowhere. Jack knew he was being unreasonable. Therefore he became more so. "Maybe I'd rather judge that for myself." He stood. "I'll go find Candy."

  Abe looked at Tappy. She tittered. It was the first truly human sound he remembered hearing from her. Abruptly his unreasonableness took another turn. "You're here to serve the Imago, right? Well, you can serve her best by removing the block that stops her from talking to me in my language. You can do that, can't you?"

  "We can," Abe agreed. "But-"

  "Then get on it!" Jack snapped. "Then she can ask the questions. Let me know when she's ready." He strode from the chamher.

  No one followed. Probably Tappy had indicated no, and she herself had been intrigued by the notion of being able to talk again. He had half expected Tappy to try to come with him, to plead silently with him, but she had not. It was a sign of her new confidence that she knew he was making a deliberate scene, and apparently she was enjoying it. Maybe the emotionless AI manikins annoyed her, too, but because they served her, she could not make an issue of it.

  Bat now he was stuck wandering around the building without a guide. He had no idea where he was going. So he was making pretty much of a fool of himself. But he was stuck on his course.

  He kept walking, striding down the hall he found himself in.

  He came to some sort of central square, except that it was round. Halls radiated out to the four directions, and there were shafts going up and down. He was walking so fast that he was stepping into the pit below before he realized. But he didn't fall.

  He just floated across the center, as if he weighed nothing, his inertia carrying him on to the far side.

  Antigravity? Well, why not! They seemed to have everything else.

  He decided to explore the shaft above. He turned and jumped.

  If there really was no gravity here, he should be able to sail right up to the top.

  Instead he found himself angling toward the far wall of the shaft. He twisted as well as he could before crashing into it, managing to get a foot out to break his fall. But instead of rebounding back into the center, he found himself catching his balance and straightening up. The wall was now his floor.

  He looked back. There was the center, with its radiating halls.

  Now the one he was in seemed level, and the one he had come from seemed vertical.

  Jack shook his head. Live and learn! He resumed his walk, going toward what might or might not be the top of the building.

  There did seem to be light at the end of the passage.

  It turned out to be an opaque but glowing wall. Or floor. When he came to it, his orientation shifted again, and now he was walking on it. Its surface seemed slightly curved, so that he could not see the full length of the new passages, which extended in four directions from the mergence. This was like the center square, only one hall was missing: the one which would have led on through the wall and outside, perhaps.

  "Where do I go from here?" he asked himself aloud. He realized that he could fairly readily get lost, and make an even bigger fool of himself than so far. Maybe that was why the AI had let him go: they were waiting for him to give up and accept their way of doing things. Passive persuasion.

  A woman appeared before him. "May I assist you, Jack?"

  Startled, he stared at her. She was definitely not one of the ones he had seen before. Abbe and Brie were female but conservatively so, really not much more developed than Tappy herself.

  This one was comparatively voluptuous, with an orange dress that showed the rounded upper contours of her breasts somewhat more than would have been the case had the fit been perfect. Her dark hair swirled about her face and shoulders cohesively, lending additional sex appeal.

  "I have two questions. Three. Four.

  "I am at your service, Jack."

  "You are one of them? An AI?"

  "Yes, Jack."

  "Then you must be Candy."

  "Yes."

  "How did you appear so suddenly?"

  "I stepped through the panel." She demonstrated by stepping back. Her body disappeared, first the front side, then the back side. Then her face reappeared, framed by darkness. "It is an opaque screen. You may enter, if you wish." Her face disappeared again.

  Jack put out one hand. It passed through the opacity and disappeared. "Oh-like the rock!"

  "Like a portal, yes," Candy agreed. She was standing in the chamber, which was like another bedroom. Now he was, too.

  "And your fourth question?"

  "Why are you so different from the others?"

  "We established four of us as the original complement, of a neutral type, to serve the Imago and her companion. We were not certain what was in order, so withheld two pending further information. Our research indicated that your species is highly sexual, and since you did not indulge with Tappy, we crafted my fonyi to be more mature. You may relieve your sexual frustration with me, if you wish."

  So he and Tappy had been watched. Somehow he had known that would be the case. The AI intended to protect the Imago, and for all they knew, he could be dangerous to her.

  '-I'm not sexually frustrated," he said shortly.

  "Then I apologize for our misunderstanding. When your copulatory member became rigid in the night-"

  "That's normal!" They had observed, all right' He had for
gotten the dream, but now it came back. He hoped they had not been able to see into his mind then.

  "We did not know," Candy said. "Your particular species has not come often to our attention. I can assume a less provocative shape."

  "You can do that? Just change your shape?"

  "Do you wish me to demonstrate this?"

  Suddenly he believed it. "No. Keep your present form. I like it."

  And maybe, he realized, he should take her up on her offer, so as not to be further tempted by Tappy. Candy might be a robot, but he suspected that she would feel exactly like the most cooperative of women, and she surely knew what she was doing. In that sense, she was adult, regardless of her technical age.

  "I will show you more of my body, since you like it," she said, her hand going to her dress.

  "No!" For suddenly he realized that this, too, would be wrong.

  She was a machine, possessing no emotion, so it would be fake, not real. A cross between sex and masturbation. And to whatever extent it was real, it would be a betrayal of Tappy.

  "I apologize for disturbing you. I will confonn precisely to your expectation, if you will advise me what-"

  "It's not that. It's-" But again, he did not want to tell her, knowing that in reality she was a neuter machine. "Just how old are you, anyway?"

  "In your terms, approximately one hundred thousand years."

  Jack tried to keep his jaw from dropping, and half succeeded.

  He had assumed she had been constructed within the past year or so. "You've been-a beautiful woman-from before the time there were human women?"

  "No, Jack," she said, unsmiling. "I am not human. I have served the Imago in the shape of whatever species the Imago has chosen as host. As have we all. We are long conversant with the Imago, but not with your species."

  "But with your fancy building right here on this world near Earth, you must have-I mean, even the 'os of the Gaol are human here!"

  She paused just an instant. "I think it is essential that your ignorance be swiftly abated, as Abe advised you. But it is apparent that we are not evoking your cooperation. Please advise me of the manner best to approach you, so that you will be receptive."