THE CATERPILLARS QUESTION

by Piers Anthony

  He wanted to be alone for a while so he could think. But he could not leave her. Since neither had had any sleep for a long time, he suggested that they lie down in the tent. He did not intend to take a nap. That would waste time. But sleep would give her the energy she was going to need when he started the intense process of artificial emotional maturation. Force-feedin of the psyche. When he started? If he started! At the moment, he did not have a smidgeon of confidence that he would be able to think of a plan that would work within the strictly allotted time.

  In fact, he doubted that he would be able to imagine anly plan at all.

  They entered the tent and went into a room with two large hanging beds. Tappy crawled into one and gestured that he should join her. He was pleased. She must have gotten over her wounded feelings, and she would want the physical and emotional warmth of his body next to hers. Any other time, he would have la'n down by her.

  He went to the bed, leaned over, and kissed her. Then he said, "I have to think, Tappy. I'll be in the other bed while you sleep.

  Believe me, it's absolutely vital for me to be undisturbed. If I held you, I'd have thoughts I couldn't control. You understad'2"

  She shook her head, and she held out her arms.

  "You have to grow up fast," he said softly. "Become an adult in hothouse time. Part of being an adult is being able to g' we up something so you can achieve something better."

  He kissed her on the I*ps again and patted her.

  "That's the way it's going to be."

  As he got into the bed, however, he did not feel nearly as confident as he had * sounded. His project was, in some ways, equal to God's creation of the world. But God took four days just to make the heavens and the earth and divide the waters from the dry land and make plants and then the animals. The work assigned by the AI to one puny Earthmen had to be done in three days.

  The big difference, aside from the Power demanded, was that God knew how to go about doing what must be done.

  No, there was another difference. Tappy had free will.

  Assumedly, once God had created humans, He had left the use of their free will entirely up to them. Tappy did not want to see and speak, and God Himself wasn't going to change her mind.

  He stared up at the sagging ceiling of the tent. The girl was snoring gently. Somehow, she had managed to fall asleep at once.

  That pleased him. She very much needed the rest, and she would -not be bothering him with her silent but seen presence.

  It was not easy to organize his thoughts and slide them down a single channel. He kept thinking of the Al's words. "Past manifestations of the Imago have not had incidental interests of the flesh."

  Put simply, "She won't care at all about affection or screwing."

  Well, he could handle that.

  That was what one part of him said. Another part was greatly Akurbed by it.

  He steered his mind innly back to the initial phase of his task:

  Project Tappy. How could he get her to see and to speak?

  Then, there was the warning the AI had given him. He must make sure that Tappy did not misuse the power of the Imago. But that sounded as if she would have some control over the Imago.

  If she did, how much?

  Hey! he told himself. I've drifted off the first phase. Back to the track.

  Then, there was the promise of the AI to help him with the project. No. The AI had said that he would be working under its guidance. But no AI had shown up to help him, and it-they had not told him how to summon them.

  And he had to use Tappy's love for him to get her to do what must be done-if he ever figured out what to do. Since he didn't love her-did he?-he was somehow not lionorable. To use her love as a tool against her-though it was actually for her-he might have to pretend that he was madly in 'love with her. That made him feel sneaky and treacherous. Really rotten. unclean.

  Suddenly, he heard bells ringing loudly.

  They might be warning bells or wedding bells.

  Or funeral bells.

  What a crazy idea, he thought. Almost at once, he realized that he had fallen asleep between the thought of how rotten he was and the wakening thought of the bells. Or had the latter been the tag end of a dream he did not remember?

  He sat up, rocking the bed.

  "Oh, Lord!" he said loudly. "Whatever I do, I'll lose her!"

  If he could not make her mature enough within three days, he and Tappy would be destroyed.

  If he did succeed, he would keep her alive. But she would no longer be completely human. She would be the fleshly instrument of the Imago.

  Tappy must have heard his exclamation. She turned slightly.

  But she did not awaken. Presently, he heard her mutter, "Reality is a dream."

  Was that phrase the key to the door which would admit the Imago?

  I'm just not up to this! he told himself. Talk about, your frail vessel or your brittle tool! I'm it! I just can't do it! Might as well give me a spoon and tell me to dig the Panama Canal! In three days!

  He got out of bed and went to the entrance room. There he drank deeply from a cut-quartz glass filled with the fountain water. Then he turned toward the entrance. He stopped.

  The garden was gone. Replacing it was the flat desert he had wished for. Sand and rock, rock and sand, no plants at all, no shadows, the only moving things heat waves, the expanse as straight and as level as the tracks of God's locomotive to the unbroken horizon.

  He felt as if he had just seen zero and infinity converge.

  FOR a moment, he was dizzy. At the same time, he was numb.

  His heart thudded against an icy shield as if it were a whale trapped beneath arctic ice and trying to break through.

  Though he had lived through events much more outrd and terrifying than this, he had expected them to be strange and dangerous.

  This one was completely unanticipated. It caught him as off guard as if his body's electrons had suddenly reversed polarity. Instead of a- ug, a world had been yanked from under him.

  When his numbness thawed out, he thought, The AI! They must have some kind of telepathy! I wished for the garden to be replaced with a desert. And the AI, like Aladdin's genie, granted my wish. But they did it while I was asleep.

  His question now: Had he and Tappy been transported elsewhere or had two worlds been exchanged? Or was all this an illusion? Or a dream?

  Next thought: What difference did that make?

  It was then that the AI, a female, came around the corner of the tent. He jumped, and his nerves clanged like the bells in his awakening dream.

  "For God's sake!" he said. "Next time, give me some warning before you do that!"

  "will," the AI said. Apparently, it knew what he meant.

  It walked up to Jack and stopped with its nose less than an inch from Jack's. Its breath smelled like machine oil. That, of course, was his imagination. But it stepped back, saying, "You are uncomfortable because I am so close to you. Does this distance make you more at ease?"

  "You can read my mind?" Jack said after ' he had nodded.

  Despite the double jolt, he was breathing easier, and his heart was slowing down.

  "Not your thoughts. My ability isn't like reading words on a screen. I sensed that you wanted help just as I sensed your uncomfort at my near proximity."

  "What about replacing the garden with this?"

  Jack waved his hand to indicate the desert.

  "I'd thifik that'd take a pretty concrete image."

  "Images, yes," the AI said. "Not words. I can receive images, though they're distorted. But I can unscramble them. Why do you need help or guidance? Have you thought of something which needs our help? Physical or mentals?"

  "Not yet."

  The AI looked up at the sun.

  "An hour and a half has passed since you came here."

  "Oh, well. Just hang around for a few minutes. I'll have it all figured out by then."

  "That would be most gratifying," the AI said.

 
The thing would not understand sarcasm, of course. Jack said, "When I really need you, I'll transmit an SOS."

  SOS? I don't have that vocabulary item," the AI said.

  "And I'm wasting time talking to you!" Jack said, snarling.

  "Begone! "

  Without replying, the AI walked around the corner of the tent.

  Jack hesitated, then hurried after it. By the time he had rounded the corner, the AI had returned to the building, wherever it was.

  More of my precious time shot down, Jack thought.

  The first day became the longest that Jack had ever endured.

  Yet, when the sun dropped into the slot of the horizon, it also seemed to be the shortest. His whirling brain, a mental centrifuge, threw off scores of plans and many variations and combinations of these. None was worth anything. Each was weighed in the balance and found wanting.

  Meanwhile, Tappy paced back and forth within the entrance room or walked around and around the fountain. Her burnt-umber hair and yellow dress made her look very young and very pretty.

  And very vulnerable.

  The upright and horizontal poles supporting the tent emitted light. Jack and Tappy took turns in the bathtub. For some reason, the AI had not supplied a waterless skin-cleansing cubicle.

  Perhaps, they sensed that water and soap were more satisfying to the humans. They were not capable of perceiving that a sho'A,er would have been even more satisfactory. Afterward, Jack and Tappy sat down to eat. Jack tried to keep talking so that the dismal silences could be brightened. But they in number and length.

  When they were through eating, he said, "You've been kept in the dark too long, Tappy. I havent told you what's going on because I wanted to spare you fear and distress. However, I believe now that keeping you in ignorance isn't fair. If something bad happens, it shouldn't take you by surprise. And, maybe, you could help even if you can't talk."

  She lIstened intently while he told her the situation. He omitted the desire of the AI for him to use her love for him as a tool. she took it well, though she could not keep her face expressionless.

  Shadows of fear passed over her face now and then like the shades of very thin clouds on the Earth when passing below a bright moon.

  "Now you know," he said. He leaned over the table and took her hand in his. "I told you all this only because we're in a desperate fix."

  She squeezed his hand, and she looked confused.

  He said, "I know. It's all mixed up. There are many things I probably don't understand any more than you do. One of the most perplexing is why you still don't see and talk. The AI say they've removed the blocks keeping you from doing that. They also say that it's up to you to go ahead. You don't, they say, because you aren't motivated to do so. Is that true?"

  She raised her hands and hunched her shoulders. That meat, he supposed, that she did not know.

  "The AI have great powers," he said, "but they're not allpowerful or all-knowing."

  For a moment, he was strongly tempted to lie and to tell her that he was madly in love with her. The ends would justify the means. After all, the fate of the universe was at stake. Corny as that sounded, echoes of thousands of science-fiction stories, it was true.

  However, he was not deeply concerned about the I'ves and deaths of perhaps trillions on trillions of people. Not at this moment. He deeply cared only about Tappy and himself.

  "If you could speak, Tappy. If only you would."

  He heard silence; he saw tears.

  Something rose up within him. It was a red flash flood that crumbled the walls of his self-control. He banged his fist hard against the table. Then he yelled, "My God, Tappy! We'll die!

  What is it? What keeps you from speaking and seeing? Do you want to be blind and dumb? Do you want to die? Is there something in you that says you should d'e, that you deserve to die?

  Even if it means that I die, too?"

  She reared up out of the chair and walked away, her shoulders straight, neck stiff, her body seeming to vibrates with anger. Since she was familiar with every inch of the walkin space of the tent, she made her way to the bedroom as if she had 20/20 vision.

  A few minutes later, he followed her. She was lying on her bed faceup, tears welling. He said softly, "I'm very sorry I yelled at you. I didn't mean what I said, accusing you of wanting to die, I mean. It's just that I'm so frustrated ... and scared. I am human.

  Can you forgive me?"

  She smiled weakly. Then she held out her anus. He went into them and wrapped his arms around her for a while. She sobbed.

  When his back started to ache because he was so bent over, he eased her down onto the bed and straightened up. She reached out, picked up The Little Prince from the bedside table, and held it out to him.

  He did not know why the story seemed to console her. Perhaps, she could insert herself into it and forget, for the time being, her own identity and troubles. She might be the sad little boy whom Saint-Exupdry described in such simple but telling language. In a way, the plight of the child prince was hers. He, too, was parentless and lonely and sought a true friend and companionship and was puzzled by the world in which fate had placed him.

  Jack was reading to her about the child's encounter with the desert fox when he stopped. He was silent so long that she reached out and tugged at his arm. Looking up from the book, Jack saw her questioning expression.

  "I just got an idea!" he said. "From this story!"

  She shook her head.

  "The fox wants to be tamed by the little prince. But the prince doesn't know how to tame the fox. So ... the fox instructs the prince how to tame him. Don't you see, Tappy! You can teach me what I must do to change you! We'll try, anyway! It might be the way to do it!"

  Her hunched shoulders, raised eyebrows, and spread-out hands, palms up, said, "How?"

  His enthusiasm propelled him from the chair he had drawn up next to the bed and sent him to pacing back and forth. "Don't know yet. But at least I ... we ... have got something to work on. Let me think."

  While he walked, he struck the palm of his left hand with the book. It was as if the hand were iron and the book were flint and he hoped to strike fire from them.

  "When we were in the plane, you gave me a piece of paper on which you'd written a word. It was supposed to make me able to disobey Malva's orders over the radio. But it was in Gaol writing.

  it had six different characters and two that were repeated. Now.

  Listen carefully. Do each of these characters have an equivalent in English speech?"

  She frowned.

  "I mean ... let's say ... does one of them, for instance, symbolize any single sound in English? Like 'I' as in lend? Like It, as in Tappy? Like 'e' in lend? Or 's' as in seen? Got it?"

  The girl nodded.

  "Good! "

  He looked around but realized that he had not seen any paper or pencils in the tent. He closed his eyes and visualized a sheaf of writing paper and three sharpened pencils. Then he summoned up an image of a knife. He'd have to have something to keep the pencils sharp.

  Tappy stirred restlessly. He said, "Be patient."

  A minute later, he heard a woman's voice.

  "Do not be startled."

  He said, "Come in," and an AI walked through the entrance into the bedroom.

  He groaned. She was empty-handed.

  "We do not have the strange objects you telepathed that you wanted," she said. "What use are they?"

  "You can perfonn technological miracles," he said, "teleport us, read minds, but you don't know what writing paper and pencils are?"

  "We don't have everything," it said. "Especially primitive artifacts. Tell me in detail what you need, their use, their materials."

  After his description, it said, "I can't say precisely when I'll be back, but it'll be soon."

  It walked out of the bedroom. Curious, Jack followed it into the hall made by drapes. He saw something blurry, like heat waves, appear around it, concealing it. Suddenly, the AI and the wavy envelo
pe were gone.

  He had expected a bang of air rushing in to fill the vacuum left by the AI. There was no sound.

  He returned to the bedroom. "Tappy," he said, "while we're waiting, I'll tell you more of what we're going to do."

  Ten minutes or so later, an AI, a male this time, appeared. Jack and Tappy were deep into the procedure. The AI, not botheringto excuse the interrupt*on, said, "This is not what you asked for.-' the equivalent, though that is not the correct noun. It's better."

  It held out two white, flat, thin, and one-foot-wide squares made of what looked like plastic. One side of each was silvery.

  After Jack took it, the AI extended to him two silvery objects that looked like a pen. "Pass the end of this across the screen, and it will make what you wish to write on the screen. You don't have to press it against the surface."

  "We've got something like that on Earth," Jack said.

  "Press the orange strip on the side after you've written on the screen," it said, "and it will voice what you've written. Press the green strip, and what is written on one will appear on the screen of the other. Press the yellow strip on the edge of the bottom, and the writing will be cleared. Activating the green strip will allow you to dictate to it and see your words in printed form. This tiny projection here, when pressed once, lets you scroll down. Pressed twice, it scrolls up."

  The AI showed him the rest of the controls.

  Jack guided Tappy's hand to a square and a stylus. She had heard the AI and did not need instruction.

  "Thanks," he said to the AI. "You can go now."

  It walked into the hallway. Jack said, "Okay, Tappy, let's go.

  I've asked you a lot of questions. From your responses, I've learned that the Gaol alphabet doesn't have an equivalent letter for each letter in the English alphabet. Like, for instance, the English letter 'a' can stand for several different sounds. So can a number of other letters, like 's' stands for the initial 's' in surprise and also for the 'z' sound in the second 's." And so on.

  "But the characters in Gaol writing stand for one sound only.

  Some of the Gaol pronunciations don't exactly correspond to our English way of sounding them, not American English, anyway.