THE CATERPILLARS QUESTION

by Piers Anthony

  There was no response. After a moment, Jack caught on, and said, "Why, Garth?" He saw that Tappy was now sitting up, looking dazed; the drugs would take time to wear off.

  "Because, Jack, the facilitator is enhancing the rate of my corruption by the Imago, causing a conversion which would ordinarily require approximately twenty-four hours to occur in as many minutes. The creature has the substance of the host of the Imago, therefore is dedicated to that host and through it, the Imago. Thus it enhances the power of the Imago to bring empathy to those it contacts. The process is not yet complete in my case, but the first stage of the conversion is the instillation of the will to be converted, so I am accepting it rather than destroying the facilitator and proceeding with my duty."

  This was more of an answer than Jack had anticipated! "The hatchling is the facilitator? It facilitates whatever is of interest to-to the person whose flesh has provided its substance?" Then, after another pause: "I direct the question to you, Garth." The Gaol had taken his instruction about the use of the name in a rather literal and limited sense.

  "That is its nature, Jack. We were aware that such creatures existed, but not aware that they existed on what you call the honkers' planet. Perhaps it is an import. Such a creature, acting in conjunction with the Imago, is a strategic masterstroke. It makes the Imago infinitely more dangerous to the empire."

  So the honker had indeed known what he was doing! Except that they were shortly due to be blown up. "How much time till destruction, Candy?" he asked, morbidly interested.

  "Thirty-six minutes."

  "Destruction?" Tappy asked.

  "We have encountered a-a special situation," Jack told her.

  "I'll explain it in a bit. This is Garth Gaol, whom we may consider to be a friend." He hoped. "Just relax."

  Tappy did so, ministered to by Candy.

  He returned to the Gaol. "Garth, can you tell us how to save the Imago and ourselves? I mean, without killing the host of the Imago?"

  "Ordinarily I could do so, Jack, but at present I am distracted by the process of conversion. I am also losing my capability to think and act with precision and force, because of the increasing constraints placed upon me by empathy with those who would suffer the consequences of such action."

  This, too, was interesting. "You mean the Gaol dominate the galaxy because they lack empathy? Because they don't care about the suffering of those they subjugate?"

  The Gaol did not answer, but it wasn't necessary. Of course it was true! It was true historically on Earth, too. Power was grasped by those who had least sensitivity to the harm they did to others. This was probably the root of the saying "Nice guys finish last." Empathy might not be the same as conscience, but the effects could be similar.

  Something else registered. "Candy, didn't you say that the Imago was supposed to be separated from this city thirty minutes before destruction? So that the host of the Imago would not be destroyed?"

  "Yes, Jack."

  "So that thing's not just an enclosure. It's a spaceship!"

  "That is true, Jack. It is the isolation ship for the Imago's host."

  "Will it hold more than just the coffin? I mean, other peoples"

  "Yes, Jack."

  "How much more'? I mean, could we hitch a ride in it?"

  "It is capable of supporting the lives of three setiet beings as represented here."

  "Three?" Jack was taken aback. He had in mind rescuing all four of them: Tappy, himself, Garth Gaol, and Candy. Because if they all piled into that ship and took off, the watching Gaol station would not see anything amiss. It was supposed to separat establish the Imago's utter isolation. Then the city could explode on schedule, and it would be assumed that everyone was dead except Tappy. It was a way out!

  "Damn!" he said. "Someone's going to have to be left behind."

  "Why, Jack?"

  "Because there are four of us!" he snapped. "Only three can escape in that ship."

  "But only three of us are alive, Jack. You may leave me behind."

  She was not alive! Of course! That did reduce it to three. "-P,-It by the same token, you can come along," he said. "You won't be using any air or water or food, and we need you to take care of Tappy. I mean, the host for the Imago."

  "This is true, Jack."

  "Well, then, let's do it! How much time do we have until separation?"

  "Two minutes, Jack."

  And here he had been wasting time on details while their deadline was overhauling them! Naturally the emotionless AI had not been screaming warning. "Get us all on board that ship now!"

  "The Gaol must authorize that."

  "Garth, you must authorize it!"

  The Gaol whistled. Candy went into action at blurring speed.

  She lifted Tappy out of her coffin and resnapped the fastenings.

  Then she touched a button somewhere, and the bars blocking Jack --disappeared. He ran to the ship, and the Gaol rolled beside him.

  Tappy was now standing in the ship, seeming to have suffered no debilitation from her brief session in the coffin. There were not even any marks on her; however the I'fe-support devices attached, they did not seem to have punctured her skin.

  "Close it up!" Jack cried. "Get this crate into the air!"

  Candy paused. "The life-support container is already closed, Jack. I do not understand the remainder of your directive."

  He definitely had to watch that vernacular! "I mean the ship!

  Do what you have to do to get t his ship safely sealed and separated on schedule!"

  Candy resumed her blurring motion. The panels closed, and internal light came on. It seemed like closing a wooden crate from the inside, but it was a metallic spaceship.

  "Separation," Candy announced.

  Jack looked around. "Shouldn't we get into acceleration couches or something?"

  "Why, Jack?"

  Oh. Inertialess drive, of course. They had crossed the galaxy without any feeling of acceleration; why should this little ship be different? "Then can we look out a portal? To see where we're going?"

  "Why, Jack?"

  "I'm primitive, remember? I just feel easier, and I think Tappy would feel easier, if we could see outside."

  "Of course, Jack," Candy said in the manner of one humoring a child.

  The opaque panels became transparent. They could now see out in every direction. In fact, the whole ship was transparent.

  It was as if everything were made of glass, including the motor, assuming it had one. Then Jack realized with a start that the four of them were transparent, too, and almost invisible against the backdrop of the central core of the ship. Once again galactic science had surprised him. "Thank you," he said inadequately.

  He took Tappy's hand and led her to the curving wall. They looked out. There was the city, already drifting away below them.

  From this vantage it looked like a giant globe. He had thought of it as a blinking dome, back on the honkers' planet. Perhaps half of it had been under the ground.

  "The host must eat," Candy said. "The preservation unit is no longer sustaining her."

  "The food's all the same, isn't it?" Jack asked. "I mean, nutritionally, regardless what it looks, tastes, and feels like? So bring us candy bars."

  "This is a confection in my present image?" Candy asked, perplexed.

  Jack laughed. "Close, but no cigar."

  "I do not understand."

  Even Tappy smiled then. Jack explained about candy bars. Soon an approximation was produced. It looked a b't like something left behind by a sick dog, and tasted somewhat like oysters steeped in chocolate, and it squished suggestively as they bit into it, but it would do.

  Tappy nudged him. "Let's find a bed," she indicated.

  "Yes, so you can rest," he agreed. "In the nornal manner, without being sealed in a box."

  "So we can make love." She smiled. "In the normal manner, without being rushed. We are the only human beings here."

  There were those five years of sexual relations agai
n. implanted in her memory. What was he going to do? He didn't dare tell her the truth, because that might not only hurt her feelings deeply, it might cause the Imago to retreat, if that was possible. Would Garth Gaol then revert to his nonempathy state, and do what was best for the empire? It couldn't be risked.

  He hated lying, or even evading the truth, with Tappy. But he knew he shouldn't do what she so innocently wished. She now thought of herself as twenty, which was old enough, but she remained thirteen. Which was the greater evil? The lie, or more statutory rape?

  The worst of it was that he did feel the stirring of desire. His emotional state was in flux, somewhere between fancy and love, and her new ability to see and talk increased his feeling for her.

  So did his heightened empathy. It now seemed natural to follow through with sexual expression. But he knew it was not.

  He had to stall. "You've been through so much, Tappy. Thethe ecg hatched, and it drew substance from you, which you have to restore. Then you were confined in the Gaol's box. We feared it was for life, but with the help of the hatchling we managed to change Garth Gaol's mind. You've been in and out of something like suspended animation. You need to rest, and recover your equilibrium."

  "Yes, and that is always so much easier in your arms. after we have made love."

  The was getting nowhere! But maybe he could avoid it another way. This was a tiny spaceship. There shouldn't be anything like a double bed on it. "Candy," he called. "Can you fix us up with a wide, soft bed?"

  "Of course, Jack." She did something, and the glassy 'nterior of the ship convoluted. Now there was a glassy mattress behind them.

  Tappy sat on it with a muted squeal of delight, drawing him down with her. Jack's crisis of conscience intensified. Tappy had gone without resistance into the coffin, in the belief that this would save Jack and cause him to be well treated. She had been ready to suffer her most terrible fate, and to let him go to the arms of a pseudowoman-because of her generous love for him.

  And how had he returned that love? By deceiving her, by having her drugged and by doctoring her memories-and by denying her what she most wanted.

  "Oh, Tappy," he said, turning his face to her. She remained glassy; he could see right through her head. But this startling effect did not change her outline, or his burgeoning feelings. "J wish-"

  He was cut off by her kiss. And suddenly it was as it had been back on Earth, the first time, when he had tried to comfort her and been swept into sex with her. He did love her, and what else mattered?

  They broke the kiss. Her hands went to his clothing. She showed experience in this-the experience of five years.

  Something caught his eye. "Tappy-look!"

  They looked. The spherical city was flying apart. In a moment the major fragments separated, and separated again, until there was nothing but an outward-flying sphere of debris. It reminded him of the remnant of a supernova, only this was on a far smaller scale. Then that sphere became smoky, and then it faded. Soon nothing remained but haze, and finally-nothing.

  The AI station was no more.

  Now, belatedly, Jack realized that they were hardly safe yet.

  They were alive instead of dead, and Tappy was free and conscious instead of in a comalike state. But this ship was supposed to remain isolated in this stellar system, with no visitors, and there was a Gaol warship or equivalent standing guard. How were they going to get to anywhere where the Imago could do any good?

  Now there were tears on Tappy's face. "The Agents of the Imago-they were good to me," she said. "I never saw them, except for Candy just now, I only heard them and felt them, but they did so much for me. It was long ago, yet still-" Then her brow furrowed. "It was seven years ago. I remember! I was blind, and lame, but they helped me to see and walk without limping.

  Then you and I went to a nice planet, with a wonderful little house and garden, and oh, it's as if we just made love all the time! After the first two years, when you said I was too Young.

  But I broke you down finally, when I was fifteen, and proved I was old enough. Then we just did it and did it, and it was always so perfect. I hardly remember anything else! But then, suddenly, we were back in the AI city in space, and I don't remember how that happened. And the egg-Jack, there was no egg before! I was stung by the ho er, and it helped save us from the but then the swelling faded away. Did another-"

  Now Jack appreciated the monstrous gaps they, had left in her memory of those fictional seven years. No mention of the egg at all! How could they have forgotten to account for !hat? And the seemin, return to the AI station-there should have been a rationale for that, too. They had thrust her unprepared into a situation both old and new. No wonder she was confused!

  He had to patch over it somehow. So he started talking, extemporaneously, hoping to satisfy her. Because her doubt could be the destruction of them all. He had to convince the Ima(yo, too, if it had any sentience of its own. The fate of the galaxy might depend on that!

  "Tappy, you're right. There's been a lot of confusion. We did go to that garden planet, and it was great, and we thought it Would last forever, but the Gaol had never given up searching for us. We were there to give the Imago time to mature, and to give you time to get to know me really well, so that when the Imago manifested, you and it would work with me for the good of the galaxy. The AI said that otherwise-the Imago is so powerful a force that great evil could come, if things were not right when it matured. So we weren't really doing what we thought. I mean, we weren't there just to have fun. We knew it would have to end when the Imago came."

  He paused to take a breath and to gauge her reaction. She was gazing raptly at him. He was giving her a perspective that helped to shape her scattered memories and impressions. And actually, he wasn't lying; he was just interpreting. Because the basic purpose was as he was saying. Only the time span differed and in her mind, that time was all there.

  "So then the Imago did mature," he continued. "And at the same time, the egg-we had thought it was just a sting or something, but apparently it was a tiny egg, that was timed to grow and mature the same time the Imago did, so it could help-it grew big, and hatched, and the hatchling turned out to be a little charneleonlike creature that can greatly facilitate the effect of the Imago. The Imago is-is empathy. For every living thing, animal and plant.

  Every type of creature. And it really can save the galaxy, because a Gaol with empathy for others is a decent person. The way Garth is. You carry supreme empathy with you, Tappy."

  "Yes," she breathed, lying back on the bed and drawing him down with her."

  I feel it! Always a little, but now overwhelmingly." Her hands drew him in. "Tell me more about it, while you make love to me.

  Jack had hoped she would forget about that. But it didn't matter; he knew he was going to do it. She really was old enough now, not just because of her phantom seven years, but because the Imago made her more fully adult than any normal person could ever be.

  "But with the arrival of the Imago," he continued, stroking her body, touching her small breasts on either side of the bandage, through her nightie, "came also the Gaol. They had not been able to find us until then. But they zeroed in on the Imago, as if it had been only a few days. The AI had to fetch us, to try to keep us safe, in a huny. We had to leave everything behind. Even your favorite teddy bear. I'm sorry about that. But the Gaol came to the AI station, too. Just as the Imago and the hatchling came. The Gaol took over the station. Malva manifested, looking exactly as she did seven years ago, and just as mean, and forced you into the coffin. I mean, the-"

  Tappy touched his lips with one hand. "Stop, Jack. You have caught up to the present. I'm relieved. I was afraid that something awfully wrong-that maybe it would turn out to be all a dreamthat you didn't love me after all-"

  "Oh, Tappy, I do love you! Doubt all else, but don't doubt that!" That much he could say with sincerity now.

  "I don't doubt it," she murmured. "Now let's make love."

  "Yes." Relieved, and fl
ush with his burgeoning emotion, Jack got off the bed and stripped his clothing. He had made the dream real for her and saved the situation. Whatever parts of it were lies, he could at least make this much true. He owed it to her-and he wanted to do it.

  He lay down beside her and touched her body again. And discovered that she had fallen asleep.

  "NOW we must have a council of war," Jack said hours later, when he and Tappy were rested. "Let me be sure I have it straight: Candy has a great deal of specific knowledge about the Imago, but no real initiative; she acts on the directives of the Imago as relayed through its host or someone designated by the host. In this case, me."

  "This is true," Candy said.

  "And Garth has a great deal of knowledge about the Gaol and their empire, and about the mechanics and organization of their space vessels. But his newfound empathy for other living things has played havoc with his concentration, and in any event he was not a decision-maker, he was a technician deemed to be expendable. So he, too, lacks initiative."

  The Gaol whistled. "That is correct," Candy said.

  "But we do all want to serve the interests of the Imago to the best of our abilities," Jack said. "So since I seem to be the one with initiative, and Tappy trusts me, is it agreed that serve as temporary leader of this group?"

  Garth whistled. "What is a leader?"

  "A creature who acts as the originator of the actions taken by the group. As the guide for others to follow. The one with initiative."

  There was no response. So Jack prompted it. "Garth?"

  " Agreed," the Gaol whistled.

  "Candy?"

  "

  Agreed."

  "Tappy?"

  "I love you."

  Jack smiled. He was still slightly startled to hear Tappy talking. She was quite pretty now, with her face clear and her hair nicely done; Candy was taking excellent care of the host of the Imago.

  And, for whatever reason, Tappy did look older; her breasts showed more clearly under her sweater (where had Candy found a sweater for her?) and there was an aura of maturity about her.

  She had the attitude of adult confidence. "Apart from that."