THE CATERPILLARS QUESTION

by Piers Anthony

  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 Ganh 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 medluin 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.

  Tappy and Garth went through a door (hatchway?) into another large room. This contained several vast transparent cases, at least sixty feet high, in each of which spun an upright cylinder. Jack had no idea what their function was, but they made a loud humming noise.

  The two intruders approached a door at the opposite end of the room. Two guards, bipedal cyborg Gaol, stood on each side of it. They were eight feet high, four-armed, and plated like knights. Their helmets had half-open visors concealing the face but showing large glowing eyes. Two hands on their right sides gripped the barrel of a weapon with a disk at its end.

  They did not move when Garth led Tappy past them and along the wall beyond them. Then he stopped, and his wheels turned to face the wall. A huge window was set in it, and Tappy could see into the next room. Jack realized at once that it was the control center (the bridge?) of the ship. It was not all the instruments and flashing varicolored lights and crystal display blocks and the intensity of the operators that made that certain. It was the creature in the center of the room.

  He-she-it, whatever it was, was sitting, if its posture could be called sitting, on a slowly rotating wide disk on top of a narrow pillar six feet high. The edge of the disk almost touched the upper end of a long narrow ramp. A four-legged being would prefer a ramp to a staircase.

  "My God!" Jack said.

  The thing on the disk must be the true, the basic, the real Gaol, the being in its natural form. Garth and the other Gaol he had seen were cyborgs, their naturally endowed bodies reconstructed to be Gaol-machines. Some had bodies in which part of their skin was exposed. Others were entirely armor-plated. These would be lower-class Gaol. An oppressed class with no right to object to being made half machine. Or, perhaps, they had volunteered.

  In any event, weird as it was, the captain's body was what evolution had iven it. It looked like a giant ratcage with a head, two arms, and four doglike legs. Its organs were suspended in a sac inside the cage. The sac filled three-fourths of the cage. Its two very long humanoid arms, anchored by a thick framework of bone on the front end of the sac, had copperish skin. The neck projecting from the sac was long and thick and mottlied purplish.

  The head was a caricature of a human being's.

  Start with the bottom of the Gaol. That was a turtle's lower plate, almost six feet long. From the sides rose long curving ribs that merged with a spine arcing from the rear of the plate to its front. The blimp-shaped sac was attached to the spine with muscles Jack could clearly see through the copperish skin enclosing them. When the Gaol was momentarily before a bright light on the wall, vague shapes were silhouetted in the sac. Its organs, no doubt.

  The bottom of the sac rested on a thick fleshy pad attached to the plate.

  The neck extended horizontally from the front of the sac through a wide opening in the front ribs.

  The head! It had almost no forehead, and the cranium had no room for even a small brain. Jack guessed that the brain was in the sac.

  Brutal and fierce described the face. The jaws projected to form a mouth like a shark's. Its open mouth revealed a multitude of tiny but very sharp triangular teeth set in three rows.

  It had no tongue. There were three nostrils on the end of the beastish head, two below and one above. The top one was covered by a small flap of skin that blew in and out, though not smoothly and at regular intervals. Jack could not hear it but thought that it was communicating by whistling its Morse-codelike words through that nostril.

  At right angles above the jaws was a broad plane of bone in which were set two large quite human-looking eyes. These were

  blue. The ears resembled chrysanthemums.

  What kind of a planet could have originated such a creature?

  It could not be an Earth-like world.

  After staring through t
he window at the ghastly being (ghastly to Jack), Garth rolled toward the two guards. Tappy followed it until Garth whistled at her and gestured at her to wait for him.

  Then he lifted two extensions and shot the guards with a ray from each. The green beams cut off the heads of the guards, and these clanged on the floor and rolled a few inches. Their bodies remained upright; their arms still gripped the barrels of their weapons.

  Garth opened the door to the control room, revealing to Tappy's eyes (thus Jack's) an airlock chamber. Then the Gaol entered it, and the door closed behind him.

  Tappy was probably in shock because of Garth's unexpected and deadly attack. Jack did not know about that. The hatchling did not transmit emotional feelings. Not in this situation, anyway.

  She looked around. None of the operators in the room behind her nor in the control center had paid any attention to the killing. They may not have seen it, but the operators outside the control center must have heard the noise of the fallen heads.

  "What's going on?" Jack said. He had expected any action by Tappy and Garth to be subtle and, in essence, pacifistic. But-. . .

  but what? Ah! The hatchling could not enter the control room to transmit empathy to those within. The gases the Gaol breathed would kill it. If it stayed outside the room, its empathic effect would be eventually felt by the control center crew. But Garth had to take immediate action. He had decided that there was only one way to seize control of the ship. It must have been his idea since Tappy could communicate with him only through gestures.

  Also, he probably knew that Tappy, so full of empathy-soaked with it, in fact-would draw back from use of violence. Garth had been affected by the empathy transmitted to him, but he was still more governed by logic than feeling. A good thing, too, Jack thought.

  Tappy went back to the window and looked around the side of the wall into the control room. By then, Garth had cut every Gaol operator in there and was rolling up the ramp. The captain was standing up on his four doglike legs, his arms waving, the flap over his whistling nostril going up and down. His "face" was incapable of expressing anything but ferocity, but his hands said that Garth would be sorry indeed that he had attacked the captain.

  It was, of course, bravado. The captain carried no weapons.

  Whatever it was saying in its whistling speech, it did not impress Garth. He wheeled onto the rotating disk, grabbed the

  ' 's head with two suddenly extruded hands, and tore the captain head off from the fat neck. A dark reddish-blue blood shot out of the open neck. But Garth had rolled back out of the way of the spurt quickly enough to avoid most of it. The captain's legs gave way under him. His bottom plate struck the disk surface. The legs and arms flailed for a few seconds. then were still. The coppery skin of th sac became bluish.

  Garth threw the head across the room and against a wall. with that savage gesture, he had shown that the lower-class Gaol did resent and hate their lords.

  Tappy had turned away to avoid seeing more of the carnage.

  A moment later, Jack could see nothing through her eyes. The transmission had been cut off.

  Ten minutes later, a loud clang throughout the ship told Jack that Tappy and Garth were back. Airlocks opened and closed. And Tappy, sobbing, ran "into his arms.

  An hour later, they were eating at a small table in a corner of the main room. She had calmed down enough to have a good appetite and to be optimistic. But Jack did not entirely share her bubbling outlook, though it was difficult to resist it. He knew that iP the empathy that had enabled them to conquer the monitor she was a weapon with limits. Actually, empathy alone had not done . Violence had also been necessary. He worried that the empathy might become so strong in Tappy, himself, and Garth that they would be unable to use force against their enenly.

  Too much of anything, no matter how good it was, could be a bad thing.

  Just now, he and Tappy were 'n the isolation ship. which was inside the monitor ship, which was now orbiting a huge gaseous planet of a G-type star. The crew was under the of the empathy. Undoubtedly, the Gaol were aware that both vessels had disappeared along with the Imago host. They would be furious but, at the same time, frightened. They would be even more disturbed, Jack thought, if they knew what had actually happened.

  Garth rolled through an airlock. He halted by the table. Candy said, "Garth wishes to report."

  "'Tell him to report," Jack said.

  When Garth had quit whistling, Candy said. "He reports that the sensors indicate that the Gaol probes will probably locate the general location of this vessel within an hour. Once that is done, the Gaol won't take more than an hour to pinpoint its location."

  "Tell him thanks," Jack said, though he felt it was wasting time to inform a Gaol of his gratitude. But maybe it wasn't.

  Who knew how deep the empathy effect went? He turned to the girl.

  "Tappy, I've been thinking about where we should go next.

  It's useless to just keep on dodging and ducking. We should go back to the honker planet. I have a hunch that there is where we'll find the key to defeating the Gaol, if there 's a key. Anyway, the honkers'll help us. They probably have a lot of information we need. For instance, the honker who sneaked in at night and deposited the egg in you. What does he know? Who ordered him to do that? Would he and others help us hide someplace where the Gaol can't detect us, "f such a place exists. What do you think?"

  She did not hesitate. "It seems to me it's the only way we can go. I was just waiting for you to suggest it."

  "Fine! But don't defer to me from now on. Don't wait for me to suggest something. If you've got a good idea, spill it."

  She embodied, literally, the greatest force in the world of sentient beings. Yet, she looked up to him as her leader. This would have flattered him if he had not felt so puny and helpless. But he was not going to let her know that. She needed someone she could depend upon. Or thought that she could.

  She was under enough stress without having to assume leadership. But she should think of herself as a junior partner for now.

  He reached across the table and squeezed her warm hand.

  "We've kept ahead of the ratcages so far," he said. "But until now, we've mostly just been running away. It's time to take the offensive." Just how they could do that, he had no idea.

  "Candy, tell Garth we're returning to the honker planet. I know he's never been there, but he'll find it in his star charts, and he'll get us there toot sweet."

  "Toot sweet?"

  "Immediately. Now, the exact spot where we'll land and what we'll do after that . . ."

  Having finished the instructions, he rose from his chair went to Tappy, lifted her up, and held her tightly. The hatchling, which he was also now calling the Imaget, moved fromher shoulder to hell' hair. It changed color as it did so and became practically invisible.

  Jack did not worry about accidentally crushing it with his hand or stepping on it. It was so quick that it seemed to anticipate any movement threatening it. Which, indeed, it could be doing. Its telepathic powers could include more than transmission of the thoughts of others.

  JACK, Tappy, Candy, and Garth stood on the floor of the crater. About ten miles away, the gigantic icons and symbols on the crater wall moved very slowly in their never-ending parade.

  Now that Jack was close to the wall, he could see that the figures were on a smooth band made of some kind of material-certainly not of stone. The band or ring was set halfway up the wall. Its lower edge was at least three thousand feet above the crater floor.

  Its upper edge was about five thousand feet from the floor. Thus, the ring was two thousand feet broad. Above this, the crater wall extended upward for an estimated three thousand feet.

  Who were the makers of this Brobdingnagian ring? What did the images and symbols mean? What could be rotating the mind reeling gigantic artifact? What ... ? Jack quit thinking about it. Or tried to do so. He had a much more urgent problem to consider survival.

  The Gaol ship had left after Garth
had given it instructions.

  It would be in orbit now, ready to return if Garth radioed a command. If other Gaol ships came while it was still in orbit, it would transfer to the system of another star. And it would move again if it were again located.

  Jack led the others toward the wall. Between it and the place where the ship had departed was a tiny camp of honkers. Jack wanted to give the honkers plenty of opportunity to be alerted to the presence of the intruders. If the honkers were caught unawares, they might scatter in a panic or, perhaps, attack the strangers.

  But if Jack could get friendly with them, he might get them to hide the refugees, maybe even direct them to the leader of the secret organization Tappy said existed among the honkers.

  Beyond that, though, she did not know much about it.

  Jack had to work fast. The Gaol would find Tappy and her companions very soon if they did not get to a hiding place. Garth had told him that it would be at least three hours before the Gaol's vessels would appear above the planet.

  The sun was just descending from the zenith. The refugees were on the bank of a large creek. The vegetation on the plain was somewhat like that on an African veldt-now and then. But there were distinctly non-Terrestrial plants here. Like those that resembled thirty-foot-high croissants with one end stuck in the ground and with many large-headed red p'ns stuck in them. A moldy blue-green moss dripped from the pins, which were probably just exotic-looking branches. The ends of the pin-branches had knobby growths with holes in the center. Very tiny reptiloids stuck their shiny plated heads out from the holes.

  These trees and others lined the creek. Beyond these, yellowish grasses as high as Jack's waist grew thickly. Their expanse was broken here and there by plants twenty feet high, their puce trunks ascending in a zigzag fashion to topknots of thick scarlet and lemon fronds.

  Far to Jack's right, some enormous blue piglike beasts with huge round ears and elephantlike proboscises munched on the grass.

  Somewhere, an animal roared.

  Jack ordered Garth to take the lead. His big wheels pressed the grass down to make an easier path for the others. If they encountered a large predator, Garth could cut it down with his built-in beamer. But Garth's presence would make access to the honkers difficult. These always fled if they saw a Gaol. On the other hand, Jack was betting that the honkers knew that Tappy was the host for the Imago. If they watched the strangers long enough, they would conclude that Garth was not your run-of-the-mill Gaol.