THE CATERPILLARS QUESTION

by Piers Anthony

  "My father held me in his arms, and he jumped. We fell down the shaft, not very far, I think, and then we were suddenly in bright daylight. He landed with his knees bent-strange how that little detail sticks in my mind-and he staggered. But he put me down and pulled a beamer from his belt and shot its ray upward. I remember just glimpsing a ledge projecting out over the top of the cliff. We must have dropped through a gate in the stone. He blew up the projection with the ray. There must've been explosives or something inside the shaft in the other world. Anyway, it exploded and, I suppose, destroyed the gate. The rocks and the dust rained over us, but my father covered me with his body. He was hurt protecting me, though not bad enough so he couldn't lift me and carry me off. I was still screaming with terror and with grief for my mother."

  She paused, doubtless to scan the memories that had surged up from the unconscious, breaking loose through the barrier there. -Ihen she spoke again, her voice less quivery.

  "I remember now, though it's vague, being in a great cavern complex before we went to Tappuah. Maybe it was the same as the one we were in. I don't know. Anyway, it's coming back, part of it, anyway. It was there I first learned honkerese and English, the English which humans speak on the planet. After a while, we went to Tappuah. Maybe the pressure from the Gaol was off, and my parents thought it was safe to live with humans again. They must've been sick from being under the ground. must've longed for the open air and the sunlight. I know now that my parents and a few other humans and some honkers were part of a secret organization dedicated to fighting the Gaol. Plotting against them, anyway."

  She was silent again. When she resumed speaking, she talked with a low voice and in broken phrases. It was as if she were sweeping the fragments of the life she remembered into a basket, then was picking up the pieces from the basket without regard to order.

  "Once, I overheard my parents talking. They were saying something about the light that glowed from me when I was born, a light that lasted for an hour or so. By that, they knew that the Imago was inside me. Of course, I didn't know what the Imago was, and I forgot all about it when my mother was killed. That wiped out all my memory of my infancy and early childhood. Later, I forgot my life from the time my mother was killed to the time the airplane crashed and killed my father and crippled me. I could not talk after that. My tongue seemed frozen. Along with much else that was frozen. I lived, but I was half-dead.

  "When you came along, you started the thawing out. I began to live again, though not fully. But I knew that you were the person I'd been waiting for to love me."

  Father, mother, and lover squeezed into rly- person, Jack thought.

  Also, the knight in shining white armor who rode up to rescue her.

  In reality, the Doubtful Knight.

  He said, "Your so-called relatives who raised you, Melvin and Michaela Daw, were they part of the anti-Gaol organization?"

  She nodded, and she said, "They must have been. I think they're part of a very small band that went to Earth. They did so, probably, because they knew that I'd have to flee to someplace the Gaol didn't know much about or care about.

  "The Gaol have probably been aware of Earth's existence for some time. But they didn't move in on it. They think that overpopulation and pollution will soon cause the collapse of civilization on Eartli. M'll'ons will die, and the Earthpeople will revert to savagery. Then they'll be easy pickings. At least, that's what I once heard my father say when he didn't know I was around.

  "Anyway, to get back to the couple taking care of me, the Daws. They were in grave danger. And they knew I was the host for the Imago. That's why they were not as loving to me as they should have been. They couldn't treat me as if I were an ordinary child. Sometimes, though, they broke through their fear and awe and tried to love me. But I was a terrible burden to them. Of course, I didn't know that then."

  .,Still," he said, "they knew that the Chrysalis in you wouldn't become the Imago until you were mature. Why did they advertise for someone to take you to that institution when you were so young?"

  He paused, then said, "And why did they pick me to do that?"

  She pulled herself loose from his embrace and began pacing back and forth. He smiled. She carried the Imago within her, yet she looked as if she were the least likely vessel for such a great thing. No, not a thing. An entity of unprecedented and unparalleled importance. She was the very essence of the dirty and tattered waif of back alleys, of the most forlorn and rejected type of human.

  Finally, she said, "I think that the Gaol may have been getting too close to the trail. They had to hide me someplace else before they fled. Or, I don't know, not really, they weren't going to send me to the institution. They knew that I didn't have time to mature.

  The Gaol would catch me before I did if I stayed on Earth. They had to take a chance, send me back to this planet. First, though, they advertised for someone to transport me to Vermont. I do know they interviewed at least a score of would-be drivers for me, and they rejected all. Until you came by, that is."

  "Why me?"

  "The paintings," she said, halting to look into his eyes. Beneath the mud was a face almost shining with exultance. Or exaltation.

  "The paintings?"

  But he knew before she spoke what she was going to say.

  "The paintings in the Makers' burial chamber. They showed a male youth holding a painter's brush in his hand. You. You were a painter, and you were a young man. I think that they thought maybe were absolutely sure-that you were the one the Makers pioplie:,Ied. Predicted, anyway."

  He snorted. and he said, "Prophecy! Pred'ct'on!"

  She shagged before speaking. "It seems farfetched. But who knows how much the Makers knew or how powet-fully their predictions could be. Maybe they figured out something on a probability basis. Maybe they counted on someone fulfilling the prophecy.

  Maybe they could see into the future. Or maybe the paintings have been wrongly read. They might've meant something other than the anti-Gaol honkers and humans thought it meant. But the anti-Gaols brought it about that what they thought had to happen did happen, even if they'd misread the paintings. After all, what we thank is a pa*nter's brush in the youth's hand in the Maker painting might be something else."

  "You've gone a long way since I first met you," he said.

  "You've grown up fast. No thirteen-year-old I know could reason like you do."

  "I'm fourteen now," she said. "Not counting the pseudo-years you implanted in my mind."

  He had many more questions based on the fragments she'd muttered. But they had to get going. They walked toward a long double line of tall plants and found a creek between them.

  Though the water was very cold, they plunged into it and did not leave it until their bodies and clothes were clean. The Imaget stayed in the creek only long enough to wash the mud off.

  After that, it waited on the bank until the humans spread the wet garments out in the sun and then sprawled naked in its warmth. It crawled onto Tappy and snuggled between her beasts.

  After about twenty minutes, all three were dry and beginning to toast.

  Jack was about to open his eyes and get up when he heard a ilglonking. He jumped up, staring around. Tappy rose and stood by his side.

  "We'd better find them," he said.

  "But we'd better make sure they're friendly," she said. . "There are traitors among the honkers just as there are among humans.

  Not many, I've been told. But we can't be too careful."

  He listened, trying to determine the direction from which the honking came. Halfway around in his turning, he jumped with alarm. A honker had stepped out from behind a tree.

  Tappy cried out with relief and welcome. She followed this with a series of blasts.

  The honker was the Integrator but not in the condition he had been in at the Gaol spaceship. One eye had been gouged out.

  One hip tentacle was waving wildly, but the other was missing.

  A bandage concealed its stump. Dark bruises we
re scattered over his face and body, and his chest had long bright red rakemarks on it.

  The snake around his neck bore a wound close to its head, though this did not keep it from extending part of its body toward Tappy and hissing loudly. The navel-beast's mouth and paws were caked with dried blood.

  The shaman had suffered grievous wounds during some struggle, but he had not been defeated. Raised high in one hand was the severed head of a Gaol. He honked loudly, and Tappy murmured, "It's the head of the Gaol captain."

  Behind him came Candy, then other Latest, some limping or being supported by their fellows.

  A moment later, an aircraft, a vessel designed to carry a score or more, floated from the brush.

  JACK strode toward the shaman. "What happened?*' he cried.

  "What happened?"

  The Integrator, of course, did not understand him. Jack asked Tappy, who was behind him, to interpret for him. But the shaman dropped the Gaol head, hobbled to her, fell on his knees, and put his bloodied arms around her legs. His head was bent back as he stared up at her and honked loudly.

  She said, "He's dumbfounded. How did we get out of the Land of the Shadow? He says that no one who goes through the deathshadow ever returns to this land. He cannot understand it."

  The other Latest, fallen silent, listened while she told her story to the shaman. Then he got up to his feet, somewhat shakily, and he began to dance. The others joined him. Jack waited until the jubilation had died down somewhat.

  "Now," he said, "ask him what happened back there."

  She did so, but, first, the shaman had the head brought to him.

  While he issued a long series of blasts, he waved the ghastly head around and his tentacle thrashed. His one good eye glared, and the snake and the navel-beast twisted frenziedly. These two had aided the Integrator greatly in his struggle with the captain, and the shaman's tentacles had spurted poison into him. The Gaol must have felt as if he had been attacked by five people, not just one aged honker. Nevertheless, the captain had fought well.

  The other honkers interspersed their comments or encouragement while the shaman "talked." Perhaps, these were their equivalent of "Right on!" or "Hallelujah! Amen!" Toward the end, the shaman's excitement swept through them, and they began a war dance, waving their spears, stomping their feet, mockfighting, and whirling around and around. The sun glistened on the fungus-deterrent grease they had smeared on their bodies;

  their feet, slamming onto the hard earth, made a primitive beat which echoed in the ears and the blood. Even Jack was not unaffected by it.

  When the shaman had finished, his warriors continued making a hullabaloo. Candy had come up to Jack meanwhile but stood without speaking. Her right shoulder and left leg had been wounded, but these were healing swiftly.

  "They saw us escape through the death-shadow," Tappy said.

  "However, they're too strongly conditioned against going through the shadows. Millennia of taboos keep them from even getting close to them, plus horror stories about them. They would die before they'd enter one."

  And, dying, would go to that world, anyway, Jack thought.

  The airboat, which the honkers had appropriated from the spaceship, was speeding across the plain. It contained only one person, the pilot. Apparently, it was simple to operate. Otherwise, the untrained honker wouldn't be able to handle it.

  "As soon as we jumped through the shadow, they fled into the woods, only two of them being hit, one killed, one wounded," Tappy continued. "When they got there, they released the venomous flies they hadn't had a chance to let loose in the ship because the bubbles had enclosed them too swiftly. Then the three with beamers shot at the robots. The flies injected their venom in the human Gaol who followed the robots, and the Gaol dropped where they stood. Cyborgs came out, too, and the flies bit their metal coverings in vain. But enough stung the few areas of exposed flesh surface to paralyze them, too. This discouraged the few surviving Gaol.

  "Candy and the Latest could have gotten away down the shaft inside the tree. But the shaman feared that the ship's heavy rays would be used to excavate the earth and pursue the warriors until they were caught and wiped out. So, he gave the order to charge.

  They lost a few, but they got all those who had come out of the ship. Then the Integrator had all the flies released inside the ship.

  He thinks that the detectors in the ship weren't set for anything which had a mass as small as the flies did. Or the detectors weren't working because the fungus had gotten to them. In any event, the flies swarmed all over the ship, barred only from entering rooms with closed hatches. There weren't many of those, and none of the crew except the captain was protected then by a bubble."

  "But the captain still had his involition radiator," Jack said.

  "Not by then!" Tappy said. She gave a short nervous laugh.

  The fungus was still working in some parts of the ship. It caused malfunctions in the involition radiator mechanism. It might've been quickly repaired if the technicians hadn't been paralyzed or killed or locked in rooms with closed hatches. The automatic mechanical-repair devices were also malfunctioning. But he did order robots to troubleshoot the circuits. They might've done the job in time to restore the radiator before the honkers entered. But they had a big task because so much equipment and so many cables we;e impaired."

  "How d'd the Integrator know that?" Jack said. "I'd think he'd have been afraid to venture into the ship."

  "He sent Candy to scout it. She isn't subject to the involition broadcaster. Why should she be? The Gaol had her programmed to do all they wanted her to do. It never occurred to them when they made her that she would resist their commands. They didn't figure on the Imago empathy affecting her."

  "And?"

  "And she went in and looked the situation over and then returned to report."

  "And the honkers stormed on in?"

  "Right. But by then the captain, who had been in the bubble, had managed to get a gas-supplier to him, By a still-functioning robot, I suppose. I don't think he could have communicated with the robot by radio or whatever means he nonenally used. The equipment for that would've been impaired by the fungus. we probably used hand signals or whatever to tell the robot to bring protective cloths and a gas-supplier to him. The supplier was some sort of scuba device, according to the Integrator. The captain was protected against the fly bites by heavy blankets thrown over his exterior skeleton, by gloves, and so forth, also brought by the robot. The captain was out of the bubble and just about to operate the ship controls manually when the Latest showed up.

  The Integrator said he doubts that the captain could have worked the controls because the fungus probably had wrecked all the electrical circuits.

  "Anyway, the Integrator attacked the captain in the control room. Instead of just shooting the captain, who didn't have a weapon yet, he tackled him with bare hands."

  "Why?" Jack said. "That was stupid!"

  "Not by honker standards. It's something to do with their honor and prestige. Anyway, the shaman and the captain had an awful struggle while the other honkers stood by and watched. They'd been ordered not to interfere. Of course, if the Gaol won, then the honkers could shoot him. Despite losing an eye and a tentacle, the shaman strangled the captain and then cut off his head as a trophy. The honkers will sing a song about the epic fight for a long time."

  "Sing? They can't sing."

  "Their equivalent, anyway."

  The Latest were 'llbilant and should be. They had, from their viewpoint, won a great victory. But it was really only a very small battle which did not affect the course of the war. The Gaol empire was set back a trifle, and it would not be long before their forces would be here. If, indeed, they were not already here. He looked at the sky. Only a few wispy clouds floated there. However, there could be hundreds of space-dreadnoughts assembled in a stationary orbit, and he would not be able to see them.

  Tappy put her hand on his arm.

  "Look! "

  He turned. He
re came the airboat shooting across the plain.

  Though he could not distinguish individual figures at this distance from it, he could see that the interior of the vessel was crowded with honkers. Something else had also been loaded into the airboat. By the time that it stopped about forty feet from him, he recognized the Gaol cyborg, Garth. It was partly exposed through the pile of honkers on it.

  The canopy slid back. Honkers spilled out, reminding him of the tiny circus cars from which a seemingly unending line of clowns emerged. Other honkers had unloaded a collapsible wooden ramp-how had they crammed that into the vessel?and had propped it up against the edge of the canopy.

  Garth rolled out of the boat on his wheels. When it had gotten to the ground, the honkers pulled the ramp away. The Integrator spoke to an aide, and she hurried to the pilot and conversed with him. Then the canopy slid shut, the boat rose, turned, and accelerated away.

  Garth came speedily to Tappy. It whistled a long series of dots and dashes. When it stopped, Candy said, "Garth says that it is ready to interpret for the commander of the fleet."

  "Fleet?" Jack said, but he knew what she meant.

  Candy pointed upward. He looked again at the sky and still saw only clouds.

  "Garth has been receiving messages for the last half hour," Candy said.

  Tappy spoke as if she were suddenly short of breath. "What did the commander say?"

  "She wants to send down a negotiator. He'll come down in a small vessel, and he'll be alone and unarmed. He just wants to present the empire's demands."