The Caterpillars Question - txt

by Farmer, Phillip Jose

  But she understood him immediately. She passed her hands along his body until she found the radiator. She brought it up and found a button. He didn't even know which one, only that she put one of his fingers on it.

  It was worth a try. He aimed the device away from her, turned it on, and pressed that button.

  This time a visible beam came from it. Rather, an invisible beam with a visible effect: it dissipated the fog. In its path the fog just seemed to shrivel or melt, giving out a noisome odor, leaving a tunnel of clear air.

  Could he go into that tunnel? If it was the fog that held him, then maybe he could. He hauled one leg forward, toward the clear region ahead. The fog resisted, seeming unwilling to give up the limb, but the fog had been weakened, and the leg was able to break through. Then the other leg. The tunnel was narrow here, but broad ahead, in a slowly thickening cone. His feet remained mired, but his legs were now clear, and he was able to duck his head to clear it, too. What a relief, to breathe free again!

  He worked his way farther into the tunnel. It was like stepping out of quicksand; now his body was free. The tunnel remained where it had been carved, enabling him to move through it. He looked back, and saw it slowly squeezing together behind him. But that didn't matter. In fact, it might be good, because he didn't want to leave a passage for the Gaol forces to enter.

  He aimed the radiator toward the intermittently flashing light. It sliced through the fog, leaving a closing offshoot like the cutoff elbow of a meandering river. When he held the beam in place, the new tunnel broadened and clarified. He wiggled it around enough to enlarge the tunnel at the near end, then turned it off. He didn't want to waste the radiator's power, not knowing how much of a charge it had.

  He glanced at Tappy, who was standing beside him. "It's working," he said, his confidence resurging. "On to the light?"

  She nodded. "Then follow me." He marched ahead. He did not want that beam touching her!

  Soon there was a whiteness that did not dissipate. It was the hard surface of the structure inside the cloud. It glowed blindingly. By its light he saw pseudopodia of cloud extending inward from the round rim of the tunnel, like so many cilia eager to move him along this intestinal tract. He was not comfortable with the image.

  Then, abruptly, it was gone. He blinked, trying to adapt his sight to the relative gloom. Now there seemed to be nothing where the building had been!

  In seven seconds it was back, blindingly bright again.

  "Tappy, there's something strange here."

  She merely urged him on, pushing him from behind.

  "There's a glowing wall or something, the side of the building, if that's what it is, for seven seconds; that's what makes the light through the cloud. Then it's gone, and I think it's just an empty hole that the thick fog can't fill in, in only seven seconds. But it can't just vanish! It doesn't sink into the ground; it's just here, and then it's gone, and then it's here again." He was watching it do this while he spoke, shielding his eyes from the brightness so that he could see better in the darkness. "It's as if it just ceases to exist, but there's no implosion of air or anything. Tappy, that thing may be dangerous!"

  But she kept on pushing. She was not alarmed; rather, she was excited.

  "Tappy, do you understand what I'm saying? This thing is big, maybe a third of a mile on a side, and maybe some kind of super-science can make it phase in and out of reality, but I don't want to be standing on its turf when it phases in! We'd both be crushed flat!"

  She came up beside him. She pointed ahead, and nodded her head positively and vigorously. She urged him on yet again.

  "Okay, Tappy," he said dubiously. "I'll warn you when we're at the edge, because—"

  But now she was hurrying ahead by herself, and he had to lumber after her. "Wait! You're going to run right into it! Wait for it to cycle back!"

  Too late. Tappy ran across the section where the wall had been. Then the wall returned, and he crashed into it. The surface was diamond-hard, as befitted its brilliance.

  Stunned more by the realization of Tappy's fate than by the physical shock, Jack leaned against the wall. Why had she done it? He had warned her!

  As the horror deepened, he struck at the brilliant wall, as if to punish it for crushing that innocent child. Yet he condemned himself, too, for not catching her in time. She had misunderstood, she had not heard, she had—

  The wall disappeared. He fell into the vacant space, automatically lifting the radiator clear, taking the fall on his shoulder and side. Pain lanced through him; he knew he had suffered an injury. But what did it matter? In a moment he, too, would be squished so flat that nothing showed. For there was no sign at all of Tappy, not even a bloodstain. She had been totally obliterated.

  Jack lay flat on his back and waited for the return of the bright building. Somehow this termination seemed fitting.

  Then there was light, but this time gentle, in shifting pastel colors. He blinked, trying to align this with his notion of death. Hands were touching him, caressing him; then a face was kissing him.

  It was Tappy. She was whole and warm despite her wet nightie and sodden jacket. She was every bit as glad to find him here as he was to find her.

  "But— the building!" he protested, holding her close. Again there were two levels of reaction: the sheer relief and wonder of her wholeness, and the mystery of what had happened. His body was reacting emotionally, while his mind was floundering intellectually.

  "If I may," a man's voice said.

  Jack jumped, looking around. He had somehow assumed that they were alone in the afterlife, or whatever this was. Now he saw a nondescript young man wearing ordinary shirt and slacks, neither of which seemed to fit perfectly. It was as if the manufacturer had had another body style in mind. "Who?" he asked, at a loss.

  "I am an agent of the Imago," the man said. "I and my companions exist to foster the well-being and success of this entity. Because the Imago has assumed human form and has brought a human companion and is conversant with your language, we are assuming this form and mode of communication. Because the Imago desires your welfare, we shall treat you responsively."

  Jack looked at Tappy, who nodded, feeling his motion. He made as if to stand, and immediately the man and another came to help him up. Two young women appeared, helping Tappy similarly. The women wore blouses and skirts which seemed to have been crafted by the same misguided tailor who had done the men. Their figures seemed good, but their clothing was making a valiant effort to demonstrate otherwise. The colors were all over the place, nothing matching or complementing well.

  This simple action did not reassure Jack. The men looked ordinary, but there was a machinelike strength in their bodies, and their flesh was like plastic. He could see that the women, too, were inhumanly powerful, despite their appealing forms.

  Jack found himself feeling light-headed, as if he were running without a warm-up and his system was out of whack, hands cold and pulse racing. He had thought Tappy was dead, then thought he would die, too, and suddenly everything seemed all right. He just didn't trust it!

  He had a tendency to react inappropriately when caught out of sorts. He did his best to control it. It wasn't just himself involved here; it was Tappy. When he had undertaken to deliver her to the clinic, he had assumed a commitment to get her there safely. As it had turned out, they had gone on a spectacularly strange journey. Maybe this was the true clinic. But maybe it wasn't. He owed it to her to find out.

  "Uh, Tappy— these are your friends?" he asked.

  She nodded and smiled.

  "Is it okay if I find out more about them?"

  Tappy nodded again.

  Jack turned to the first man. "Are you human?"

  "No. I am what you would call an android or machine. We all are."

  "An android, as I see it, is an artificial living man. A robot is a machine in humanoid form with a computer for a brain. Which are you?"

  "We conform physically more closely to the latter description. But we ar
e sentient in the manner of the former."

  "You mean you are conscious? Free-willed? You're not just a program?"

  "That is correct."

  Certainly it seemed possible, considering what Jack had already seen: a monstrous spaceship that healed itself, and a building that flashed in and out of existence without crushing what was under it. That cycling seemed to have stopped; once the building had taken them in, it remained firm. "Maybe we had better introduce ourselves. I am Jack. This is Tappy, whom you call the Imago. What are your names?"

  "We have none, but will answer to whatever you choose to call us, if the Imago agrees."

  "Call her Tappy."

  The man glanced at Tappy. "Imago?"

  Tappy nodded.

  "Jack. Tappy. And our names are?"

  The urge to be flippant increased. Jack had to yield to it a little, or risk going wrong in some worse manner. Maybe he could get a smile from Tappy, and tide through. It hardly mattered whether these were friends or enemies: it was better for him to hold his cool until he knew for sure.

  He decided to do it the simple way: alphabetically. "You are Abraham, Abe for short. He is Bartholomew, Bart for short. Are there any more of you?"

  "There are six of us presently animated," Abe said. "Three of each apparent gender."

  That meant that they weren't really male and female.

  "Then the third male is Coleman, or Cole." Jack turned to the women. "And you are Abigail, or Abbie, and Bridget, Brie, and the one I don't see is Candace, or Candy."

  "Thank you," the two females said together.

  "You sound just alike," Jack said. "Can you make your voices different, so we can tell you apart by sound as well as sight?"

  "Yes," the two said, in different voices.

  "Yes," the two men said, similarly.

  Tappy smiled.

  This was almost too easy; Jack hardly trusted it. "Look, maybe we'd better get changed, and then we can talk. I guess you folk don't have to eat— you have power cells, right?— but you know we do. So—"

  "Certainly," Abe said. "Come with us, Jack."

  Jack knew he would have no choice if his will opposed theirs. "We'll change, and then Tappy and I will eat together," he said.

  They hesitated. Then Tappy nodded, and Abe spoke immediately. "As you wish, Jack."

  They took him to a smaller chamber, where he stripped, wincing as he flexed his bruised shoulder. "You are in physical distress, Jack?" Abe inquired.

  "I bashed my shoulder coming in. It will heal."

  "There is no need to wait." Abe placed both his hands on the shoulder, one on each side. Jack felt a current, and his pain faded.

  The man might be a robot, but he had a healing talent! Maybe it was just some kind of electrical anesthetic, but it made life easier for the moment.

  Then Jack stepped into what looked like a shower. Suddenly he felt warm and clean. He had had the equivalent of a full shower in half a second, painlessly. He was still marveling as they presented him with clothing similar to their own. He could tell by the feel that it was of alien material, but it felt good and fit him well. In fact, it seemed to adjust itself to his body of its own volition. So why didn't it fit these alien men and women better?

  "Uh, before we go back," Jack said. "Is there a— a bathroom? I mean, a place where I can—?"

  "Step into the purifier again," Abe said.

  Jack stepped in, but didn't see any toilet. Then, suddenly, he had no need for it. Somehow the wastes in his body had been removed. He decided not to protest.

  "Um, Abe— you serve Tappy, right?"

  "The present form of the Imago, yes."

  "And me you help only because she wants it?"

  "Yes. It is not ordinary, but her will is our law, literally."

  "And you went to the trouble of learning my language and customs, because of her? You really don't care about me otherwise?"

  "This is the situation."

  "And if she told you to kill me, you would do it?"

  "If she were serious."

  "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 information."

  Jack was satisfied with that. Since he also wanted what was best for Tappy, there should be no trouble. If these humanoids really 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 AI— evidently 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 expected 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 injected 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.

  And there was another key. These were indeed robots. They might be conscious, and know a lot, but they were not feeling. It seemed that it was not feasible for even this advanced civilization 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 g
et 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.