THE CATERPILLARS QUESTION

She was turned around, had gotten closer to him, and had reached out with a questing finger.

She could move, though her briefly seen face was twisted with effort.

"Go on, Tappy!" he shouted. "You can't help me! Go on!"

He could hear his voice, but it seemed to be inside his head.

He doubted that his words got very far from his lips before they were absorbed.

BUT her touches did not stop. Her hands were on his shoulder, trying to lift him, trying to make him resume walking. She didn't want to go on without him.

He tried again, this time with reason rather than muscle. "Tappy, you have something important to do. You have a destiny. You are the Imago! You must get to where you're going, and you can do it, because you are what you are. But I am only mortal. I can't reach the source of that light. I will die just as that Gaol soldier did. That's how it's meant to be: only you can get through."

He paused, gasping with the effort of shouting through the cloying fog. But he had to convince her. "My job is done. I had to get you safely to this place. Now you must go on. Don't let this effort be in vain! Go and be the Imago! Go! Go!"

But she refused. He knew why: she might be the Imago, but she was also Tappy, the blind, mute girl. She had a crush on him. He, fool that he was, had taken advantage of it, and that had done nothing to abate her love. She had refused to leave him before, and she was refusing now. Reason was no good against adolescent passion.

Which meant that if he gave up, so would she, and it would be for nothing. He had to do something. But what?

Then he thought of the radiator. It had gotten them out of more than one scrape already; could it do so again? But this seemed so farfetched that he couldn't quite say it outright. "The-can ithere?"

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 tu

could he go into that tu

He worked his way farther into the tu

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 tu

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 tu

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.

Stu

As the horror deepened, he struck at the brilliant wall, as if to punish it for crushing that i

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, 4lot 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- eacting emotionally, while his (I 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.