THE CATERPILLARS QUESTION

Become at ease with the surroundings, he told himself. Then you can think straight, whatever pressure you might be under.

Maybe.

The sky was blue, and the sun, now straight overhead, looked like Earth's. It could be real or it could be an illusion made by the AI. It made no difference. It was a clock. When it was at the zenith for the fourth time, it would mark the end of the third day.

Oh, time! Run slowly! Flow no faster than a glacier!

Still holding Tappy's hand, he turned toward her. She was smiling as if she knew something he did not. He was going to ask her if she really did when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He switched hands and kept on turning. The object was a huge tent that looked like one of those he'd seen in Arabian Nights movies. Caliph Haroun al-Rashid's or Aladdin's. It was scarlet with strange green, yellow, black, and white symbols on it, with a wide entrance over which sheer drapes fell, with symbol-bearing flags fluttering in a light breeze. He led Tappy into its cool interior. The ground was covered with very thick Oriental-type rugs displaying abstract designs. Six rooms were within, gauzy drapes forming their walls. In the center of the entrance room was a marble fountain with ru

He found a table large enough for six diners. On it were many covered dishes and silver cups and cutlery. In two other rooms were beds suspended from the overhead poles. One room contained a washbowl, a bathtub, and a toilet. Plenty of towels, washrags, soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and toilet paper. Everything, in fact, including cosmetics, that they could possibly need.

Much more than they could use in three days.

"Maybe we'll have guests," he murmured.

Since neither was hungry, they went back outside. He was silent for a long while as they walked through the garden. He led her by the hand, but, often, she stopped when her free hand felt something interesting. Then she caressed it until she had the shape and texture and odor of the tree hole or flower or bush branch or berry in her mind.

Once, while she was doing that, he said, "You're like one of the four blind men who felt the elephant. You can feet a part of the elephant, so you think you know how all of it looks."

He paused for emphasis.

"But! But if you could see, you would know what an elephant really looks like! And if you could talk, you could describe how the elephant looks to those who can't see."

She frowned with puzzlement.

He said, "So, okay, you haven't heard that story."

He told her the ancient Arabian tale of the four blind men who had, for the first time in their life, a chance to feel an elephant. When asked what it "looked" like to them, each gave a different answer. The man who'd felt the tail said the elephant was like a rope. The second, having fingered the trunk, said the beast resembled a large snake. The third groped around a leg and reported that the elephant was undoubtedly shaped like a living hairy monolith, was, in fact, a very tall uniped. The fourth felt a tusk and said that the beast was more like a hard-shelled fish than anything else.

"I may not remember that grade-school story very well," Jack said. "But it was something like that. You get the idea. Feeling and hearing aren't enough. You can't get the whole picture, the true picture, of the world unless you can see."

He waited for a reaction. She was expressionless for a minute or so while they stood there. Then her face became sad, and a tear oozed from her left eye. She gestured with her free hand as if she were signaling hopelessness. At least, that was how he interpreted it. It could have indicated helplessness.

"What if those blind men only had to open their eyelids to see?" he said harshly.

He hurt inside. The pain resonated with hers, but he could not be too tender, too careful of bruising her feelings.

"If they had refused to see ... well, they should've been kicked in the ass."

A second amoeba-shaped tear crawled out and ingested the first. And she pulled her hand away from his.

"Oh, hell!" he murmured.

Doing this was like attacking her with a spear equipped with a blade on each end. He stabbed himself and her at the same time.

They were standing by a tree with a twenty-foot-wide trunk at the ground level. Instead of bark, it had a transparent and skin-smooth covering. Below it were blue and red networks.

The finger-thick red tubes and the pencil-thick blue tubes pulsed alternately. The trunk bent abruptly just above the ground, became horizontal, then curved into an upward spiral. The trunk narrowed as it ascended, becoming a thin tip when a hundred feet high.

Atop it was a flower which looked like a Christmas-tree star.

Corkscrew branches bearing round purple leaves grew from the trunk halfway up it.

Jack thought he saw the vertical part of the tree move itself slightly toward him. It almost had the air of an eavesdropper bending his head to hear better. No. Must be his imagination.

But, several seconds later, something fast slammed 'nto the tree a few feet above him. Instead of bouncing off, it clung with eight tiny legs. The legs telescoped from below the buttercup-yellow body, which was hemispherical and as large as a half-coconut. It had no head or wings that Jack could see. Then, from the bottom center of its body, a thin and stiff member extended downward.

Its sharp tip plunged through the glassy skin into a red tube. The skin rippled violently. The thing, insect, whatever, was propelled from the skin. It fell onto its back and lay there while its legs telescoped into themselves, the red-fluid-tipped proboscis became limp, and the yellow body turned green and then black.

Jack had no idea of what had happened. But the tree had gotten rid of the parasite just as a horse twitches its hide to get rid of a biting fly. But the twitch doesn't kill the fly.

Where had the AI gotten the fauna and flora of the garden?

From what strange world had they come?

Distractions, he thought. I've no time to explore the garden and to contemplate its wonders and beauties. The tent should be pitched in the middle of a flat desert.

He became aware that Tappy looked as if she had a question.

Suddenly, he recalled that she, like him. had been startled by the loud noise of the impact of the creature on the trunk. He said, "It's okay. Just a big 'nsect ru

He wanted to be alone for a while so he could think. But he could not leave her. Since neither had had any sleep for a long time, he suggested that they lie down in the tent. He did not intend to take a nap. That would waste time. But sleep would give her the energy she was going to need when he started the intense process of artificial emotional maturation. Force-feedin of the psyche. When he started? If he started! At the moment, he did not have a smidgeon of confidence that he would be able to think of a plan that would work within the strictly allotted time.

In fact, he doubted that he would be able to imagine anly plan at all.

They entered the tent and went into a room with two large hanging beds. Tappy crawled into one and gestured that he should join her. He was pleased. She must have gotten over her wounded feelings, and she would want the physical and emotional warmth of his body next to hers. Any other time, he would have la'n down by her.

He went to the bed, leaned over, and kissed her. Then he said, "I have to think, Tappy. I'll be in the other bed while you sleep.

Believe me, it's absolutely vital for me to be undisturbed. If I held you, I'd have thoughts I couldn't control. You understad'2"

She shook her head, and she held out her arms.