THE CATERPILLARS QUESTION

"You have to grow up fast," he said softly. "Become an adult in hothouse time. Part of being an adult is being able to g' we up something so you can achieve something better."

He kissed her on the I*ps again and patted her.

"That's the way it's going to be."

As he got into the bed, however, he did not feel nearly as confident as he had * sounded. His project was, in some ways, equal to God's creation of the world. But God took four days just to make the heavens and the earth and divide the waters from the dry land and make plants and then the animals. The work assigned by the AI to one puny Earthmen had to be done in three days.

The big difference, aside from the Power demanded, was that God knew how to go about doing what must be done.

No, there was another difference. Tappy had free will.

Assumedly, once God had created humans, He had left the use of their free will entirely up to them. Tappy did not want to see and speak, and God Himself wasn't going to change her mind.

He stared up at the sagging ceiling of the tent. The girl was snoring gently. Somehow, she had managed to fall asleep at once.

That pleased him. She very much needed the rest, and she would -not be bothering him with her silent but seen presence.

It was not easy to organize his thoughts and slide them down a single cha

Put simply, "She won't care at all about affection or screwing."

Well, he could handle that.

That was what one part of him said. Another part was greatly Akurbed by it.

He steered his mind i

Project Tappy. How could he get her to see and to speak?

Then, there was the warning the AI had given him. He must make sure that Tappy did not misuse the power of the Imago. But that sounded as if she would have some control over the Imago.

If she did, how much?

Hey! he told himself. I've drifted off the first phase. Back to the track.

Then, there was the promise of the AI to help him with the project. No. The AI had said that he would be working under its guidance. But no AI had shown up to help him, and it-they had not told him how to summon them.

And he had to use Tappy's love for him to get her to do what must be done-if he ever figured out what to do. Since he didn't love her-did he?-he was somehow not lionorable. To use her love as a tool against her-though it was actually for her-he might have to pretend that he was madly in 'love with her. That made him feel sneaky and treacherous. Really rotten. unclean.

Suddenly, he heard bells ringing loudly.

They might be warning bells or wedding bells.

Or funeral bells.

What a crazy idea, he thought. Almost at once, he realized that he had fallen asleep between the thought of how rotten he was and the wakening thought of the bells. Or had the latter been the tag end of a dream he did not remember?

He sat up, rocking the bed.

"Oh, Lord!" he said loudly. "Whatever I do, I'll lose her!"

If he could not make her mature enough within three days, he and Tappy would be destroyed.

If he did succeed, he would keep her alive. But she would no longer be completely human. She would be the fleshly instrument of the Imago.

Tappy must have heard his exclamation. She turned slightly.

But she did not awaken. Presently, he heard her mutter, "Reality is a dream."

Was that phrase the key to the door which would admit the Imago?

I'm just not up to this! he told himself. Talk about, your frail vessel or your brittle tool! I'm it! I just can't do it! Might as well give me a spoon and tell me to dig the Panama Canal! In three days!

He got out of bed and went to the entrance room. There he drank deeply from a cut-quartz glass filled with the fountain water. Then he turned toward the entrance. He stopped.

The garden was gone. Replacing it was the flat desert he had wished for. Sand and rock, rock and sand, no plants at all, no shadows, the only moving things heat waves, the expanse as straight and as level as the tracks of God's locomotive to the unbroken horizon.

He felt as if he had just seen zero and infinity converge.

FOR a moment, he was dizzy. At the same time, he was numb.

His heart thudded against an icy shield as if it were a whale trapped beneath arctic ice and trying to break through.

Though he had lived through events much more outrd and terrifying than this, he had expected them to be strange and dangerous.

This one was completely unanticipated. It caught him as off guard as if his body's electrons had suddenly reversed polarity. Instead of a- ug, a world had been yanked from under him.

When his numbness thawed out, he thought, The AI! They must have some kind of telepathy! I wished for the garden to be replaced with a desert. And the AI, like Aladdin's genie, granted my wish. But they did it while I was asleep.

His question now: Had he and Tappy been transported elsewhere or had two worlds been exchanged? Or was all this an illusion? Or a dream?

Next thought: What difference did that make?

It was then that the AI, a female, came around the corner of the tent. He jumped, and his nerves clanged like the bells in his awakening dream.

"For God's sake!" he said. "Next time, give me some warning before you do that!"

"will," the AI said. Apparently, it knew what he meant.

It walked up to Jack and stopped with its nose less than an inch from Jack's. Its breath smelled like machine oil. That, of course, was his imagination. But it stepped back, saying, "You are uncomfortable because I am so close to you. Does this distance make you more at ease?"

"You can read my mind?" Jack said after ' he had nodded.

Despite the double jolt, he was breathing easier, and his heart was slowing down.

"Not your thoughts. My ability isn't like reading words on a screen. I sensed that you wanted help just as I sensed your uncomfort at my near proximity."

"What about replacing the garden with this?"

Jack waved his hand to indicate the desert.

"I'd thifik that'd take a pretty concrete image."

"Images, yes," the AI said. "Not words. I can receive images, though they're distorted. But I can unscramble them. Why do you need help or guidance? Have you thought of something which needs our help? Physical or mentals?"

"Not yet."

The AI looked up at the sun.

"An hour and a half has passed since you came here."

"Oh, well. Just hang around for a few minutes. I'll have it all figured out by then."

"That would be most gratifying," the AI said.

The thing would not understand sarcasm, of course. Jack said, "When I really need you, I'll transmit an SOS."

SOS? I don't have that vocabulary item," the AI said.

"And I'm wasting time talking to you!" Jack said, snarling.

"Begone! "

Without replying, the AI walked around the corner of the tent.

Jack hesitated, then hurried after it. By the time he had rounded the corner, the AI had returned to the building, wherever it was.

More of my precious time shot down, Jack thought.

The first day became the longest that Jack had ever endured.

Yet, when the sun dropped into the slot of the horizon, it also seemed to be the shortest. His whirling brain, a mental centrifuge, threw off scores of plans and many variations and combinations of these. None was worth anything. Each was weighed in the balance and found wanting.

Meanwhile, Tappy paced back and forth within the entrance room or walked around and around the fountain. Her burnt-umber hair and yellow dress made her look very young and very pretty.

And very vulnerable.