THE CATERPILLARS QUESTION

It was, he acknowledged, better than having no one to talk to.

After they had covered various possibilities, Jack said, "Okay, here's how it'll go, if you agree it can be done. You'll make and then insert about seven major memories per year over a sevenyear period. Forty-nine very strong incidents. That is, memories of incidents which have been powerful in maturing her.

"Then you'll insert a number of lesser incidents. Things that might not be significant to other people but Tappy will remember ... seem to remember, anyway ... because they're important to her. Things mostly pleasurable, I'd say. She might as well have some happiness in her past even though they're false memories."

"Seven years is a long time for a human," Candy said. "And, as I understand it, time seems to go more slowly for a youth than for an adult. The older you get, the faster time seems to go. Is that correct?"

"That's what older people say," Jack said. "I know that my childhood seemed to stretch out for a much longer time than when I was a teenager."

"Then, logically, shouldn't she have more memories in the earlier years of her pseudomemories than she has in the later years? The first four of her seven years should contain more memories than the last three?"

"Not necessary," Jack said. "Just give her a sense of extended time during those years, the feeling that the first four were the longest. For the last year, though, since the events of that year will seem to be the most recent, you should increase the number of pseudomemories."

Writing a scenario for seven years was not easy and required much rewriting. Tappy had awakened before dawn. Jack had to quit work, talk to her awhile, and give her another sedative in a fresh cup of cocoa. She was not aware that much time had passed between the two drinks.

While he ate breakfast, he worked on the scenario. Though he desperately wanted to sleep, he kept writing and talking to Candy until he had completed his work. Then he said, "You can start work on the memories."

"It seems satisfactory," Candy said.

It was silent and unmoving for a minute. Jack's eyes were drooping; his body sagged; he felt that his immediate surroundings were sliding in and out, in and out. They seemed to be drawers filled with tableaux which someone invisible was pulling out and then shutting.

Suddenly, Candy was shaking his shoulder. Jack said, "Wha ... ?

Wha'ss going on?"

"You were sleeping," Candy said. "We didn't want to wake you up, but you should know that the work is complete. Tappy has her seven years of pseudomemories."

That brought him up off the pillows and to a standing position.

His legs felt numb, his back ached, and his brain seemed to be filled with antifreeze.

"How, how long have I been asleep?"

"Fifteen minutes and thirty-two seconds," Candy said.

"That quick?"

"The scenario was prepared while you wrote it out, and the changes were made immediately," the AI said.

"I thought you had to take Tappy to the equipment!"

"You assumed that. All the pseudodata was transmitted to her mind while she slept in the bedroom."

Jack asked for a large mug of black coffee. It arrived about ten seconds later, carried by a male AI. After Jack had downed the hot liquid as swiftly as he could stand it, he walked to the bedroom and looked in it. By then, the sun had come up, but the pole lights were still on. Tappy was sleeping on her side. She was in a new nightgown. Near her, on hangers on a line, were her new clothes.

Her old clothes had been stripped off and thrown away. When she woke up, she would have to have different garments, of course. In fact, one of the false memories was of throwing the original nightgown away.

Held in one arm was a big fuzzy teddy bear. That had been given her, supposedly several years ago, as a birthday gift. She had, supposedly, asked for it, and, since then, had used it as her No. 2 security blanket. Her No. I was Jack himself.

The suspended bed had been replaced by a conventional one.

It was large enough for Tappy and Jack to romp around on in sexual play. Jack was supposed to have been sleeping with her for the last five years.

The formerly bare room was now filled with many things: furniture, machines that played the music of many planets, though not of Earth, dolls, an ice-cream dispensing machine, a table loaded with cosmetics, which she supposedly used for makeup, and a mirror she could not use as yet, games for blind people, and dozens of other items, some useful, some recreational.

One of the AI had followed Jack to the bedroom entrance. Jack turned to it.

"The Imago?" he said very softly. "Shouldn't it be manifesting itself?"

His heart battered his chest hard. He felt a great fear and awe.

It was as if he would soon be in the presence of the living God.

He did not know if he could endure such an experience. His flesh would become wax and would melt in the terrible light and heat.

He looked at Tappy and thought he saw, for a second, something . . stirring in her, something no human eyes could look upon without being scared.

"Why doesn't it wake her up?" he said softly. His voice trembled.

Part of his fear was the knowledge that she would no longer be the Tappy he had known. She would be a fleshly tool of the Imago.

"What do you mean?" the AI said.

"It ... the Imago ... should awaken her when it awakens."

"I don't know why," the AI said. It added, "There's no guarantee that the woman will have matured. Even though she may think she's seven years older, her body might not. Or her subconscious may not be fooled. Or the Imago may perceive the truth."

"Can you give her a shot of something to make her wake up?"

"It's better to allow her to awake naturally."

At that moment, Tappy turned onto her back.

Jack said, "For God's sake!"

Her nightgown revealed the top half of her breasts. Between them was a bulge the s'ze of a large egg. The tight and dark red skin over it looked as if it were about to burst. Around it at its base was a purplish swelling. A yellowish liquid shone on its surface, and that oozed out even as Jack stared at it.

He strode to her bedside and reluctantly touched the skin on top of the bulge. It was fever-hot. Her forehead felt hot, too, though it was cooler than the bulge.

"The egg the honker inserted!" he said. "It's infected!"

"No. It's just grown," the AI said. It put a finger on the bulge and then on Tappy's forehead. "Notice how much weight she seems to have lost in the last few hours. The egg's grown so fast it's sucked energy from her. The whole process probably involves an enormous expenditure of energy. She should be all right as soon as the process is completed."

"What does this mean for Tappy?"

Despite the Al's reassurance, Jack was certain that she was sick and that she could die from the disease.

"I do not know. It must be part of the Tmago's maturing process.

Or hers. Or both. Or it could have nothing to do with the Imago.

We'll have to wait and observe."

Tappy, though still sleepingr unconscious from the feverjerked. That was followed by a twitching of her hands, which then became motionless. Her eyelids fluttered but did not open. Then a line redder than the rest of the skin appeared on the very top of the bulge. One end was pointed toward her chin; the other, toward her navel.

Then the break gaped like two thin lips. A few seconds later, it extended itself for a half inch on each side of the bulge, revealing something dark greenish below it. Then the line very quickly ran down both sides and disappeared into the purplish fester.

"We have to do something!" Jack cried.

"We can only wait and observe."

The line bisecting the skin gap on the top widened slightly.