THE CATERPILLARS QUESTION

The greenish round thing pushed upward a trifle.

The AI, standing by Jack, touched his shoulder.

He looked up and then behind him as the AT gestured to him.

A haze just beyond the entrance was clearino'. It cleared, revealing a female AI. It walked in swiftly and stopped a few feet from Jack before speaking with the usual emotionless tones of the androids.

If it had been human, it would have screamed out the news.

"The Gaol have found us!"

A FLURRY of questions surged through Jack's mind. could they flee again?viously not, or the AI would have done so.

could they fight the Gaol? Same answer. could they talk the Gaol out of it? Unl'kely.

Jack realizeld that their ploy to age Tappy in her fancy, so as to evoke the Imago immediately, no longer mattered. The Imago might be awake, or it might still be asleep; either way, the Gaol had won, because they had closed in too soon. There just hadn't been time!

He sighed. This was the part he hated. "Then do what you have to do," he told the AI.

"And what is that?"

"Destroy us both. So the Imago will be freed to seek another host. It's the only way we can foil the Gaol now."

"We are unable to do that."

Jack was perversely a

The scene was fading or changing. The exotic vegetation he had first seen from the station's window appeared around them. The AI assumed better definition, and became the voluptuous creature he had named Candy. "No.

"No? Why?"

"Because we no longer serve the Imago. We have been taken over by the Gaol and are now agents of the empire."

Jack saw the awful logic of it. Naturally the Gaol knew how to handle the AI. They had nullified those androids at the outset, before physically taking over the station. Maybe they had managed to deceive the All about their approach, so that the AI thought they had more time than they did.

Jack came to a sudden, terrible decision. "Then I"11 do it!" He turned toward Tappy, hoping that he could bring himself to kill her bare-handed. One smash of her head against the floor could do it. Then they could do what they liked to him; he didn't matter.

He saw that she now lay unceremoniously on the floor, between the plants, her book beside her. He took a step.

But Candy moved more swiftly than he thought possible, and intercepted him. Suddenly he had an armful of phenomenal woman , ,ho xygas nevertheless not a woman at all. She closed lier amis around him and lifted him from the floor. He felt her awesome power and Icnew that he was helpless. She might look like a siren, but she was also as deadly as one.

all right!" he gasped. "Put me down. I'm helpless."

She set him down.

"So what happens now?" he asked. He doubted that he would be able to distract her or change the course of the conquering Gaol, but he was casting about for anything that might concelyably make a difference.

"Now we wait for the arrival of the minion of the Gaol."

"Oh, you mean Malva," he said jokingly, remembering the woman who had tempted and threatened him, back on the honkers' planet.

"Yes. She is the human interface for the Gaol."

No luck there. He looked around. "What's happened here? Did the vision change?"

"The effect of the plants has been nullified by the Gaol. This is reality."

Reah is a dream. Jack remembered that statement of the sleep-talking Tappy. Suddenly it had new meaning. could this be just another dream, a product of his own worry? So that the lit Gaol had not captured them? In that case, all he had to do was change it.

He heard a small noise. It was just a kind of plop.

He turned to Tappy-and stopped. Because now he saw that the egg-thing on her chest had completed its hatching. There was just a purple wound with yellowish froth. Something green was sliding, rolling, or scrambling away from her: the hatchling.

Candy dived for it. But the thing scooted around one of the plants, eluding her grasp. She tried to pursue it, but it was lost.

"What is it?" Jack asked.

"We do not know. But the artifacts of the honkers can have devious effects. It is better to destroy it immediately."

"Too late for that," Jack said, privately satisfied. "You'd have to destroy the whole greenhouse to get it now."

She did not reply. Instead she went to Tappy. "We shall cleanse and cover this injury," she said. "It will not prevent the host of the Imago from surviving."

And the Gaol did want that host to survive so that the Imago could not escape to occupy some other, unknown, host.

But here he was, taking this vision literally aga"n. He lieeded to change it to something more acceptable. To a dream in which the Gaol were far away and the AI still served the Imago. He concentrated.

Nothin changed. But perhaps it would change when he slept, as it had before. Except that this last change had happened while he was awake and alert. Just as it would if reality were taking over. Damn!

Then he realized that it didn't matter. If this were merely another dream, then the Gaol were not here anyway. There was no point in scaring himself. He could believe anything he wanted, good or bad, but Tappy would remain safe. And maybe the Imago would wake.

Maybe all it needed was to be evoked. To be called up. "Imago!" he said. "I charge you, wake! We have dire need of you."

No thing happened. Candy was treating and bandaging Tappy, ignoring him. She evidently took this dream seriously.

Suppose this was reality? If he gambled that it wasn't, and did nothing, Tappy was doomed. He had to assume that it was, and search for any possible way to save her. If he succeeded, and it was real, then Tappy won; if he failed, and it was a dream, Tappy won. Only if he failed in reality did Tappy lose, even if he seemed to be succeeding in a dream.

So this was reality. It was the only safe assumption, despite the seemingly hopeless situation.

Jack squatted and touched Tappy's hand. "Imago! Wake!"

There was still no response. Whatever it took to wake the Imago, this wasn't it.

Unless its consciousness was linked to Tappy's. "Tappy, wake!"

he cried, squeezing her hand.

Her eyes opened. She smiled. "Oh, Jack, I see you!"

He felt an electric thrill. She saw him! She was talking to him!

Their ploy had worked!

She sat up, and she looked at Candy. "And who is this woman?"

"You have a-an injury," Jack said, still elated over this success, though her questions were awkward. "This is an AI android.

She is treating you."

Tappy looked down. "Oh, it stings!"

"Here is the bandage," Candy said. "Let me apply it."

Tappy lay back again, allowing the treatment to proceed. "This won't interfere with our lovemaking, will it, Jack?"

The implanted memories! She remembered five years of sexual activity with him. What was he to say to that?

"The injury won't interfere," he said carefully. "But there is something else that will. Tappy, the Gaol have caught us, and only the Imago can get us free. Can you-is it-Aid it wake with you?"

She hesitated, as if exploring her i

Tappy had been fooled, but not the Imago! It was a Pyffhic victory. How much better it would have been if it had been the Imago instead of Tappy who had gained the ability to see and speak!

"It hardly matters," a new voice said. "We have gained control."

Jack turned, startled. There was Malva, the human minion of the Gaol they had encountered on the honkers' planet. The woman they had tricked, because she had not known about the honker's egg and its effect.