THE CATERPILLARS QUESTION

The hatchling was not smart enough to distinguish the pretense from the reality.

"Mystery solved," Jack said. "Much good may it do me. I think that the honker just didn't realize how bad a situation we would be in. It thought that maybe we'd be in Malva's hands, and you would touch her and make her have empathy for us, and help us escape. Instead we're with an AI who is now AG: Agent of the Gaol, and can't be corrupted. And we're going to be blown to smithereens by a real live Gaol-"

Then it dawned on him. "The Gaol! Can you make it empathize?" And knew it could. Because the Gaol feared the Imago, and the hatchling was helping the Imago.

Jack heard footsteps. Candy was returning. "Stay cool, hatchling," he whispered to the imitation palm of his hand, which mirrored even the lines and creases and slight variations of color. This thing was good!

Candy entered. Behind her rolled a weird machine. It was blue, with three wheels and three triangular handles, like a huge trash collector. S'x little lenses circled it above the handles. The top was a rounded dome.

"There is the container for the host of the Imago," Candy said, indicating the enclosure around the coffin. "There is the human companion of the Imago." She indicated Jack. "There is one other creature, which hatched from an egg planted on the host.

It disappeared among the plants."

The machine rolled to a stop before the coffin-enclosure. The dome stretched upward, becoming a column, then turned at right angles. Something shiny appeared at its end: a large lens. It surveyed the enclosure.

Jack realized with a shock that this was the Gaol. A seeming blend of machine and flesh, a natural cyborg. That wasn't just a lens-it was an eye on a stalk, the kind a snail had. The six little lenses must be primitive eyes, for general sensing in all directions, while the big one handled the detail work.

"time remaining until destruction fifty-five minutes, Earth time," Candy said.

"You bitch!" Jack shouted. "You mean you've already set the bomb? That's what took you the time just now?"

She did not answer. She was no longer responsive to him, only to the Gaol. He couldn't insult her any more than he had been able to insult the image of Malva.

Then one of the triangular handles on the Gaol unfolded. The knob at its apex was actually a joint. One leg of the triangle was the upper arm, and the other was the forearm, with a claylike mass on its end. The clay sprouted fingers or tentacles and touched a panel on the enclosure.

The enclosure opened, revealing the coffin inside. The arm touched a fastening, and it unfastened. Soon all the clasps were opened, and a second arm unfolded to aid in lifting the lid. The huge stalked eye peered inside.

"Yeah, she's in there," Jack called, outrage substituting for sense. "And now you're contaminated and will have to be destroyed. How do you like that, slugface?"

The Gaol lowered the lid and refastened the clasps. Evidently it couldn't be baited, assuming it could even hear or understand him. But surely it could hear, because Candy had spoken to it in English. That language had been programmed here, because it was what Tappy understood, and the Gaol had not bothered to reprogram the AI. Why should they, when the AI and all their works were about to be destroyed?

Now the Gaol rolled over to inspect Jack, followed by Candy.

Its eye oriented on him.

"Yeah, I'm the freak from Earth," Jack said. He suffered a wild inspiration. "I have something for you." He extended his arm carefully through the space between the charged bars. The hatchling was now a green ball.

The Gaol took the ball. It oriented its eye on it. The ball changed color, matching the hue of the Gaol. It disappeared against the puttylike blue flesh.

Would this work? Would the hatchling succeed 'in bringing empathy to the Gaol captor? Or would the Gaol simply destroy it?

,That's the hatchling!" Candy exclaimed. "The thing from the egg. It may be dangerous."

The Gaol ignored her. It retracted its stalk-eye and stood on its wheels, thinking its own thoughts.

"time remaining until destruction fifty minutes, Earth time Candy said, exactly as before.

She was on a countdown! They had set the time bomb, and she was now its readout.

The Gaol remained immobile. Was it simply waiting for the countdown to be completed, or was it responding to the hatchling?

The fate of the galaxy might depend on the answer. Minutes passed with no action.

"time remaining until destruction forty-five minutes, Earth time."

The Gaol extended its eye stalk. It oriented on Candy. There was a whistling sound. It seemed to emanate from the creature's knobby elbow. Well, sounds did not have to come from a mouth; the Gaol did not seem to have a mouth. If the elbow contained vibratory apparatus so that it could whistle, why not? Maybe it could whistle from all three elbows, keeping in tune with itself.

Maybe that was how it got its jollies.

Jack realized that he was not making that up. He was feeling empathy for the Gaol, too! He was coming to understand it, to a degree.

Candy turned to Jack. "The Gaol wishes to converse with you.

I will translate for it."

So that elbow whistle was its way of communicating! He would have found that considerably more interesting if his situation wasn't so desperate.

"Great," Jack said. "We can get to be friends while the clock winds down. Then we can all be destroyed together."

The Gaol whistled. "I am coming to understand your distress," Candy said. "I wish to make you more comfortable."

The empathy was working! "I ca

Again the whistle. "The Imago will separate from this unit at thirty minutes before destruction. The Imago will not be destroyed."

"But that's not freedom"' Jack protested. "That's the worst captivity, for the rest of her life!"

"If that separation is not effected, the host of the Imago will be destroyed with the rest. That is not permitted."

"I don't want the host destroyed either!" Jack exclaimed. "I want Tappy free!"

"It is not possible to defuse the bomb," Candy said for the Gaol.

"It will detonate on schedule."

Jack realized how thorough this trap was. Even if the hatchling converted the Gaol, they would all be destroyed. Possibly the AI could have found a way out, because this was their city and they had centuries of experience. But they now served the Gaol.

Unless "There has to be a way," he said desperately. "You, Candyyou used to serve the Imago. Can the Gaol revert you, so that you serve the Imago again?"

The Gaol whistled. "I have now reverted," Candy said.

Just like that! Jack wasn't sure he could believe it.

"I will save the Imago by destroying the host," she continued.

"No!" Jack cried, becoming a believer. He had forgotten this aspect.

She paused at the Gaol's whistle. "There is no other escape for the Imago, Jack. Death will free it."

"Then don't be in such a rush about it," he said. "Since this city is going to blow up anyway in half an hour-"

"Forty-one minutes."

"Then you don't need to kill her. Just bring her out here with us, and she'll die when we do."

"This is true." She would have seemed surprised had she been human. She walked to the enclosure and paused. "Gaol, may I open the ship and release the host?"

The Gaol whistled.

"Why do you need to ask?" Jack demanded, afraid that the Gaol would change its mind. "Haven't you reverted to AI?"

"I have, Jack," she replied as she worked on the enclosure. "But the Gaol retains authority and can cancel my reversion at any time.

It is better to verify."

So it was a spot nullification of the Gaol program, not a revocation of the whole. The Gaol might be becoming sympathetic to the Imago, but was not a fool. A truly reverted AI might have turned immediately on the Gaol and tried to kill it.