THE CATERPILLARS QUESTION

Ru

Another chamber was devoted to a fungus that ate metal and plastic. The latter material, Jack guessed, came from artifacts which the honkers had stolen from the Gaol or picked up after they had been discarded.

When Jack was led back to the council chamber, Tappy and the shaman were still at the table. She was drinking a ruby-red liquor from a strangely shaped goblet of cut quartz. The Integrator was sipping his drink from another curiously formed stone goblet. Jack took several seconds to realize that the container was made of bone, not stone, and that it had to be the skull of an upper-class Gaol.

The shaman gestured for Jack to sit down. A honker brought him a stone goblet shaped like a hawk with half-folded wings.

Its eyes were large emeralds. The liquor smelled like wine and was wine. It was too thick for his taste, but the glow that came swiftly after swallowing it was pleasant.

"I like it fine," Tappy said. "But you should know it's made from insect blood."

If he had not swallowed so much of the liquor, he might have' gotten sick. By now, he didn't care if it had been made from horse manure. This world wasn't such a bad place after all. In fact, he felt as if everything was going to work out in Tappy's favor. The Gaol would be utterly defeated, and all would be well in the world.

While Tappy related her conversation, the shaman went to sleep. Some sudden honks and the wild waving of his hip tentacles indicated that he was having a dream. Or a nightmare.

"What'd he say about that?" Jack said, pointing at the craterring model.

"The shamans still have no idea what the crater ring is for. It was there when their ancestors climbed the crater wall and came.

down onto the floor. By the way, their name for themselves can be translated as 'the Latest." Nobody knows why they're named that. They do have myths about its origin.

"Anyway, when the Latest got here, they saw the moving circle, and, of course, it's intrigued them and even become part of their religion. The original settlers thought that the images on the band were representations of the gods and the symbols were holy messages. If deciphered, they would bring permanent peace and plenty to the honkers, other peoples, too. The more enlightened now believe that the ring was made by a species that came here from another planet."

"Ring? The model shows three rings. How do they know there are three?"

"You'll know when we see a burial chamber of the people who made the rings. The honkers call them the Makers. We'll see the chamber soon. Oh, yes, I almost forgot. The honkers call the rings the Generator.

"Generator of what?"

"The murals in the burial cave imply that the rings are a generator of some sort."

"And what happened to the Makers?"

"The honkers believe that the Makers built the Generator as a weapon against the Gaol, a last-ditch stand. But the Gaol killed all of them before it could be used. The Gaol had no idea what the ring was for. They consider it to be a great curiosity but not worth intensive investigation. To them, it's some kind of religious artifact."

"All those mille

Despite his strong pleadings, she refused to say more about it.

The Integrator was absent during the following "day." Jack asked Tappy if she knew where he was.

"He's gone ahead to the burial chamber we're to visit. He didn't say much about what he'd be doing there except that he had to repaint some of the murals. They're so ancient they need retouching now and then. I suppose he's going to prepare the chamber ritually for our visit."

The day after that, they were awakened early-or he thought it was early since there was no sun to go by-and were given breakfast. Immediately afterward, Candy accompanying them, they started their journey through the tu

Three lesser shamans led the way. These lacked the implanted animals, but the genitals of each were covered with the mossy oyster-thing, and each had a pale snake-thing coiled around his or her neck.

Throughout the journey, Tappy was silent. Jack asked her what was depressing her. She only replied that she had much to think about and was trying to work her way through them. Would he please not be worried about her? She would be all right soon.

After three meals, the party came to a halt. The Integrator was waiting for them in a tu

It looked like every other tu

But the honkers, including the lesser shamans, were obviously awed. All halted when they were thirty feet from the Integrator, bowed, and honked softly.

Tappy had spoken about the chambers during their trip. Nobody but the chief shaman entered them except for some highly placed shamans who repainted the murals when they needed it.

The Integrator, honking a "chant" over and over, danced around the tu

Jack looked into the darkness within. The shaman, after so...more incomprehensible "chanting" and dancing, lit a pine torch.

The flame wavered slightly, showing that the tu

Tappy said, "You and Candy are allowed, too, Jack."

Candy just behind him, he followed the girl and the shaman for about twenty feet. The tu

Immediately, a large arched doorway was ahead of them. The shaman walked through it, his torch lighting up the immense chamber. He set that in a wall sconce, then lit two more torches he had carried in a bag on his back. He handed one to Tappy and one to Jack.

There were several fascinating objects seen dimly in the shadows deeper within the chamber. But a mural near him caused him to stop and study it by the light of his torch. It looked as if it had been painted yesterday. In fact, he could smell the paint.

He said, "I can't believe it."

Above him was a painting depicting, among other things, a group of four people. No. Change that to three people and one weird being who looked as if it were half machine. The human beings were a young female, a somewhat older male, and a woman. But a section of clockwork and wires was exposed in a hole in the woman's chest. That meant what? That she was not really a human being. She was an android.

And, though the half-machine did not look much like Garth, it portrayed a cyborg fitted with wheels.

To one side was another painting. It was clearly the space-time vessel in which he and Tappy had taken refuge and found the androids in it. Squiggly lines around it represented, he supposed, the pulsations emanating from the vessel.

All the images had been freshly repainted.

Jack's heart was clenching as if it were a hand desperately squeezing down on ectoplasm. Though he did not want to look again at the young female in the painting, he forced himself to do so.

She did not have Tappy's features. But she had that sweet expression Tappy so often had and that wondering look. Like the faces of Alice in Wonderland and of Dorothy in Oz. The artist had also managed to give a sense of both vulnerability and invulnerability. Jack had never seen anything to match the contradictory impressions in any work by an Earth artist, and he thought he had seen all the works of the great ones and the near-greats.