THE CATERPILLARS QUESTION

"You can be sure," the Integrator said, "that a walking ratcage is in command. This is too important to leave to mere humans and cyborgs."

Jack wondered if Malva was in the crew. Though his empathy for others had gotten even stron er while he was with the honkers, it was not powerful enough to overcome his hatred for Malva. If he could get her neck between his hands, he would squeeze until she died. No way would he ever forgive her because he could feel the motives that drove her. She was as evil as the Gaol she worked for, and she must die.

"Jack," Tappy said, shearing off his detailed thoughts of the revenge he would inflict on Malva. "The Integrator says we should go up soon. It's after midnight."

"Not we. You don't go with us. You stay here where you'll be safe."

Tappy knew that he was right. The Imago was too precious to risk in battle. Despite this, she had been urging Jack and the chief shaman to take her along. Jack suspected that she was not so much intent on fighting with them as she was afraid of being alone. Though she had a bodyguard of four honkers, she was alone if Jack was not by her side.

Looking determined, Tappy honked at the Integrator. There followed a short but savage conversation. The honks could not convey emotion as a human voice could, but her facial expressions and the vigorous gestures of both showed that they were getting hot under the collar, as it were. Finally, the shaman threw up his hands in a quite-human gesture.

Tappy smiled, then turned to Jack. "He says I can go if I don't leave the exit in the hollow tree. Don't you dare try to argue with me."

"What'd you do? Threaten to rip his penis off.?"

Instead of replying, she put on a heavy close-meshed net over her bone helmet. Jack also do

"You promise not to get into the fray?" Jack said.

She nodded. He hoped she would keep her promise.

The Integrator glanced around at the war party, seemed to be satisfied with what he saw, and blew three long blasts and one short one.

"The war cry," Tappy said.

The shaman went into the next room, Jack, Tappy, and Candy in single file behindn. The others followed. A moment later, the Integrator began climbing the ladders set up by an advance party. Most honkers were armed with blowguns and poisoned darts, bows and arrows, flint-tipped knives and short spears, and i'lint axes. Jack and Candy and two honkers carried beamers.

Three of them and their batteries had been stolen over the years from Gaol expeditions. They were in soft thick bags strapped to their back. If a beamer should be banged against the shaft wall, it would make no sound.

Jack's big beamer and the small one in his holster had been brought with him from the Gaol ship captured before he came to the honker planet. He would have preferred the weapon he had used against the Gaol in their first encounter, the shadow-death weapon built 'nto Tappy's leg brace. During their flight from the Gaol, he had wondered sometimes about the persons who had installed the radiator in the brace. Also, where had they gotten this weapon?

He had also speculated, fruitlessly as usual, on why Tappy had muttered about it while sleeping. How had the words gone?

"Alien menace ... only chance is to use the radiator."

In what way could this weapon be the only thing to vanquish the Gaol?

He had asked Tappy about her other dream-begotten phrase, "Reality is a dream." She did not know what either meant.

Behind him were a dozen or so honkers with glass cages full of flies strapped to their backs. Behind them would be the rest of the party, including some bearing more cages. These would be swarming with insects with other deadly functions than poison.

And some Latest were carrying boxes crammed with fungus.

Air was moving downward over Jack as he went up. According to the shaman, who was only guessing, the ventilating mechanism was part of the shaft wall and had no moving parts. Something magnetic in the metal kept the air moving. That was why the Makers' ventilation system never wore out. But the Integrator was great on magnetism. It explained just about everything for him.

The shaft was dark. Not until Jack got near the top of the shaft did he see illumination, and that was dim. When he was helped out of the shaft, he was in a large but crowded room, the hollow interior of a huge tree. The light was from the full moon, but it came through a big hole far up the trunk.

He was pushed gently forward until he was out of the tree trunk and in a grove of trees. He could see better now, though the moonbeams were filtered by the tangle of heavily leafed branches overhead.

Finally, the last warrior came out of the trunk. Tappy was behind him. In a low voice, he told her to go back into the hollow. "And if tlgs go wrong for us, get the hell down the shaft as fast as you can."

I she said softly. She kissed him on the mouth. "God

"I will," bless you. May He keep you safe."

He hugged her quickly, then turned away, tears bluffing his vision. He might never see her again.

"Forget that," he told himself. "Concentrate on what must be done if she's going to be safe."

Nobody except the humans had spoken. It was difficult for onkers to whisper, if very soft honks could be called whisthe h pers. But everything had been pla

Straight in front of him, he could see a slice of the Gaol camp.

Lights streamed from the windows of dark domed structures.

some of the light fell on a massive shadowy bulk some yards to the east of the camp. That would be the landing structure, a small section of it, anyway. He stepped out to a point just beyond two trees. Their branches kept him deep in their shade. Now he could see about thirty of the domes. They were so large they must be barracks. He could also hear human voices. A door opened in one of the domes, and a man stood in the doorway, the light strong behind him.

He was smoking a pipe, the pleasant but untobaccolike odor of which drifted to Jack. After a few minutes, the man stepped back and closed the door.

A group of machines, their function indeterminate at this distance, was parked in the center of the camp.

Unexpectedly, the camp had no walls. The Gaol did not fear attack. Besides, the landing structure, a vast ring from which pylons rose a hundred feet to the main body of the vessel, formed a very high wall. No lights came from the landing structure or the spheroid body of the spaceship.

The honker spies had reported that the Gaol had not as yet sent out scouts or exploratory parties. Whatever they were up to, they were taking their time. Probably, the technicians in the vessel were probing with their cavity detectors and also with the instruments that assumedly could detect the presence of the Imago. The latter instruments, he hoped, were directed outside of the radius of the landing structure. They would never imagine that the Imago and its host could be inside the structure. If, at the time of landing here, they had probed directly beneath the ship, they would have detected only a hollow beneath the huge meteorite fragments. If, that is, their instruments could penetrate through the nickel-iron pieces.

Jack stepped out to the edge of the shadows of the trees. Honkers followed him. Then the Integrator was standing by his side, I his hip tentacles waving languidly I'ke seaweed in a current.

The Integrator watched for a while. Then he bleeped softly, and He moved out into the moonlight. Jack and Candy and the two honkers ran swiftly to the doors of four domes near them.