THE CATERPILLARS QUESTION

Jack was silent, realizing that she had raised a question which he could not afford to leave unanswered. "Still, a single Imaget could hardly-"

"When the Imaget is grown, it will reproduce by having its minions plant its eggs on converted creatures, and these new hatchlings will ultimately serve the eldest one," Malva continued.

"Once that stage is reached-"

"Enough!" Jack said. "I will give you your freedom. I will verify this by researching myself, and act as I see fit."

Malva smiled. "Thank you. May I take a weapon with me, to defend myself from wild creatures when I go into the wilderness?"

"Yes, take it," Jack said absently. The honkers-how much did they know of this? Were they working for the Imaget instead of the Imago? could the Makers have been a benign empire, overthrown by the Imaget? Something like this was all too plausible.

Malva stepped to the side and reached into a recess in the wall.

She brought out what looked like a twisted pistol and tucked it into her waistband. Then she followed Jack as he resumed progress along the blue line.

It led to a nether portal, with a ramp to the ground. The honkers of his raiding party were already there, waiting for him. Jack's dialogue with Malva had delayed him.

"Fetch the antidote," he told the honkers as he descended.

Immediately one went to the ventilation shaft and picked up another small jar. "Release it inside the ship," Jack said, and the honker ascended the ramp and opened the jar.

Tappy emerged from hiding and ran to Jack's embrace as he reached the ground. "You won!" she exclaimed joyfully.

Maybe," he agreed, hugging her. But he would have to do his research on the Imaget soon, because if what Malva had told him was true, they would have to get rid of the Imaget.

He turned to Malva. "You are free," he told her. "As long as you do no mischief on this planet."

"I think not," she said. There was a flash, and Jack lost volltion.

Malva drew her pistol and pointed it at Jack and Tappy. "You are of course a fool," she said. "Did you think that if I researched the Imaget, I did not share my information with my master? We knew about the telepathy and were prepared. The Gaol captain simply compartmentalized his mind, so that only one section was subverted, while the dominant section remained independent. It was risky, letting you invade the ship, but it promised to lure the Imago into our control. So we landed the ship as bait, and waited for you to take it."

Jack could not answer, because she had not told him to. Tappy could tell him to-but she was covered by the pistol. In any event, mere words were pointless in the face of his disastrous misjudgment.

It hardly mattered at this stage, but he wondered whether she had told the truth about the Imaget. It seemed like a pretty involved story to make up, just to persuade him to accept her.

It had a certain ring of authenticity. Maybe it was both true and false: true research, false motive.

Malva gestured with the weapon. "The two of you, enter the ship," she said.

Jack started walking toward the ramp. Tappy followed. The honkers remained unmoving. He did indeed feel like a fool. He should have known! Malva had never turned against the Gaol; she had been their agent throughout. She had used the pretext of her seeming wish for freedom to lull him into thinking it was safe for Tappy-and now Tappy and the Imago were prisoner of the Gaol again. What a cu

But Malva had forgotten the Imaget! Whatever the truth about it, long-range, it served him and the Imago in the short range.

He concentrated, reverting it to orient on him. As he did so, he lost his stasis; it had nullified the null, as it were. He also lost his empathy for living things.

He acted immediately. He grabbed Malva's pistol and wrenched it from her hand as he shoved her back. Then he pointed it at her.

It had a trigger, so he hoped he could fire it. If it had a safety, she had probably unlocked it, since she was not the kind to bluff. "Get to safety, Tappy!" he cried.

Tappy hesitated. He knew why: she didn't want to leave him.

"It's no good," Malva said. "Robots are coming. They will obey me, not you. They will break your bones if the host of the Imago does not obey me."

"You forget that I have the pistol," Jack said. Then, more urgently: "Tappy, get out of here!"

Tappy started to walk back down the ramp. But Malva went after her. "I'll be destroyed anyway, because of my contact with the Imago, but I can secure my mission. You won't fire, because of your empathy." She brushed by Jack.

"There may be something you don't know about the Imaget," Jack said. Then he fired the pistol at her chest.

A strike of lightning came from it. It bathed Malva in sparks.

Then she fell, her face a mask of astonishment.

Jack turned and charged down the ramp after Tappy. But already the robots were arriving. They were roughly humanoid, except that they had three legs, so that they didn't have to worry about balance. They moved down the ramp in pursuit.

Jack started for the ventilation shaft. But already the robots were spreading out and forming a circle to close the two of them in. Jack fired at one, and scored, but the lightning had no effect on the metal. The robots were not likely to hurt either of them, just to immobilize them and carry them into the ship, because the Imago had to be alive and Jack was still a living lever to use against Tappy. But how could the robots be avoided?

Then he saw the stump of the ghosted tree, the one that the radiator had destroyed but whose upper structure remained as a shadow outline. The honkers had warned them not to go near that shadow. But it was within the closing circle of robots, and the alternative was to be captured by the Gaol. Maybe it was death to enter it, but it was their only chance.

"The tree!" Jack said. "Into the shadow"' The two of them dived for the shadow.

LIGHT dazzled Jack as his head passed through the faint dark of the shadow-tree. It blinded him and filled his head and his body. Every one of their cells seemed to glow as if they were thermite and had caught fire. He cried out with pain and terror as he fell forward and his hands and knees struck the ground.

Behind him, Tappy shrieked. He had shut his eyes, but that did not help at all in making the light less intense.

He sat up and groped around, encountering nothing until he put his hands on the ground. Since the gloves hindered his sense of touch. he took them off and put them 'n a back pocket of the jeans given to him by Candy. The net over his head also went there.

The ground was fairly soft, as if it had rained recently. It was covered with a short thick grass. At least, the blades felt like grass, but they were softer than that which grew on Earth.

Something moved along his cheek, a gentle tickling thing which went down his neck, then was gone. It must be the Imaget. It had been on Tappy but, for some reason, had just leaped to him. Then it had crawled down from the top of his hair to his shoulder. Now that his shirt was between the creature and his skin, he no longer felt it. Or had it jumped back to Tappy?

The Imaget, he supposed, must be as blind as he. Unless its lack of eyes protected it. Whatever its state, it was not projecting telepathically so that he could see the land around him. If, that is, there was anything surrounding him. There might be nothing but this painful light here.