THE CATERPILLARS QUESTION

He found a soft resistance which forced him to lean against it, and then he was in darkness. He was unable to breathe; his nostrils were covered with a semiliquid stuff. Silicon had become silicone.

Her hand pulled on his, and, holding his breath and hoping that he would not have to do it for long, he went two more steps. Air flowed around him. Light touched his shut eyelids. He opened them and breathed deeply.

He looked around. For a moment, he felt like a preliterate confronted with his first photograph. He could make no sense or order out of what he saw. It was all just a snarl of lines with no meaning. Tappy was the only thing not unchaotic. She was standing facing the sun, her blue-gray eyes open, her head tilted back as if bathing in the light. She looked happy.

Then the landscape seemed to shift and to fall into an arrangement which was, if not familiar, at least Terrestrial enough to be reassuring. The boulder from which they had emerged was about feet higher than the one they had gone into. The other side had been pinkish-gray granite. This looked like black basalt. It was near a shallow creek about two hundred feet broad at this point, and it was in a valley extending for half a mile on both sides.

The sky was blue and unclouded. A gentle cool breeze flowed around him. He judged that the sun was about a quarter of the the floor of a crater. Immense walls circled the valley. He did not, of course, know how far away they were.

Certainly, he was not on Earth. Though some of the low-growing plants nearby looked like Terrestrial bushes, the tree on his right was, he was sure. not a thing that grew anywhere on his native plants pea-green was as SLICK it exuded a greasy and slightly reddish thick liquid. The ground at the base of the tree and ITS roots AND BRANCHES STARTED ABOUT HALFWAY UP THE TREE AND BEGAN A LEFTWARD TWIST AT the trunk and spiraled up around the trunk. The leaves were dark green disks covered with pale red Designs.

About a dozen flying animals were roosting on the branches or were on top of nests made of dried mud. Some were tiny, the size of yellow finches: some AS large AS RAVENS. THEIR BATLIKE wings were covered with brightly colored fur. Their faces were batlike, foxlike, and monkeylike. Their voices were as varied and as melodious as those of birds.

Tappy, still smiling, startled him by muttering in what sounded like foreign language, then made gestures which he interpreted as a request for him to describe their surroundings.

He told her 'n detail everythING he could see. She turned, her hand still in his, and tugged him toward the east, if it was the east, along the creekbank. He walked beside her, giving her directions when they came to a rock she might fall over or to a sudden dip or rise. Meanwhile, his empty belly asked for food, and he wondered how they were going to eat and how, if they had to spend the night in this country, they would survive if the air got cold and if there were any dangerous animals or snakes in this place.

A horn blared nearby. Startled, he and Tappy halted. She moved her head from side to side as if she were listening. He looked around. From a distance, ahead of them, came another sound.

It was almost exactly like the chuffing of a steam locomotive the sound of which he knew from watching movies. Whalfve originated it, it had to be a long way off. Then the horn blared again, nearer this time.

Though it sounded much like that of an automobile, Jack did not think that there was any such nearby. This terrain and the lack of roads indicated that cars would be a rarity indeed. Though, of course, he really did not know what to expect here. Surely, the sound had to be originated by an animal. However, he was wrong legs, and feet remarkably like a human's.

Around a huge boulder eighty feet ahead of them near the creek strode a humanoid figure. The face was not that of Hovo sapiens; it looked more like the helmet of a medieval knight than anything else. The eyes were dark slits In the brown skin. below them a upper jaw. The froglike mouth had very thin dark lips. The lower jaw, chinless, sloped abruptly below the lower lips toward the neck. In all, the face below the hIgh forehead formed in profile ITS DArk skin glistened with grease. Its penis was about eight inches long and two inches thick, but It lacked testicles.

Its mouth opened, toward Tappy and Jack, Its pace not the least broken when them. Its right hand held a stone-tipped spear and on its back was an animal-skin pack. Behind it, around the boulder, came a parade of similar beings. Two males were first, carrying bows *n theIR hands and quivers full of arrows on their backs. Then came six obvious females (though they lacked breasts) and seven children.

Behind them were four adult males and two half-grown males, all armed with spears.

Except for the honking leader, all were SILENT.

Tappy, far from looking alarmed or questioning, seemed to be Presently, the parade passed them, and, after a while, the honker and the honking were gone.

Jack did not ask her any questions about the creatures. He knew that she would not answer. He went to the creek, bent down, and scooped up water in his cupped hands. After he had drunk enough, he told Tappy to drink. The water seemed to be pure, another indication that he was not on Earth.

"That's great stuff," Jack said, "but my belly's kicking up a storm. I wonder what's good to eat around here?"

They resumed walking and came to a bush laden with large CheRRY like fruit on which a FAMILY OF TINY OPPOSSUMLIKE ANIMALS WERE feeding. These ran when the two approached them. Jack did not know if the fruit was fatal to humans, but he would, At this moment, anyway, rather die of poisoning than starvation.

He picked and bit into a "cherry" and tasted something like a butterscotch liqueur. He spat out the four small pits and said, "If you'll wait awhile, Tappy, we'll see if this kills me."'

She shook her head and groped along a branch, tore five of the fruit loose from their thick stems, and popped them into her mouth. They ate all the rest and then drank more creek water. Jack went behind a bush for a bowel movement, though Tappy could him, of course. Not having toilet paper bothered him, but not see the amenities of civilization was it conveniences?--were not to be found here. Not so far, anyway,.

Tappy went behind the same boulder to relieve herself after Jack had told her where not to step. He kept expecting to feel a sudden sharp or burning pain in his nuts. As time went on without any discomfort, he forgot about his apprehensions.

He knew now that they had arrived in the morning of this planet and were going northward. The sun had risen higher, not descerded. Also, the numbness he had felt after ooZing through the rock had dissolved. Though he still was uneasy, he could think clearly. What that led to was a strong desire to be back on Earth. Especially when, just as Tappy began climbing up the rocky but bush-grown slope toward the top of the valley, he saw a group of tawny lion-sized animals come out of the forest across from the creek. When one of them roared, it exposed large sharp teeth.

To live, big predators had to prey on big herbivores, but Jack had not seen any of the latter. He hoped that the large meat-eaters were on their way to a place where large grass-eaters abounded.

He also hoped that these predators would not consider him and Tappy as food. He breathed easier when the group. after drinking from the creek, walked back into the forest.

Tappy had not halted when the beast roared. She was feeling her way up the slope, grabbing a bush when the footing was and pulling herself on up. He followed her. By the time insecure they reached the top, his hands were bleeding from sharp rocks and thorns, a knee of his trousers was torn, and he was sweating and thirsty again. He forgot about that, when, panting, he looked around and up. The floor of the crater angled downward from the bases of the walls, enabling him to see much of the area.