The Caterpillar's Question by Piers Anthony and Philip José Farmer (7 page)

Only a baby's fingers could have pushed one button without pushing another next to it. He said, "We got something here, Tappy. Just what I don't know."

He took one of the pencils from the leather holder in his jacket pocket. Holding the pencil in his right hand, he gripped the brace in the middle, and he pointed one end at a nearby tree but away from his body. He made sure that the other end did not point at Tappy.

"Maybe I shouldn't," he said. "Do I know what I'm doing? No. But I'll do it, anyway."

Using the eraser end of the pencil, he pressed on the larger, scarlet button. Nothing happened. Had he really thought that it would?

He paused to tell Tappy what he was doing. She looked surprised but not as much as he had expected.

He said, "It can't be a weapon, Tappy. It'd be too awkward to use as such, unless..."

Perhaps it was a weapon, but the designer had been forced to camouflage it as a leg brace and, hence, could not avoid cumbersomeness in its handling.

He placed the pencil end on one of the orange buttons nearest to the scarlet button.

The tree the brace was aimed at split soundlessly, though the crash of the upper part on the ground certainly was noisy enough.

The tree had been neatly sheared off.

Shouts filtered through the forest, human voices. The blaring of honkers also came through. He paid them no attention.

Where the upper part of the tree had been, extending from the stump, was a shadowy but clearly visible replica of the part that had fallen off. It was the ghost of the sheared-off part.

Chapter 3

Tappy's touch on his arm jogged him back to their immediate predicament. The sounds of pursuit, if that was what they were, were drawing erratically closer. Jack did not know what was going on, but he was pretty sure they did not want to fall into the hands of whatever might be after them. Tappy's urgency indicated that she felt the same.

But the great ring of the base of the ship surrounded them. The thing had come down on them like a monstrous cage-- which was what it probably was. Somehow it had known where they were, approximately, and enclosed them so that its personnel could canvass the limited region and make them captive. Exactly as he would have done to capture a moving bug he did not want to squish: set a jar over it first.

So how could the bug get free before the end? Tunnel under the rim of the jar? Fly up into the center? Surely not!

He looked again at the brace in his hand. The scarlet button was faintly glowing; he had not noticed that before. That could be the on/off switch-- and the device was still on. Ready to fire again.

That notion made him freeze. He pointed it upward and used his pencil to touch the largest button again.

The glow faded. Right: now it was off. He resumed breathing.

Tappy was tugging at his arm again. He looked the way she was facing. "But that's toward the rim!" he protested, keeping his voice low. "You haven't seen it, but take my word: that thing is two hundred feet thick! No way we can get by it without mountain-climbing gear. We'd be better off dodging them in the center, and using this thing if we have to. It just sheared off a tree!"

She knew; she had heard the tree crash down. She pointed toward the rim and touched the brace he held.

"Wait, wait, Tappy!" he protested. "I guess you know what this thing is-- did you always know?" She shook her head no. "You remember now? Our entry into this world jogged your memory?" She nodded yes. "So now you know how to control it? You know how dangerous it is?" Yes.

"Then you will have to show me," he said. "This thing is so powerful I don't dare use it ignorantly. It was just luck I didn't have it pointing toward one of us instead of that tree!"

He got down and scraped the leaves and twigs away from a section of the ground. "Here's a diagram of the buttons on this thing," he said, taking her hand and using her finger to draw it, so she would know exactly what he was doing. "Here is a big scarlet button, which is the on/off switch; it glows faintly when it's on." He pressed her finger into the dirt. "Here are six smaller orange buttons, one-two-three, one-two-three. When I turned the big one on and touched this one, zap! It cut through that tree."

Tappy disengaged her hand and took his instead. She was going to make him point to a button! He extended his finger.

"You have me over the orange buttons," he told her as the tip of his finger moved. "The scarlet one is farther over." But she knew where the buttons were; she seemed to have a good memory for what she had touched. She pushed his hand down. "That's the third orange one in the right-hand row. That's the one you mean?" She pushed his hand down harder. "Okay, I got it, Tappy! Third button!" But still she pushed.

What was wrong here? "Look, Tappy, I don't think this will do anything unless the scarlet one is turned on first, so--"

She nodded affirmatively, but still kept his hand down. "There's something different about this? I can't let go of it?" She nodded yes. "But of course I can let go-oh! Do you mean sustained fire?" She nodded again and finally let his hand go.

"Got it," he said. "Turn it on, touch that button, and treat it like a gushing fire hose. Don't point anywhere I don't want to cut, even if I'm no longer touching the button. Thanks for warning me!"

Once more she pointed urgently toward the rim. It was high time; the searchers were uncomfortably close, by the sounds.

"Okay, Tappy! On our way!" He took her hand with his free one and set off for the rim. They weaved around trees and bushes, keeping low, and left the sounds of pursuit behind.

This was interesting, he thought as he moved. He had assumed that the most dangerous place was nearest the rim. But maybe they figured the bugs would not go near the glass of the jar, so they were concentrating on the center. The bugs were moving in an unexpected direction.

How was it that their pursuers knew in a general way where they were, but not specifically? If there was a bug on them-- a radio frequency emitter-- it should enable others to close on them readily enough. Not that there should be a bug. Unless--

Unless that honker had planted it! That marble under Tappy's skin, between her breasts: what about that? First the marble, then the giant ship, one-two. But several things made him doubt it. That honker had seemed friendly rather than threatening, despite what he had done. And if that had been a location device, why was it so ineffective at close range? And why so obvious? It would have been easier simply to plant it in Tappy's clothing, so that they would never know it was there. So whatever that marble was, it was unlikely to be a bug of that kind.

Jack didn't want to think about whatever other kind of bug or grub or egg it might be.

The huge rim loomed close, as high as it was thick: about two hundred feet. It looked like a twenty-story building without windows, extending to either side, slightly concave. The wall was absolutely smooth, all too much life the glass of a gargantuan jar except for its opacity. Who could have made a flying device this large? Its mere existence suggested a technology far beyond anything known on Earth.

Since when had he believed this was anywhere close to Earth? Tappy had led him through some kind of space warp or time warp to an alien planet; that had been obvious from the start. Yet how had she known of that aperture? He was sure she had not known that anything like this was going to occur when they started. She had been too forlorn, too sensitive to the hurts of the world. Only now that they were here was she really coming to life.

Well, not exactly. That evening in the cabin, when they had made love-- maybe it was statutory rape to others, but it had been love to the two of them, in those minutes. She had known what she was doing, perhaps better than he had. He had condemned himself for it, but now--

Tappy's hand was tugging him again. She knew he was losing his focus on the present. He was doing that too much! If they somehow won free of this high-tech trap, then maybe he could think about love.

"I'm aiming it at the wall," he told her. "I'm turning it on. This is what I'm supposed to do?"

She nodded yes, emphatically.

He touched the third orange button.

A circular section of the wall glowed. Then it disappeared, and some of the ground under it. Now there was a hollow in it, deepening visibly.

Jack gaped. "It's eating through the rim!" he exclaimed. "Like melting butter, only there's no vapor. The wall is just gone there!"

Tappy urged him forward, toward it.

When he stepped forward, correcting his aim so as not to intersect the ground, the circle of indentation became smaller. But the center deepened more rapidly. It was as if he held a cosmic blowtorch whose heat was greatest in the center. The original dent now and a smaller but deeper dent inside it-- and as he proceeded, that inner dent developed another.

"It's a conic section!" he exclaimed. "I mean, a cone-- the ray is coming from this device, and expanding, and it vaporizes-- bad word-- it disintegrates in an expanding circle. So as I walk into it, it seems to be getting smaller, but it's not, really. Am I making sense?"

Tappy merely urged him on. They walked into the hole he was making. It was a tunnel now, about ten feet in diameter, forming about twenty feet ahead of them. The radiator seemed indefatigable.

The radiator! Suddenly Tappy's sleep-talking words came back to him: "Alien menace-- only chance is to use the radiator!" This had to be what she had meant: a weapon that radiated a cutting or dissolving beam. The aliens had trapped them, but the radiator was cutting them free. The aliens had set a jar on them, but these bugs were drilling their way out.

There was a clamor of alarms. The sound was unfamiliar, but its strident nature was unmistakable. The aliens had finally caught on to what was happening.

Tappy heard it and jogged him: hurry!

Jack broke into a run, keeping the brace aimed. The tunnel became smaller as he came closer to the site of action, but it quickened its drilling pace. He was operating closer, and the cone was smaller, so had less metal to drill and was faster. He should have thought of that before.

The tunnel became irregular. As he ran, he was waving the beam, and it showed. He tried to keep it steady, but it was impossible. It didn't matter, as long as there was a tunnel they could follow.

He turned his head, trying to look back as he ran. The tunnel started veering to the side. He had to focus ahead, but he had caught a glimpse of a shape in the tunnel behind them. They were sitting ducks, or at least running ducks, for any shot from behind!

Then at last the tunnel broke through to light. First a circle, then a full-sized disk opened ahead of them. They were through the rim! But he heard footsteps behind.

He touched the scarlet button, turning off the radiator. Then he had a better idea. He whirled to point the device back at the tunnel.

A man was there. He threw himself down, trying to get out of the line of fire. He knew what the radiator would do to his body!

Human heads appeared above the rim, peering down from its distant top. Jack aimed the radiator at them. They disappeared. He hadn't fired; they had dived out of the way. A bluff was as good as a real attack. He was glad of that, because he was no killer. He was just trying to get away.

He turned again, and ran with Tappy into the thick of the forest, which seemed to have been cut back somewhat by the landing of the ship. They skirted the huge trunks of the trees, now hidden from the ship by the interlocking canopy above. Jack was trying to put as much foliage between them and the ship as possible. They had broken out, but it would be no good if the men caught them and hauled them back.

Why hadn't someone shot at him and Tappy? There had to be weapons, and the two of them had been an easy target in that tunnel. Someone could have fired from cover above the rim, too, before they reached the trees.

The answer had to be that this was a capture mission, not a kill mission. The way the ship had come down, enclosing rather than flattening, suggested the same. This was a no-squish-bug effort. Great-- it gave the bugs a real advantage. But why? What was so precious about these bugs to make them worth this phenomenal endeavor?

"Tappy," he gasped as they ran. "We seem to be getting away, but we won't stay clear long if we don't learn more! Unless you know what's going on here!"

Her face turned to him, her head shaking yes, then no. That meant that she understood some, but not enough.

"Then let's get some information!" he said. He was not what he thought of as a bold man, but the past few days had shaken him loose from every preconception he could think of.

Tappy didn't object, so he set up his trap. "Wait here," he told her. He turned, on the radiator and dissolved a tunnel through the thickest part of the forest, where the trees were small and set closely. He followed the developing opening, running behind the cone. The smell of peppermint came from the cut plants. He hoped he wasn't extirpating some animals along with the foliage; he hadn't thought of that in time. Then he curved it until the tunnel end was just out of sight of its beginning. He turned the radiator off and ran back to Tappy. "Now we hide!" he gasped, drawing her to the side.

They found a place behind a thicket of young orange-barked trees and ducked down, watching the tunnel. The normally noisy animals were quiet now; he hoped that didn't give the two of them away.

Soon enough a man came running, spied the tunnel, and charged into it. He was carrying a weapon of some sort, which startled Jack: what was the point, if it was not to be fired at the fugitives?

But he had no time to worry about that. He stepped out into the tunnel, pointing the radiator. "Hey, Joe!" he called.

The man stopped and looked back, chagrined. He started to bring his weapon to bear.

"Nuh-uh, Joe!" Jack said, putting a finger on a button of the radiator. "Drop it!"

The man let the weapon fall to the ground. Jack strode toward him, keeping the radiator aimed. He had never intended to fire it at the man, but he was pleased with the success of his bluff. "Now talk, Joe: what's this all about? Why are you after us?"