The Caterpillars Question

Chapter 10

Then he saw something. It was small, green, and looked like a thick-legged spider. No, it was more like a tiny octopus. It was crossing the floor toward him.

The hatchling! He had forgotten it! Ordinarily such a creature would have revolted him, but this thing had been with Tappy, and was formed mainly of her flesh. He couldn't dislike that, even if it was some honker joke. Also, he did feel empathy for it, and for life in general. Malva had been right about that much.

He squatted. "Come here, you little thing. I won't hurt you. I'm about to die anyway. What's your business?"

The thing approached his hand. It extended a tiny tentacle and touched his finger.

Jack felt a warmth. It wasn't physical, though; it was emotional. He felt an increasing awareness of the linkage of all things. He was attuning to the exotic plants in the vicinity, and felt their discomfort: the Gaol had established a field which suppressed their natural ambience. And he felt Tappy, her consciousness fading as the drug slowly penetrated her system; she was being forced into sleep, but there were no dreams there. The Gaol did not trust the Imago even to dream safely.

He looked at the hatchling. He picked it up. The thing assumed flesh color and disappeared against his palm. "You're doing it!" he exclaimed. "The empathy— you're magnifying it! Are you the Imago?"

But as he considered the question, he knew the answer. The Imago remained with Tappy. It would not leave her while she lived. The hatchling was merely another agent of the Imago, of a different kind. It was alive, and it was mobile.

That trick of blending with his hand— was that a signal of something more? It had been green when it first manifested, and green when it had come to him. Jack moved to a green plant and set his hand against it, letting the hatchling slide onto the leaf.

The hatchling turned green again, matching the plant so perfectly that it disappeared. Quickly Jack reached for it, and found it where the leaf seemed to thicken; it was solid, but able to change its color and shape instantly.

He set it back on the floor, which was metal gray in this section. The hatchling became a perfectly matching gray as it flattened out. It was a chameleon! It had disappeared the first time, when Candy pursued it, not entirely by hiding behind a plant, but by blending with it

So now he knew two things about it: it magnified the empathy, and it was very good at hiding. But what good was either ability, when Tappy was locked away and the rest of the city was about to be destroyed? If the honker who had planted this creature on Tappy had intended to help her, how had it expected her to overcome something like this? Because it was now apparent that the nullification of the Gaol's volition block had been the work of that egg, as was Tappy's disappearance from the Gaol's tracking devices. The egg had hatched, and the hatchling had at least two other properties. Something else was needed— and perhaps the honker had anticipated this situation also, and the hatchling had what would be required.

Jack reached down to pick up the hatchling, but could not find it; its camouflage was too good. "Where are you, little friend?" he asked.

The hatchling turned green again, manifesting as it had before. Jack picked it up. "But how come you showed yourself to me before?" he asked it. "I never would have seen you, otherwise." Then he realized that that was why: it had wanted him to see it.

"But why now, when it's too late? Sure, we can be friends, but soon we're going to be dead. Do you have some way to rescue Tappy?"

There was no answer, just that overwhelming empathy. The hatchling did not seem to be intelligent or to have any telepathic communication. Apparently it had responded to him because of the empathy: it knew what he wanted, just as he now knew what the surrounding plants wanted. It knew he wanted to help Tappy.

Yet he hadn't wanted to see it when it came to him. He hadn't known its nature, and had forgotten about it after seeing it the first time. The hatchling had introduced itself to him by approaching and turning green. Didn't that indicate some separate understanding and decision on its part?

He reviewed the circumstance of that introduction. It was just after Candy had left, so he was alone. That made sense; she had wanted to destroy it, so it had waited until she was gone.

But if it wasn't intelligent, how had it had the wit to do that? To distinguish between her and him? He had part of the answer: Candy was not alive, and Jack was, so it could indeed distinguish them, and probably avoided any moving thing that was not responsive to its power. But the timing— how had it managed that? Well, maybe it was programmed to hide as long as there was any hostile thing nearby, whether living or dead. So it could approach Jack only when he was alone.

But the color change— it must have taken some wit to do that for him. It could have come up to him unseen, and worked its magic on him, and he might never have realized that it was responsible for his suddenly broadening empathy. It had made itself deliberately clear to him.

He went over the situation again. Candy walking out, himself calling sarcastically after her: "Bring it back here and introduce us!" Then she was gone, and the hatchling—

The hatchling had introduced itself. It had responded to his desire for an introduction, though his desire had been facetious. The hatchling was not smart enough to distinguish the pretense from the reality.

"Mystery solved," Jack said. "Much good may it do me. I think that the honker just didn't realize how bad a situation we would be in. It thought that maybe we'd be in Malva's hands, and you would touch her and make her have empathy for us, and help us escape. Instead we're with an AI who is now AG: Agent of the Gaol, and can't be corrupted. And we're going to be blown to smithereens by a real live Gaol—"

Then it dawned on him. "The Gaol! Can you make it empathize?" And knew it could. Because the Gaol feared the Imago, and the hatchling was helping the Imago.

Jack heard footsteps. Candy was returning. "Stay cool, hatchling," he whispered to the imitation palm of his hand, which mirrored even the lines and creases and slight variations of color. This thing was good!

Candy entered. Behind her rolled a weird machine. It was blue, with three wheels and three triangular handles, like a huge trash collector. Six little lenses circled it above the handles. The top was a rounded dome.

"There is the container for the host of the Imago," Candy said, indicating the enclosure around the coffin. "There is the human companion of the Imago." She indicated Jack. "There is one other creature, which hatched from an egg planted on the host. It disappeared among the plants."

The machine rolled to a stop before the coffin-enclosure. The dome stretched upward, becoming a column, then turned at right angles. Something shiny appeared at its end: a large lens. It surveyed the enclosure.

Jack realized with a shock that this was the Gaol. A seeming blend of machine and flesh, a natural cyborg. That wasn't just a lens— it was an eye on a stalk, the kind a snail had. The six little lenses must be primitive eyes, for general sensing in all directions, while the big one handled the detail work.

"Time remaining until destruction fifty-five minutes, Earth time," Candy said.

"You bitch!" Jack shouted. "You mean you've already set the bomb? That's what took you the time just now?"

She did not answer. She was no longer responsive to him, only to the Gaol. He couldn't insult her any more than he had been able to insult the image of Malva.

Then one of the triangular handles on the Gaol unfolded. The knob at its apex was actually a joint. One leg of the triangle was the upper arm, and the other was the forearm, with a claylike mass on its end. The clay sprouted fingers or tentacles and touched a panel on the enclosure.

The enclosure opened, revealing the coffin inside. The arm touched a fastening, and it unfastened. Soon all the clasps were opened, and a second arm unfolded to aid in lifting the lid. The huge stalked eye peered inside.

"Yeah, she's in there," Jack called, outrage substituting for sense. "And now you're contaminated and will have to be destroyed. How do you like that, slugface?"

The Gaol lowered the lid and refastened the clasps. Evidently it couldn't be baited, assuming it could even hear or understand him. But surely it could hear, because Candy had spoken to it in English. That language had been programmed here, because it was what Tappy understood, and the Gaol had not bothered to reprogram the AI. Why should they, when the AI and all their worries were about to be destroyed?

Now the Gaol rolled over to inspect Jack, followed by Candy. Its eye oriented on him.

"Yeah, I'm the freak from Earth," Jack said. He suffered a wild inspiration. "I have something for you." He extended his arm carefully through the space between the charged bars. The hatchling was now a green ball.

The Gaol took the ball. It oriented its eye on it. The ball changed color, matching the hue of the Gaol. It disappeared against the puttylike blue flesh.

Would this work? Would the hatchling succeed in bringing empathy to the Gaol captor? Or would the Gaol simply destroy it?

"That's the hatchling!" Candy exclaimed. "The thing from the egg. It may be dangerous."

The Gaol ignored her. It retracted its stalk-eye and stood on its wheels, thinking its own thoughts.

"Time remaining until destruction fifty minutes, Earth time," Candy said, exactly as before.

She was on a countdown! They had set the time bomb, and she was now its readout.

The Gaol remained immobile. Was it simply waiting for the countdown to be completed, or was it responding to the hatchling? The fate of the galaxy might depend on the answer. Minutes passed with no action.

"Time remaining until destruction forty-five minutes, Earth time."

The Gaol extended its eye stalk. It oriented on Candy. There was a whistling sound. It seemed to emanate from the creature's knobby elbow. Well, sounds did not have to come from a mouth; the Gaol did not seem to have a mouth. If the elbow contained vibratory apparatus so that it could whistle, why not? Maybe it could whistle from all three elbows, keeping in tune with itself. Maybe that was how it got its jollies.

Jack realized that he was not making that up. He was feeling empathy for the Gaol, too! He was coming to understand it, to a degree.

Candy turned to Jack. "The Gaol wishes to converse with you. I will translate for it."

So that elbow whistle was its way of communicating! He would have found that considerably more interesting if his situation wasn't so desperate.

"Great," Jack said. "We can get to be friends while the clock winds down. Then we can all be destroyed together."

The Gaol whistled. "I am coming to understand your distress," Candy said. "I wish to make you more comfortable."

The empathy was working! "I cannot be comfortable until Tappy— the Imago— is free."

Again the whistle. "The Imago will separate from this unit at thirty minutes before destruction. The Imago will not be destroyed."

"But that's not freedom!" Jack protested. "That's the worst captivity, for the rest of her life!"

"If that separation is not effected, the host of the Imago will be destroyed with the rest. That is not permitted."

"I don't want the host destroyed either!" Jack exclaimed. "I want Tappy free!"

"It is not possible to defuse the bomb," Candy said for the Gaol. "It will detonate on schedule."

Jack realized how thorough this trap was. Even if the hatchling converted the Gaol, they would all be destroyed. Possibly the AI could have found a way out, because this was their city and they had centuries of experience. But they now served the Gaol. Unless—

"There has to be a way," he said desperately. "You, Candy—you used to serve the Imago. Can the Gaol revert you, so that you serve the Imago again?"

The Gaol whistled. "I have now reverted," Candy said.

Just like that! Jack wasn't sure he could believe it.

"I will save the Imago by destroying the host," she continued.

"No!" Jack cried, becoming a believer. He had forgotten this aspect.

She paused at the Gaol's whistle. "There is no other escape for the Imago, Jack. Death will free it."

"Then don't be in such a rush about it," he said. "Since this city is going to blow up anyway in half an hour—"

"Forty-one minutes."

"Then you don't need to kill her. Just bring her out here with us, and she'll die when we do."

"This is true." She would have seemed surprised had she been human. She walked to the enclosure and paused. "Gaol, may I open the ship and release the host?"

The Gaol whistled.

"Why do you need to ask?" Jack demanded, afraid that the Gaol would change its mind. "Haven't you reverted to AI?"

"I have. Jack," she replied as she worked on the enclosure. "But the Gaol retains authority and can cancel my reversion at any time. It is better to verify."

So it was a spot nullification of the Gaol program, not a revocation of the whole. The Gaol might be becoming sympathetic to the Imago, but was not a fool. A truly reverted AI might have turned immediately on the Gaol and tried to kill it.

"So I guess we'd better talk," Jack said to the Gaol. He was privately amazed at what he was taking for granted, but realized that the empathy could account for this. "What's your name?"

"The Gaol lack names," Candy said as she swung the panels of the enclosure aside. "It is a concept confined to primitives."

"Well, I'm primitive, so I prefer names," Jack said. "Will you answer to Garth Gaol?" He was being humorous again, though he realized that humor was wasted on the others. At least it helped him retain some semblance of sanity.

"What does such a designation signify?" Candy asked. The coffin was now exposed again.

"That you are masculine and understanding of human foibles," Jack said with a smile. "And that when I say 'Garth' I am addressing you or referring to you, and no other entity. It is a convenience for dialogue when more than two creatures are present"

"I will answer to Garth," Candy agreed for the Gaol. She lifted the lid of the coffin.

"Garth, what are your present feelings?"

"I wish to enable you and the Imago to achieve satisfaction."

"Why?" Because Jack remained wary of dangerous confusion. Empathy was fine, but an alien definition of satisfaction could be treacherous. Just as Candy's idea of saving the Imago had been to kill Tappy. If the creature could state a convincing rationale, maybe he could trust it.

There was no response. After a moment, Jack caught on, and said, "Why, Garth?" He saw that Tappy was now sitting up, looking dazed; the drugs would take time to wear off.

"Because, Jack, the facilitator is enhancing the rate of my corruption by the Imago, causing a conversion which would ordinarily require approximately twenty-four hours to occur in as many minutes. The creature has the substance of the host of the Imago, therefore is dedicated to that host and through it, the Imago. Thus it enhances the power of the Imago to bring empathy to those it contacts. The process is not yet complete in my case, but the first stage of the conversion is the instillation of the will to be converted, so I am accepting it rather than destroying the facilitator and proceeding with my duty."

This was more of an answer than Jack had anticipated! "The hatchling is the facilitator? It facilitates whatever is of interest to— to the person whose flesh has provided its substance?" Then, after another pause: "I direct the question to you, Garth." The Gaol had taken his instruction about the use of the name in a rather literal and limited sense.

"That is its nature, Jack. We were aware that such creatures existed, but not aware that they existed on what you call the honkers' planet. Perhaps it is an import. Such a creature, acting in conjunction with the Imago, is a strategic masterstroke. It makes the Imago infinitely more dangerous to the empire."

So the honker had indeed known what he was doing! Except that they were shortly due to be blown up. "How much time till destruction, Candy?" he asked, morbidly interested.

"Thirty-six minutes."

"Destruction?" Tappy asked.

"We have encountered a— a special situation," Jack told her. "I'll explain it in a bit. This is Garth Gaol, whom we may consider to be a friend." He hoped. "Just relax."

Tappy did so, ministered to by Candy.

He returned to the Gaol. "Garth, can you tell us how to save the Imago and ourselves? I mean, without killing the host of the Imago?"

"Ordinarily I could do so, Jack, but at present I am distracted by the process of conversion. I am also losing my capability to think and act with precision and force, because of the increasing constraints placed upon me by empathy with those who would suffer the consequences of such action."

This, too, was interesting. "You mean the Gaol dominate the galaxy because they lack empathy? Because they don't care about the suffering of those they subjugate?"

The Gaol did not answer, but it wasn't necessary. Of course it was true! It was true historically on Earth, too. Power was grasped by those who had least sensitivity to the harm they did to others. This was probably the root of the saying "Nice guys finish last." Empathy might not be the same as conscience, but the effects could be similar.

Something else registered. "Candy, didn't you say that the Imago was supposed to be separated from this city thirty minutes before destruction? So that the host of the Imago would not be destroyed?"

"Yes, Jack."

"So that thing's not just an enclosure. It's a spaceship!"

"That is true, Jack. It is the isolation ship for the Imago's host."

"Will it hold more than just the coffin? I mean, other people?"

"Yes, Jack."

"How much more? I mean, could we hitch a ride in it?"

"It is capable of supporting the lives of three sentient beings as represented here."

"Three?" Jack was taken aback. He had in mind rescuing all four of them: Tappy, himself, Garth Gaol, and Candy. Because if they all piled into that ship and took off, the watching Gaol station would not see anything amiss. It was supposed to separate. To establish the Imago's utter isolation. Then the city could explode on schedule, and it would be assumed that everyone was dead except Tappy. It was a way out!

"Damn!" he said. "Someone's going to have to be left behind."

"Why, Jack?"

"Because there are four of us!" he snapped. "Only three can escape in that ship."

"But only three of us are alive. Jack. You may leave me behind."

She was not alive! Of course! That did reduce it to three. "But by the same token, you can come along," he said. "You won't be using any air or water or food, and we need you to take care of Tappy. I mean, the host for the Imago."

"This is true. Jack."

"Well, then, let's do it! How much time do we have until separation?"

"Two minutes, Jack."

And here he had been wasting time on details while their deadline was overhauling them! Naturally the emotionless AI had not been screaming warning. "Get us all on board that ship now!"

"The Gaol must authorize that."

"Garth, you must authorize it!"

The Gaol whistled. Candy went into action at blurring speed. She lifted Tappy out of her coffin and re-snapped the fastenings. Then she touched a button somewhere, and the bars blocking Jack disappeared. He ran to the ship, and the Gaol rolled beside him. Tappy was now standing in the ship, seeming to have suffered no debilitation from her brief session in the coffin. There were not even any marks on her; however the life-support devices attached, they did not seem to have punctured her skin.

"Close it up!" Jack cried. "Get this crate into the air!"

Candy paused. "The life-support container is already closed, Jack. I do not understand the remainder of your directive."

He definitely had to watch that vernacular! "I mean the ship! Do what you have to do to get this ship safely sealed and separated on schedule!"

Candy resumed her blurring motion. The panels closed, and internal light came on. It seemed like closing a wooden crate from the inside, but it was a metallic spaceship.

"Separation," Candy announced.

Jack looked around. "Shouldn't we get into acceleration couches or something?"

"Why, Jack?"

Oh. Inertialess drive, of course. They had crossed the galaxy without any feeling of acceleration; why should this little ship be different? "Then can we look out a portal? To see where we're going?"

"Why, Jack?"

"I'm primitive, remember? I just feel easier, and I think Tappy would feel easier, if we could see outside."

"Of course, Jack," Candy said in the manner of one humoring a child.

The opaque panels became transparent. They could now see out in every direction. In fact, the whole ship was transparent. It was as if everything were made of glass, including the motor, assuming it had one. Then Jack realized with a start that the four of them were transparent, too, and almost invisible against the backdrop of the central core of the ship. Once again galactic science had surprised him. "Thank you," he said inadequately.

He took Tappy's hand and led her to the curving wall. They looked out. There was the city, already drifting away below them. From this vantage it looked like a giant globe. He had thought of it as a blinking dome, back on the honkers' planet. Perhaps half of it had been under the ground.

"The host must eat," Candy said. "The preservation unit is no longer sustaining her."

"The food's all the same, isn't it?" Jack asked. "I mean, nutritionally, regardless what it looks, tastes, and feels like? So bring us candy bars."

"This is a confection in my present image?" Candy asked, perplexed.

Jack laughed. "Close, but no cigar."

"I do not understand."

Even Tappy smiled then. Jack explained about candy bars. Soon an approximation was produced. It looked a bit like something left behind by a sick dog, and tasted somewhat like oysters steeped in chocolate, and it squished suggestively as they bit into it, but it would do.

Tappy nudged him. "Let's find a bed," she murmured.

"Yes, so you can rest," he agreed. "In the normal manner, without being sealed in a box."

"So we can make love." She smiled. "In the normal manner, without being rushed. We are the only human beings here."

There were those five years of sexual relations again, implanted in her memory. What was he going to do? He didn't dare tell her the truth, because that might not only hurt her feelings deeply, it might cause the Imago to retreat, if that was possible. Would Garth Gaol then revert to his nonempathy state, and do what was best for the empire? It couldn't be risked.

He hated lying, or even evading the truth, with Tappy. But he knew he shouldn't do what she so innocently wished. She now thought of herself as twenty, which was old enough, but she remained thirteen. Which was the greater evil? The lie, or more statutory rape?

The worst of it was that he did feel the stirring of desire. His emotional state was in flux, somewhere between fancy and love, and her new ability to see and talk increased his feeling for her. So did his heightened empathy. It now seemed natural to follow through with sexual expression. But he knew it was not.

He had to stall. "You've been through so much, Tappy. The— the egg hatched, and it drew substance from you, which you have to restore. Then you were confined in the Gaol's box. We feared it was for life, but with the help of the hatchling we managed to change Garth Gaol's mind. You've been in and out of something like suspended animation. You need to rest, and recover your equilibrium."

"Yes, and that is always so much easier in your arms, after we have made love."

He was getting nowhere! But maybe he could avoid it another way. This was a tiny spaceship. There shouldn't be anything like a double bed on it. "Candy," he called. "Can you fix us up with a wide, soft bed?"

"Of course, Jack." She did something, and the glassy interior of the ship convoluted. Now there was a glassy mattress behind them.

Tappy sat on it with a muted squeal of delight, drawing him down with her. Jack's crisis of conscience intensified. Tappy had gone without resistance into the coffin, in the belief that this would save Jack and cause him to be well treated. She had been ready to suffer her most terrible fate, and to let him go to the arms of a pseudowoman— because of her generous love for him. And how had he returned that love? By deceiving her, by having her drugged and by doctoring her memories— and by denying her what she most wanted.

"Oh, Tappy," he said, turning his face to her. She remained glassy; he could see right through her head. But this startling effect did not change her outline, or his burgeoning feelings. "I wish—"

He was cut off by her kiss. And suddenly it was as it had been back on Earth, the first time, when he had tried to comfort her and been swept into sex with her. He did love her, and what else mattered?

They broke the kiss. Her hands went to his clothing. She showed experience in this— the experience of five years.

Something caught his eye. "Tappy— look!"

They looked. The spherical city was flying apart. In a moment the major fragments separated, and separated again, until there was nothing but an outward-flying sphere of debris. It reminded him of the remnant of a supernova, only this was on a far smaller scale. Then that sphere became smoky, and then it faded. Soon nothing remained but haze, and finally— nothing.

The AI station was no more.

Now, belatedly, Jack realized that they were hardly safe yet. They were alive instead of dead, and Tappy was free and conscious instead of in a comalike state. But this ship was supposed to remain isolated in this stellar system, with no visitors, and there was a Gaol warship or equivalent standing guard. How were they going to get to anywhere where the Imago could do any good?

Now there were tears on Tappy's face. "The Agents of the Imago— they were good to me," she said. "I never saw them, except for Candy just now, I only heard them and felt them, but they did so much for me. It was long ago, yet still—" Then her brow furrowed. "It was seven years ago. I remember! I was blind, and lame, but they helped me to see and walk without limping. Then you and I went to a nice planet, with a wonderful little house and garden, and oh, it's as if we just made love all the time! After the first two years, when you said I was too young. But I broke you down finally, when I was fifteen, and proved I was old enough. Then we just did it and did it, and it was always so perfect. I hardly remember anything else! But then, suddenly, we were back in the AI city in space, and I don't remember how that happened. And the egg— Jack, there was no egg before! I was stung by the honker, and it helped save us from the Gaol, but then the swelling faded away. Did another—"

Now Jack appreciated the monstrous gaps they had left in her memory of those fictional seven years. No mention of the egg at all! How could they have forgotten to account for that? And the seeming return to the AI station— there should have been a rationale for that, too. They had thrust her unprepared into a situation both old and new. No wonder she was confused!

He had to patch over it somehow. So he started talking, extemporaneously, hoping to satisfy her. Because her doubt could be the destruction of them all. He had to convince the Imago, too, if it had any sentience of its own. The fate of the galaxy might depend on that!

"Tappy, you're right. There's been a lot of confusion. We did go to that garden planet, and it was great, and we thought it would last forever, but the Gaol had never given up searching for us. We were there to give the Imago time to mature, and to give you time to get to know me really well, so that when the Imago manifested, you and it would work with me for the good of the galaxy. The AI said that otherwise— the Imago is so powerful a force that great evil could come, if things were not right when it matured. So we weren't really doing what we thought. I mean, we weren't there just to have fun. We knew it would have to end when the Imago came."

He paused to take a breath and to gauge her reaction. She was gazing raptly at him. He was giving her a perspective that helped to shape her scattered memories and impressions. And actually, he wasn't lying; he was just interpreting. Because the basic purpose was as he was saying. Only the time span differed— and in her mind, that time was all there.

"So then the Imago did mature," he continued. "And at the same time, the egg— we had thought it was just a sting or something, but apparently it was a tiny egg, that was timed to grow and mature the same time the Imago did, so it could help— it grew big, and hatched, and the hatchling turned out to be a little chameleonlike creature that can greatly facilitate the effect of the Imago. The Imago is— is empathy. For every living thing, animal and plant. Every type of creature. And it really can save the galaxy, because a Gaol with empathy for others is a decent person. The way Garth is. You carry supreme empathy with you, Tappy."

"Yes," she breathed, lying back on the bed and drawing him down with her. "I feel it, oh I feel it! Always a little, but now overwhelmingly." Her hands drew him in. "Tell me more about it, while you make love to me."

Jack had hoped she would forget about that. But it didn't matter; he knew he was going to do it. She really was old enough now, not just because of her phantom seven years, but because the Imago made her more fully adult than any normal person could ever be.

"But with the arrival of the Imago," he continued, stroking her body, touching her small breasts on either side of the bandage, through her nightie, "came also the Gaol. They had not been able to find us until then. But they zeroed in on the Imago, as if it had been only a few days. The AI had to fetch us, to try to keep us safe, in a hurry. We had to leave everything behind. Even your favorite teddy bear. I'm sorry about that. But the Gaol came to the AI station, too. Just as the Imago and the hatchling came. The Gaol took over the station. Malva manifested, looking exactly as she did seven years ago, and just as mean, and forced you into the coffin. I mean, the—"

Tappy touched his lips with one hand. "Stop, Jack. You have caught up to the present. I'm relieved. I was afraid that something awfully wrong— that maybe it would turn out to be all a dream— that you didn't love me after all—"

"Oh, Tappy, I do love you! Doubt all else, but don't doubt that!" That much he could say with sincerity now.

"I don't doubt it," she murmured. "Now let's make love."

"Yes." Relieved, and flush with his burgeoning emotion. Jack got off the bed and stripped his clothing. He had made the dream real for her and saved the situation. Whatever parts of it were lies, he could at least make this much true. He owed it to her— and he wanted to do it.

He lay down beside her and touched her body again. And discovered that she had fallen asleep.