The Caterpillars Question

Chapter 19

Just to make sure that the vessel would land at the distance indicated, a cross of stones had been laid out. Jack had not sent a message to this effect; he had assumed that the Gaol would figure it out. But the spaceboat settled down at a spot one hundred and eighty degrees north of the cross.

"Either he thinks there's a trap prepared under the cross or he's just contrary," Jack muttered to himself. It was also possible, however, that the negotiator was not as intelligent as he should be. Or that the cross symbol meant nothing in the Gaol culture.

A hatch on the side of the vessel opened, a ramp rolled out, and the negotiator walked out. The ramp slid back inside the hull, the hatch closed, and the vessel shot upward. It soon disappeared. About two minutes later, Garth whistled a message. Candy said, "The boat has now attained the agreed-upon altitude. If the commander is not lying."

Then the Gaol was walking across the plain, waddling a little because of its turtlelike underplate. His skin was much darker than that of the other Gaol Jack had seen. He had much higher cheekbones, and his eye sockets were square, not round. The Gaol, like humans, must have differentiated into races during their evolution.

Behind Jack, the honkers were still noisy as they organized the arrangement of the circles. A few seconds later, the Integrator joined Jack, Tappy, Candy, and Garth. He had turned over the directorship to an aide. Jack saw the shaman out of the corner of his eye. But when he turned his head toward him, he was startled. The severed head of the Gaol captain lay at the shaman's feet. Jack did not think that this defiant gesture was diplomatic. Surely, the negotiator would be offended. And so would the fleet commander, who would be looking at the head right now.

Jack started to ask Tappy to tell the shaman that he had acted untactfully. Then he closed his mouth. Why not show the ratcages that they were not quivering with fear of them?

"I wonder what the negotiator is going to say?" Tappy said nervously. Her hands were clasped on her stomach, and her face was even more drawn.

He hugged her briefly and said, "We'll find out. It's going to be okay, Tappy. The Integrator is planning something bad, real bad, for the Gaol. I'm sure of that."

The words were for her. He did not feel as confident as he sounded.

Presently, the Gaol halted a few feet from them. He glanced at the head lying at the shaman's feet. If he was affected by it in any way, he did not show it. He lifted his hands above his head and locked the thumbs. Candy said, "That means he comes in peace, and he plans no treachery. With your permission, I'll reply for you."

Jack nodded. She imitated the Gaol's gesture. The Gaol lowered his hands and whistled for at least a minute. Candy interpreted.

"I'll condense his speech if it is your will. Much of it is bragging about the might of the empire."

Jack said, "Fine, as long as you don't omit anything important."

"He says that this business could have been settled long ago if we non-Gaol were not subject to irrationality. But the Emperor has taken this into account. Therefore, since irrationality makes us delay the inevitable and we are procrastinators, the Emperor gives us more time than is necessary to make up our minds to accept what must be.

"He says that we must deliver the Imago to the commander of the fleet. When we do that, no harm will come to those who have fought the empire. You, Jack, may live here as long as you wish. In fact, the Emperor, in his magnanimity, will leave this planet alone. The Gaol will stay away from it.

"You will have four hours to consider the terms and to decide what a Gaol would have decided within a minute. The Emperor is patient."

"And what if we still persist in being irrational?" Jack said harshly. "What if we refuse to surrender the Imago?"

Candy whistled. The negotiator's expression did not change. His "speech" this time was much shorter.

Candy said, "He says that the Emperor is patient, but his patience is almost at an end. This time, the Imago will not escape. Even if they have to search every square meter of the planet on or below its surface, they will do so. And they will find it.

"If, in our irrationality, we decide to kill the host and so release the Imago, we will all be killed. Indeed, all life on this planet will be destroyed. It will be so radioactive and so fragmented, nothing will ever again live here.

"Moreover, now that the empire has become aware of the native planet of the host's mate and it knows that there are gates to Earth, it will destroy Earth, too! He says to think of that, Earthman, before you defy the empire!"

Tappy gasped, and she gripped Jack's hand. Her hand felt very cold and damp.

The negotiator whistled. Candy said, "He says that the Emperor's terms have been delivered. There is no use continuing the meeting. He will be leaving as soon as his boat returns."

Jack thought of telling Candy to thank the Gaol for being such an excellent negotiator. Sarcasm, however, would probably ricochet off the Gaol's thick skull.

Presently, the boat landed. Before walking the half mile back to it, the negotiator whistled again. Then it turned and waddled away.

Candy said, "He said that the four hours allowed us start the moment he enters the boat."

The Integrator honked; Tappy replied; the shaman honked again. Then she spoke to Jack.

"I've told him what we and the Gaol said. He says that four hours should be enough. If, that is, all goes as he hopes it will, and if the Gaol don't break their word that we'll have that time. But it'll be, uh, how can I put it?"

After frowning for a moment, she said, "It'll be nip and tuck. It also will be chancy, iffy, but we have to do it!"

"Do what?" Jack said, close to snarling with frustration.

Tappy shrugged and lifted up her hands. "I don't know, and he won't tell me! But he says it'll be self-evident."

"The way of the honker," Jack said.

The shaman blasted again at Tappy. Then, his body movements expressing impatience, he took Tappy's hand and led her away. Jack, Candy, and Garth followed her. By then, he had become aware that the weather had changed. The sun was suddenly blocked. When he looked up, he saw that grayish clouds covered it. They scudded along, driven by a wind whose force was only beginning to be felt on the surface. The gentle breeze here had picked up a bit and hinted that it was going to get stronger. To the west, beyond the crater wall, black clouds towered. Lightning, very far away, flashed briefly and weakly. But the menacing-looking clouds would soon be over the crater floor itself, bringing with them the lightning.

He wondered if the Gaol's viewing instruments could penetrate electrical storms. If not, the honkers would be helped. They could do whatever they were going to do without alarming the Gaol.

By then, the honkers had completed making three perfect circles. They were standing still, listening to their group leaders. He supposed that they were still giving instructions or, maybe, a pep talk.

Then several leaders and a number of people in the lines began honking loudly and pointing up and outward. Jack said, "My God!"

The tops of the dark hemispheres rising above the crater wall startled him so much that he did not immediately recognize them. For a few numbing seconds, he was completely at a loss. As they continued to rise, their nature became evident. He said, again, "My God!"

They were Gaol spaceships.

He groaned. But, within seconds, he was yelling at Candy. "Tell Garth to ask the Gaol commander what's the meaning of this."

He waved at the spaceships. Candy whistled at the cyborg. While waiting, Jack, turning slowly, counted the vessels, as if it made any difference how many there were. There were fifteen, each stationed about a mile apart from each other. They had the same structure as the one which the honkers had invaded. That they could be seen at twenty-five miles distance and in this pale light meant that they were enormous indeed.

The empire was showing some of its awesome muscle.

Garth whistled then. Candy said, "The commander does not acknowledge the message."

But the ships did not move after they had risen in their entirety above the crater wall. They were going to hover there until... until when?

They might wait until the four hours are up, Jack thought. They have to. If we did intend to cave in to them and give Tappy up, they'd be screwing up by moving in now.

He relaxed somewhat.

The Integrator had quit staring at the ships. Now he was again leading Tappy by her hand. His obvious destination was the rose-red cut-quartz throne. Jack followed them. When the two went through the three lines of honkers toward the stone, he did the same. Behind him came Candy and Garth. Nobody tried to stop them. The moment he was inside the inner circle, however, the lines began moving. The Latest in them shuffled along, honking softly. The group leaders had taken the places left empty for them until now. Jack counted the number of people in each circle. Ninety in the inner ring. Ninety in the next ring. One hundred and eighty in the outer ring. Three hundred and sixty altogether. A compass card had three hundred and sixty points.

The numbers of honkers in the circles were directly related to the compass card points. Thus, since there were three hundred and sixty images and symbols (some groupings were counted as one) on the crater-wall ring, there had to be some relationship between the dancers and the paintings.

The images and symbols were still visible, though they would not be when the storm struck. They moved with majestic slowness, seeming to be as patient as eternity itself. Patient for what? he thought. They had not been set here without purpose.

The Integrator had led Tappy to the throne, which faced west. He made gestures that she should sit down in it. Before she had finished doing that, a honker handed the shaman a tall conical cap topped by a stiff paper model of the three crater rings. Then he gave him a crooked wooden staff at the end of which was a carving of a Maker's face.

Thus accoutered, the Integrator glared around him, his empty eye socket seeming even fiercer than the other eye. He gestured at Jack and his companions. When they came to him, he pushed and pulled until Candy was at the south end of the throne, Garth was at the north end, and Jack was at the east end. Though he was placed so he faced east, Jack did not keep his back to Tappy. He turned around to keep an eye on her. The shaman did not try to make him face eastward again. He was too busy dancing and honking and waving the staff in front of Tappy.

Meanwhile, the people in the three circles had stepped up their pace a little. The inner ring was moving counterclockwise; the middle ring, clockwise; the outer ring, counterclockwise.

The crater ring rotated counterclockwise. If there were indeed two other rings, as the models indicated, then these probably rotated in the same directions as the two outer circles of honkers.

Jack thought. What the hell is this? Magic? A form of sympathetic magic? Where things desired are simulated? Thus, the primitive practice of trying to cause rainfall by pouring water. In this case, simulating the operation of the three circles would cause them to rotate. But they were already moving. At least, the inner crater ring was moving, and he assumed that the other rings were also rotating

Why, then, were they performing a sympathetic magical rite?

The pace was being stepped up again. The stomping of feet was faster and louder. The shaking of the gourds was faster. All were honking the same "chant."

Of course, Jack thought, they're trying to make the great wheels set in the crater go faster. Oh, God, what a waste of time! We should be thinking about ideas to get Tappy away from the Gaol!

But the Integrator knew that his world and Jack's would be destroyed if an attempt was made to spirit her away. Moreover, there was just no way of escape for her. None. None at all!

What about a gate? Not the boulder-gate to Earth but another gate to another world.

No use. Even if they had one, and surely the Integrator would have told them about it if one was available, the Gaol would ruin forever the two planets. And they would keep on hounding Tappy until they caught her.

The Integrator was using this magical ritual because it was his only hope to save the Imago. Not to mention himself, Jack thought.

But the shaman might know something that he and Tappy did not know and for some reason should not know just now.

Maybe they were being kept ignorant because of the Gaol. If these did catch him and Tappy, they might gouge out of them the truth about the rings— whatever that was— and thus thwart whatever it was that the Integrator planned.

Jack just did not know, and he was helpless to do anything but watch this useless ritual. His mind was spinning like a centrifuge. An empty centrifuge.

Suddenly, there was a silence. The shaman had lifted the staff and shaken it three times. At that signal, the Latest had stopped both their honking and their dancing. The Integrator spun around to face Tappy. Jack could not see her face, but he imagined that it reflected the terror and confusion she surely must be feeling.

The shaman threw his staff up in the air, bent over, seized Tappy's blouse, and tore it open. One hand threw away the blouse and the other reached out— he did not even look— and caught the staff as it came down toward earth. It had whirled three times while aloft.

Tappy gasped. Then the honkers blew one long strong blast. Immediately, they began dancing and chanting again, stomping their feet more swiftly and harder. Jack could feel the earth tremble slightly beneath his feet.

The Integrator reached with his free hand and touched the Imaget, which was almost invisible in Tappy's brownish hair. It did not move. He gently picked it up and placed it over her left breast. At this, the honkers not only moved forward faster, they began whirling, and their honking was so loud that it hurt Jack's ears.

Jack thought, Is this going to go on for four hours? I'll go crazy. So will Tappy.

Then he cried out with horror. The Integrator had moved one step closer to Tappy. The tentacle had lifted, and it had plunged its poisonous tooth into her breast. It came out swiftly from the flesh, but some of the poison had been injected.

Tappy had not flinched when struck. She sat as stiffly as before, her head unmoving, staring at the west.

Jack came out of his numbness and started to crouch before jumping over the throne so that he could attack the shaman. He meant to kill him. But two very strong hands gripped him from behind. A blast of air ruffled the hair on the back of his head, and a blast of sound did deafen him for a second. He struggled and could not move.

Candy called out to him. He could barely hear her.

"He wouldn't harm her! It's all right! It's part of the ritual! She's just partly paralyzed for a little while! That makes her more open to the Imaget's channels!"

Candy must be guessing, but what she said made sense. He quit struggling. After a few seconds, the hands withdrew.

Open to the Imaget's channels? For what?

The shaman was bent over so that his head-nose almost touched hers. Jack could not hear what he was "saying," but he would not have understood it, anyway. Was the shaman speaking to her or to the Imago through her? Whatever he was telling her, his tense gestures made him look as if he were giving her instructions which he was repeating over and over. If she heard him, she did not respond with any body movements. But her lips might be moving.

The storm was coming closer. The dark clouds overhead, forerunners of the blacker and energy-shot body, were moving more swiftly. The breeze was a wind now, blowing his hair and Tappy's toward the east and raising dust clouds. The Integrator had lowered a chin strap to keep his conical hat from being blown off. The rains had passed over the western wall of the crater. Their drops looked like a solid silvery plate with discolorations running down here and there. The Gaol ships hovering there had disappeared behind the rain.

He turned back to watch Tappy. He caught his breath.

She was shining!

The glow was bright, about the strength of a dozen 100-watt light bulbs. But it was becoming brighter, spreading out from her as if the windows of her flesh were slowly opening.

That glow came from deep within her.

He shouted, "The Imago!"

And then he cried out again but uttered no words.

The fleet above the eastern wall was moving slowly toward the center of the crater.