The Caterpillars Question

Chapter 4

"Two Gaol airplanes coming fast," he told Tappy.

He thought, What do I do now?

The chances were that the planes climbing up below him were faster than his. Even if the speed of his craft matched theirs, he was very handicapped. This was his solo flight, and he had had no training. An aerial dogfight between him and two professionals would last a few seconds. If that.

"Get a grip on yourself," he muttered.

That reminded him that squeezing the wheel caused the craft to accelerate. He clamped down as hard as he could on the inflated rim. But the plane was so high up that he could not tell at once if its velocity was increasing swiftly.

He looked out of the window on his left. The pursuer seemed not to be gaining so swiftly.

However, his hands would get tired soon. Surely, there must be a control on the panel before him that locked in to whatever speed he wanted. It was a dumb idea to regulate the airspeed of this craft by squeezing on the wheel. The engineers who had designed this certainly did not think like their Earth counterparts.

However, this machine surely should have something like the cruise control of a car. When set, it would maintain the desired rate of travel to give the pilot's hands a rest.

The names on the plates below the lights and switches and buttons on the panel were in a totally unfamiliar alphabet. If it was an alphabet. Maybe the letters were ideographic or syllabic, like ancient Aztec or Chinese or whatever.

Another glance through the window showed him that, yes indeed, the chaser was eating up the space between his craft and his quarry's. Perhaps its pilot could squeeze harder, but he did not think so. The adrenaline surging through him should give his hands the strength to crush rocks.

He wished he had a brush big enough to paint the other planes out of the sky. Reality, unfortunately, was not a painting. It was hard objects, some of them moving very fast, objects driven by human beings out to kill him and Tappy.

That thought was conceived out of despair by panic. But it gave birth to relief. A limited relief, true, yet it was tinged with hope.

Whatever they would do, they would not kill Tappy. Though desperate to catch her, they must avoid doing anything that might result in her death.

Therefore, they would not shoot the plane down.

What they would do, probably, would be to try to force their quarry to land. Unless... no use attempting to imagine what was in their bag of tricks. He would find out soon enough.

The planes were slowly but steadily closing the gap between them and Jack's plane. One pigeon. Two falcons.

Below, a forest spread out, dark green like an Earth woods except here and there were irregularly shaped areas of orange-colored trees. The crater was receding fast. Ahead was more forest. In the distance were the peaks of a mountain range. Now and then the sunlight flashed on a river. Or was there more than one? A large lake appeared on the right.

A number of tiny boats with single masts and bright white and purple triangular sails scudded across the smooth green water. Jack was too high to make out the figures on the decks.

He started as something touched his neck. It was Tappy's finger, of course.

He was very jumpy. For a second, he had thought that an insect had landed on his neck.

Her wondering and anxious expression showed him that he had been silent too long.

"The plane on my left is now even with us," he said. "The other... here it comes! It's even with us now. Now they're rising. I think they plan to get above us and force us down."

Jack shouted, "Oh, no, you don't!"

Tappy gasped and jumped a little at his outburst.

Savagely, he turned the wheel to the left, pushing in on it at the same time.

The craft curved to the left and dropped swiftly.

Jack, glancing at Tappy, saw that her eyes were wide open, and she had paled.

"I'm trying to shake them!" he said. "Hang on! We may be in for a rough ride!"

He was thinking, Why in hell didn't I grab the radiator and try to shoot them with it?

He was doing better than he had thought he would in such a situation. So far, he had not done badly for one who considered himself to be an artist, not a man of action, ten thousand miles from being an Indiana Jones. But that had been on the ground. He had frozen for a while when in the air, and he still was not completely thawed out.

The pilots of the Gaol machines had quick reflexes, though. They had not been caught with their mouths open. Their planes had curved and dropped, too, following his course by a split second or so. Now they were above him again, diving at the same angle and velocity. They were also jockeying so that each would be just above the end of one of the wings.

He turned the wheel and pulled it back until the plane was on an even keel. At least, he thought that it was. By now, he assumed that one of the instruments on the panel was an angle indicator. It looked like the ones he had seen in movies showing an airplane's cockpit. It was round and in its center was a horizontal line. The line swung up at one end and down at the other, or vice versa, as one wing dropped and the other rose.

At the moment, it was straight across, and the wings seemed to be level, too.

Give him enough time, and he might figure out most of the functions of the instruments.

But he was not going to be given that time.

The bottoms of the fuselages, twelve or so feet above the tips of his wings, began lowering. He noted with a part of his mind that the wheels had withdrawn into the shell. He supposed that the wheels of his craft had also withdrawn. But he had heard no sound of machinery moving.

Jack told Tappy about the situation. She lifted the radiator with both hands, holding it before her face.

"Yes, I know," he said. "But wait a minute. I want to try something."

By then, the fuselage bottoms were only six feet above the wingtips of Jack's machine. The gap between them constantly varied by a foot or so. The rough air bounced Jack's plane up and down and did the same to their pursuers. They would not be able to touch their bottoms against his wingtips. Otherwise, the wingtips might break. Or something else and worse might happen.

They were betting that he would not try to call their bluff.

"Let's see!" he said loudly.

He released much of his grip on the wheel rim. At the same time, he pulled back hard on the wheel. The nose of the craft lifted sharply, and the wingtips almost struck the other planes. The pilots must have been startled, but they lifted their own planes quickly enough to avoid the collision. They did not slow down, however. They shot ahead of Jack's machine.

Jack took his hands off the wheel. The nose dropped, and the craft headed downward at an angle of perhaps forty-five degrees in relation to the horizon. He had expected it to stall and to fall like a stone. But it must have some sort of safety factor, a fool-compensator, in its program. In several seconds, it began to level out. The machines in front of him began climbing and turning at the same time. For certain, they would come back and attempt the same forcing-down.

He had gained some time and distance, however. And the sky, which had been clear, was suddenly dark on the horizon. He hoped that the clouds would be heavy with rain. A lightning and thunder storm would be welcome, too. He just might be able to lose the Gaol in a storm.

He said, "Tappy! Are we still going north? Headed directly toward whatever you want to get to?"

She turned her head slightly to the left and to the right. Then she pointed a few degrees to her right. Jack turned the machine until she nodded, and he straightened out the course. He had seen that one of the indicators on the panel had swung its pointer, too. The needle tip now rested by a symbol which he supposed must indicate north.

Soon, too soon for him, the Gaol had returned. One of them rode on his left, making no attempt to get above his wingtip. He stretched his neck to turn and look through the window in the top. At first, he saw only sky. Then abruptly and sinisterly, the nose of the second machine appeared. It was directly above Jack's machine and descending on a horizontal plane.

He understood at once what its new position meant. It was going to lower itself on the top of Jack's plane. Then it would land, in a manner of speaking, on his plane. It would decrease its speed until Us quarry would have to support part of the weight of the Gaol craft.

Its pilot must know what he was doing. He must be sure that Jack's machine could not sustain the added weight. And that it would be borne, however slowly, to the ground.

A moment later, a grinding noise and a shudder running through the fuselage announced that Jack was right.

The window was blocked by the blue bottom of the fuselage.

Jack told Tappy what had happened. Her alarm and puzzlement vanished. She held the radiator out to him.

He took it and said, "I'd rather not shoot through the sky-window."

One of the panel dials had on its face a vertical tube like a thermometer. The "mercury" was a bright orange. Its top had gone down, passing symbols marking, he supposed, altitude. The machine was losing speed and height at a rate that upset him. But he was not going to panic. Not now, anyway.

His mouth was very dry, and a low-burning pressure in him told him that he must urinate. Soon. Or the pressure would be intense, and the burning would not be low.

"I want to open the window on the door in my side," he told Tappy. "There are two buttons. The forward one is orange. The one behind it is yellow with a blue stripe running across it."

She had shown him how to unlock the operational program. Maybe she was familiar with the design of the cockpit.

Tappy smiled and groped along the door to her right until she found the buttons. Then she rested a finger lightly on the yellow one.

"Thanks," he said. He pushed in on the button on his door. The window began to lower, and cool air screamed into the cockpit.

He reached out to take the radiator from her. At the same time, he thought, Wait a minute! How did she learn so much about the design and operation of this airplane? She was six years old when she fled from here to Earth. How could she know all this? How many kids on Earth or here would be familiar with this complex stuff?

The answers to this question, as to many, would have to wait. He hoped he would live long enough to hear them.

The window was completely open now. He reached into his jacket, found one of the pencils in the leather holder in the inside pocket, and withdrew it. Then, leaning out of the window and twisted so that he could look back along the fuselage and upward, he extended the brace— the radiator— toward the wing of the Gaol craft. The air tore at him and caught the radiator, but he was gripping it hard. It was not easy to keep the weapon pointed at the wing while he pressed the pencil end against the orange button, the firing activator, the trigger.

There was no visible radiance expelled from the end of the brace. He knew there would be none, but he had momentarily expected one. He was too conditioned by all the science-fiction movies he had seen and all the books he had read.

The wing, cut in half, was whisked away, tumbling over and over.

He should have expected the shadow. But he had not. He grunted when he saw the transparent but still visible plane attached to the sheared-off wing. Then the strange and unexplainable thing was out of his sight.

The plane suddenly lifted as the solid and opaque Gaol craft on its back fell off.

He swung the radiator to point at the other plane. For the first time, he could sea the pilot's face clearly. Previously, it had been a blank or, rather, a generic human face. Now it came into focus, and he saw the features of an individual. A woman's face. Since she was unhelmeted, her reddish hair was visible. It was coiled into a bun on top of her head. A Psyche knot. Her delicate and rather pretty face was frozen. Her mind must have gone blank when she saw the wingtip flutter away and her colleague's plane roll off the back of Jack's machine.

The next moment, she had an even more puzzling and urgent matter to disturb her. Jack had pressed the radiator button. The tail of her plane got a quick divorce from the front part. It dropped, the shadow of the other part turning as it turned. And a shadow of the rear section projected from the still-flying part.

For a few seconds, the winged half-plane struggled onward, though losing altitude swiftly and beginning to bank to the left. The propulsive-levitation engine must radiate from inside the wings, Jack thought. But the pilot could not steer her craft.

Then the shorn plane nose-dived.

Jack turned the plane to observe what would happen next to the Gaol machine. It sped straight downward. A half a minute later, the pilot dived out of the window. Something was strapped to her front. Presently, she managed to straighten out, and she flew at a steep angle toward the ground.

She had put on some kind of parachute or emergency one-person mini-aircraft.

He looked in the space behind the seat. It held two cylinders about fourteen inches high and with a radius of six inches. Three levers were sticking out halfway down a yellow vertical stripe. Attached to the cylinders were harnesses.

The pilot's hands had been on the cylinder. Evidently, she had been using the levers to guide her flight.

Jack turned back to the north. The compass needle indicated that he was headed toward the exact direction that Tappy had indicated. But, just to make sure, he asked her again if he was headed in the right direction. She nodded.

It was strange that he trusted her more as a compass than he did an electromechanical device. Or was it? She knew the true direction better than any man-made compass. But the panel device could be malfunctioning or affected by aberrant magnetic fields.

While he was going toward the black clouds, he looked at the instruments. One of those switches or buttons must be a cruise control. Another would put the plane on automatic navigation. And what was that blank screen that looked so much like that on a TV set?

He decided that it was best not to monkey around with anything the exact function of which he did not know. So far, he was doing all right with his flying. But what about when he had to land? What activated the machinery to lower the wheels?

Of course! Ask Tappy!

He should have thought of that automatically. But his mind was still not completely thawed out. It contained ice, the ice of anxiety.

No genuine hero, I, he thought.

He had not volunteered for this perilous voyage. No one in his or her right mind would do that.

Well, yes, he had entered the rock, and no one had forced him to do that. However, he just could not have allowed Tappy to pass through the gate, or whatever it was, alone. What he should have done, he should have kept her from going into it. Even if he had had to use force.

No. Somehow, she would have found her way back if he had dragged her away. It was her destiny, and it was her will to follow her destiny.

My destiny, too, he thought. If I had refused to go with her, I would have loathed myself until I died. And am I not really living, vibrating, keenly aware, alive in every atom of my mind and body? Wasn't I a sort of walking dead before I passed through the gate?

I didn't know it. I had to come here to find that out. All those people on Earth— well, most of them, anyway— are semizombies.

The clouds and the mountains ahead swelled. After a while, the black roiling mass, shot with lightning streaks, covered the mountains. It would be raining inside that mass. That reminded him that his mouth was still very dry. His bladder pained him again. During the dogfight, as he thought of it, he had forgotten about the urgency within him.

Where could he land to get much-needed relief? There was forest below him as far as he could see. Could this plane alight without a long runway? Come straight down like a helicopter? It certainly had used a short takeoff space. But there were very few open areas, and these looked as if they were small.

That reminded him that he had meant to ask Tappy about the panel instruments. Urged by him, she ran her fingers over the switches, buttons, and dials. When he told her to stop at a certain instrument, she did so. But she could not tell him what they were for unless he ran down a list of questions and she would nod if he was right. This took too much time and required too much patience for him to learn what every instrument did.

However, he did make a lucky guess about the screen. It showed the view from the rear of the plane if you pressed one of two buttons below it. He activated it. Then he said, "Just what I was hoping wouldn't happen!"

Three large black dots were in the sky, flying in formation. They were at the same altitude as his plane.

"We're being followed," he said. "They've sent at least three pursuits after us."

He looked through the windows to each side and through the window in the ceiling. He could not see any other craft. Then it occurred to him that there could be Gaol machines below him. But his eye-sweeps saw nothing.

The chasers seemed to be in faster aircraft than the two he had disposed of. The dots had grown larger. It was highly likely that the downed pilots had radioed their experiences to their HQ. These newcomers would be much more cautious.

The radio blared, startling him and the girl.

Malva's voice filled the cockpit.

"You will turn back! You will turn back! Return to the place from which you took off! Return to the place from which you took off! You will be escorted back! You will be escorted back!"

Jack said, "For God's sake!"

Though his mind threatened to rupture from the strain of its resistance to the commands, it was making him turn the plane.

If his mind could have teeth, it would be gritting them so hard it would break them off.

"Tappy! Order me to disobey Malva!"

But how could she do that? She could not speak.

He was desperately trying to think of an idea. His mind was running around like a squirrel looking for nuts it had buried during the summer. It knew they were somewhere in this area. But exactly where?

The plane was by now going in the direction from which it had come.

"Tappy!" he said loudly. "Can you write?"

She nodded.

He released the pressure on the wheel rim. Let the plane slow down. He was in no hurry to get back. A few seconds later, he handed her a pencil and the small notebook he carried in the leather holder in the inner jacket pocket.

"Write down your order to me to disobey anybody but you. Then show it to me. I don't know if it'll work, but we've got to try everything!"

Why didn't I do that long ago? he thought.

Then, Well, things've been happening too fast. I can't think of everything.

Tappy, frowning in concentration, wrote on the topmost paper of the notebook. She held it in front of him.

He groaned.

The writing was in Gaol characters.

He was surprised that she knew that. She had fled this planet at the age of six, and how many that age could write? Though he could not read the characters, he could see that her penmanship was beautiful. She must have been precocious. Or, maybe, the Daws had continued her Gaol education. Which meant that they were not just your ordinary Earth citizens.

"No, in English," he said.

Looking distressed, she shook her head.

"Do you know any foreign language? I mean, non-English Earth language. Like French or Spanish?"

Again, she shook her head.

That squirrel in his mind was frantic now. It was whirling around like a furry gyroscope.

"All right! Let's try something else! You used body and hand language to tell me to fly this plane! Can you do the same to tell me to turn back to the north? Malva will give her orders again, but you could cancel them,"

Malva would repeat her command. And Tappy would have to override Malva's orders. And then Malva would give her orders again. The plane would yo-yo until the pursuit planes caught up with it.

The bitch might be listening in now via the radio.

He leaned over and whispered to Tappy.

"You didn't point out the radio switches. We have to find them and turn them off."

Malva's voice had come from a grille inset above his head. But there were no buttons or switches near it.

First, he eliminated the controls and indicators the function of which he knew. That left about twenty-five unknowns. What if resetting one caused a serious change in the performance of the craft? Like shutting off the power to the engine?

He had to do something very soon. The three pursuers were steadily growing larger.

At that moment, Malva's voice rang in the cabin.

"You will obey the orders transmitted to you by your escort! One aircraft will guide you! Follow it! Stay at the same level as it! Descend when it descends!"

"Ah!" Jack said.

When the voice had come on, a green panel inset in the center of the steering wheel started to glow.

"Repeat!" Malva said. "You will..."

Jack had cut her off by pressing the green panel with his fingertip. The panel ceased to glow.

"Gotcha!"

He pressed the panel again.

"...follow the plane in front of you and..."

"Sure, we'll just do that, you bitch!" Jack shouted. And he turned the radio off.

All that time, the radio had been on, and he had not noticed the glowing panel. But then he had been busy. Moreover, he was not a trained pilot.

He laughed as he wheeled the craft around and headed for their destination. Some of his dread and uncertainty was gone.

That Malva's commands were being ignored must be whirling her around as if she were glued onto a jet engine vane. She would be horrified, burning with panic. Her masters would not be tolerant about her failure.

He did not feel the least bit sorry for Malva.

Now the air had suddenly become much rougher. The plane fell and rose as if it were diving into and out of express elevators. This was the forerunner of the storm. What would it be like when they were inside its troubled heart?

If it were not for those aircraft catching up with him so swiftly, he would have tried to climb over the storm. But the chasers would overtake him sooner if he lost speed by ascending. They might do so, anyway. The only way to escape was straight ahead. The electrical disturbances there might affect whatever detectors the pursuers had. If this happened, they would lose him and Tappy.

Might... if...

It did no good to wonder about might-have-beens. But that was an integral part of the human mind. Animals never worried about these. Humans found it necessary. They had to fantasize. So, maybe, it was good for them.

No time for that.

He squeezed the inflatable rim again. "Go ahead, Tappy. Try to cancel the spell, whatever it is, the control she has over me."

Tappy seemed to be thinking hard. Then she smiled. After tearing off the sheet she had written on, she drew a single character. She held it in front of him.

"You know I can't read it."

She half turned and gestured behind her. Then she passed her hands over her face and twisted her features. She was trying to look like somebody. But she was blind.

"You mean," he said slowly, "you're giving me the impression of a face from the voice of that person?"

She nodded, and she pointed behind her again.

Her expression was haughty and arrogant.

"Oh! You mean Malva?"

She nodded and smiled happily.

"But knowing that, how's that going to help me?"

She opened her mouth wide, stuck the sheet of paper close to it, and moved her mouth and jaw as if she were chewing. Then she pointed at him.

He started to ask her what she meant when she reached over, felt along his face until she found his mouth, and jammed the piece of paper between his lips.

Before he could protest, he found the paper stuffed into his mouth. She was still making the chewing motions.

"Grrbgrrbgrrbgrrb!"

Which meant, "You want me to chew this and swallow it?"

Evidently, she did. So he did.

Tappy threw up her hands to indicate that all was well.

He was not so sure. Only one way to find out.

He activated the radio again and said, "Malva, you slimy evil slut! What do you think about your control of me now?"

He winced at the hatred and viciousness of her invective, not all of which was in English.

Then Malva, after her hard breathing had ceased, shouted, "You will obey me! You will obey me! Come back as commanded! Come back as commanded!"

Jack did not have the slightest urge to turn the wheel. He pressed the green-glowing panel again and grinned at Tappy.

"Now we can get back to business."

But the roughness of the air had become a savagery. He and Tappy had been bouncing up and down and swaying hard from side to side. Now they might soon be lifted from their seats.

He said, "Tappy! We need belts to hold us down!"

Tappy frowned again. Her mouth drew up at one corner. Then she smiled. Her fingers brushed along the center area of the panel and stopped over a button. The plaque above it bore a character different from any other on the panel. Below it was a flashing orange light.

She pressed her back against the back of the seat. She gestured that he should do the same. As soon as he had obeyed, she pushed the button. Immediately after, she sat upright against the seat back. He heard a click. From the panels behind the seats slid two long bands. These began curving, went over his and Tappy's chest, and stopped after they entered two extensions which had risen from beside the seats.

Safety belts.

Then he felt something curving around his waist. Another metal band was enclosing him. Both belts seemed to move, settling in, feeling the shape of his body, fitting themselves with maximum efficiency.

That was not so surprising. But he was amazed when the metal of the belts suddenly became much softer. In fact, they felt like stiff cloths.

The orange light went out. The recessed bulb beside it was now glowing a steady green.

Jack said, "You just remembered where the belt button was?"

She nodded.

Again, he wondered who or what had inhibited her against speaking English. Whatever it was, it had not kept her from talking to that honker. If only he had time to learn from her how to communicate in honkerese, he could bypass that inhibition. There he went again... if... if, painting pictures in his mind.

Suddenly, the savage bumps and drops and rises of the plane increased in frequency and intensity. If it had not been for the belts, he and Tappy would be ricocheting around in the narrow cockpit. Or should it be called a cabin? What was the difference? Being bruised and having bones broken did not depend upon word definitions.

Then the light dimmed, and the lights inside the plane came on. Automatically. Tappy had pushed no buttons.

Straight ahead and very near was the evil-looking black roil of the storm edge. He gripped the wheel so hard that the plane surged ahead. Though he had thought that he had been squeezing with all his strength, he had fooled himself. Just before the plane plunged into the clouds, he remembered reading something long ago: that entering a violent storm in an aircraft was like slamming it into a concrete wall.

That had certainly been exaggerated— somewhat— since the impact did not flatten the plane out. It kept going, though it had shuddered and the altitude indicator showed an alarming loss of height. Rain and darkness enclosed the craft. But, almost immediately, the rain on the windshield evaporated. Yet, the downpour was still almost solid a few inches from the shield. This machine had no visible windshield wipers. Something was keeping the rain from hitting the windshield.

The headlights of the craft were on, but he could not see more than a few feet beyond its nose.

He was still squeezing hard on the wheel and had it pulled far back. Though he was not losing any more altitude, he had not regained that lost when entering the storm.

The mountain peaks! How far below the plane were they?

Lightning exploded nearby. Thunder boomed. Tappy reached over and felt his neck, then lowered her hand to grab his shoulder.

"We'll be fine!" he shouted.

It was within the realm of possibility. But she needed strong encouragement.

So did he.

Soon, embarrassment and discomfort would be added to the danger. He was going to wet his pants.

Maybe there was something to help him in the storage space behind the seats. Like a bottle. Anything. He did not dare to lessen the pressure on the wheel rim. Tappy would have to grope around in there for him.

He told her what he wanted her to do and why. She twisted around in the tight restraint of the belts and felt as far as she could reach. She smiled and then worked away at something. He twisted his neck far enough to see that she was unfastening a belt around a box. The belt came loose when she clicked something on the buckle. Then she managed to bring out with one hand a plastic container.

It was heavy and fell out of her hand before she could grip it with both hands. But it was on the space between them. After feeling it, she found and pressed a button on the box. The lid came open. Inside were stacks of small plastic square containers. And plastic bottles.

The bottle she brought out held a transparent liquid. Water, he hoped. And it was. She unscrewed the cap and tasted it, smiled, then held it out to him. At that instant, the orange liquid inside the altitude indicator shot up. He was pressed against the seat.

An updraft was hurtling the airplane toward the top of the storm.

He released his right hand from the wheel and took the bottle. It had slopped some water out of it, but there was more than enough for him despite his intense thirst.

When he handed the half-empty bottle to her, he said, "Drink it all up! I'll use the bottle then!"

She lifted it to her lips and did not put it down until all the water was gone. She must have been as thirsty as he.

However, using the bottle for its second purpose was not easy. The plane was still bouncing around while going up. There seemed to be up- and downdrafts within the big updraft. Desperate, he managed to relieve himself completely. Never mind what missed the bottle.

Meanwhile, Tappy had been holding down the box, which tended to rise during a vigorous downdraft. She screwed the cap back onto the bottle and placed it in the box. After relocking the box, she struggled to get it back into its place in the storage area. Finally, she did it.

He had no time to thank her. Now a fierce downdraft plunged the machine toward... what? He squeezed the wheel rim with all the muscle he could muster. And he pulled the wheel far back, though he wondered if pointing the nose of the craft too high would cause a stall. He hoped not. It seemed to him, however, that the propulsive-levitational power might, pun intended, forestall stalls.

At least, he felt better now. Otherwise, he would not be making a pun, especially such a lousy one.

He had no reason to be freed of some of his fear. At any moment, a downdraft could smash the plane into a peak or the plane might fly head-on into a very high mountain.

A minute later, he was again thoroughly scared. The dazzling white lightning bolts and their ear-ramming explosions increased. They seemed to be in a nest of electrical entities hatching right and left. Tappy squeezed his thigh while the ravening energy transformed the black world into a white one.

Her fingers dug into his flesh when a gigantic round ball, its brightness brain-piercing, appeared in front of them. She could not see it, he supposed, but it must be making some impression on her nervous system.

As they hurtled through it, their flesh seemed to become as clear as spring water. Their bones were dark. Tappy was a moving skeleton beside him, and his hands and arms were Death's own body.

Then the ball was gone. They were again fleshed. But their hairs were standing on end. Her long tresses stood out like straight needles. She looked like the Bride of Frankenstein.

Somewhere behind them, the ball exploded, and the airplane shook. Their hair crackled and then fell back, free of the static electricity.

A moment later, Tappy shook his shoulder. He looked at her pale face. She was obviously distressed about something. He did not think that it had been caused by the ball.

"What is it?"

She was shaking her head and pointing at her forehead. Then she pointed straight ahead, held up her hands, and rotated them. After which she made a circular motion close to her head with her right hand. She looked very puzzled.

"I don't get it," he said.

She reached out and ran her finger along the instrument panel until she located the compass. Holding the tip of her finger on it, she turned her head toward him. With the other hand, she made the circular movement.

He said, "Oh! You mean... you don't know now where that place... your goal... destination is? Where we've been headed since we got here?"

She nodded vigorously and sat back. Now she looked distressed.

"I'm sorry," he said.

That did not help her. Or him. And it was a winner of an understatement.

"It must've been that white-hot ball, that St. Elmo's fire," he said. "That last explosion. It was a huge sphere of electricity discharging. Somehow, it glitched that homing sense, whatever it is that was leading you straight to your destination. I thought that was some sort of psychic power. But it could be electrical— semi-electrical, anyway."

Tears rolled down her cheeks.

"We still have the panel compass," he said. "And maybe your, uh, power, homing sense, will come back soon."

No use telling her that the compass was probably messed up, too. He intended to go by it until he knew that it was malfunctioning.

A half hour later, they shot out of the storm. The late afternoon sun shone unimpeded by clouds and revealed that they were only about two thousand feet above the ground. The mountains were behind them. Ahead was a plain that ran over the horizon. Isolated trees and groves of trees were scattered over it. A river made S-turns across the terrain. The vegetation was much thicker along its banks. Many animals were heading toward or away from the water. The land reminded him of an African veldt except that the grass was a bright green and many of the beasts did not look like Earth fauna.

Not like present-day animals, anyway. Some of them looked like mammals that had roamed Earth many millions of years ago. For instance, an elephantine creature with a long proboscis and four tusks, two turned upward and two downward. Its ears were rather small, though. That must mean that this area did not have a hot African-like climate.

Heading north by the panel compass, Jack flew for another thirty minutes. Meanwhile, he worried about Tappy. She was still weeping. And then there was the fuel supply. Which of the indicators showed how much was left? To take her mind off her loss— if it could be done— he asked her to locate the fuel indicator. She touched an instrument much like the altitude indicator except that the liquid in the tube was a bright green and the symbols alongside it were different.

"Looks as if it's half-full," he said with a cheeriness he did not feel. "We can still go a long way. How about that?"

Despair had been covering her face like a transparent mask. It did not change.

The plain eased into hills which soon arched their backs, like a meow of alarmed cats, to become mini-mountains. Colossal trees seemed to stride over these, trees the lowest branches of which curved downward into the ground, forming enormous Gothic arches.

After an estimated forty miles, the plane put the hills and the great trees behind it. Ahead was another vast plain. Five miles from the edge of the forest was a broad shallow valley. In its center was a very strange phenomenon.

"There's a dark and roughly circular cloud about a half mile across," he told the girl. "Every seven seconds, something in its center glows. Must be very bright to get through that cloud. Can't make its outlines out. Wait a minute! Let me count... ah! The glow lasts seven seconds. And there's a camp, a big one, circling the cloud. Tents, huts. Lots of people scattered around. Vehicles parked past the camp, some planes parked beyond them."

He swung the plane back and straightened it out parallel to the edge of the forest.

"We'll land along here someplace and then hide the plane, if we can. I don't want to get any closer. If they're Gaol... hope they didn't see us."

As he turned the craft, he had seen men behind some big instruments aimed at the cloud. A small party was entering the cloud. The flash silhouetted the men when they were first enveloped, but, a few seconds later, they were no longer visible.

Tappy's finger touched the side of his face. When he turned his head, he saw her smiling. The despair was gone. She leaned forward, traced a fingertip along the instrument panel, and stopped it at the compass. Her gestures after that, plus her evident joy, told him that they were close to their destination.

He was concentrating on landing, but he said, "Those people there. Are they Gaol?"

He glanced at her. She was drawing the edge of her right hand across her throat. Then she nodded.

"We have to get down and hide the plane," he said. "I hope the camp doesn't have radar equipment. If they do, they'll have spotted us by now. Everybody's attention seemed concentrated on the cloud."

He was also worried that their three pursuers might suddenly appear and see them.

He lowered the window, leaned out, and checked the wheel wells, what would be called fenders if this were a car. The wheels were still within the wells. Okay. If he had to land it on its belly, he would. He asked Tappy about the wheel-lowering control. She did not know where it was.

He took the craft down parallel to the edge of the forest. Except for some bushes here and there, the plain made an excellent landing field. It was not as smooth as a concrete strip, of course, but it would do. He flattened out the angle of descent about ten feet above the ground and slowly eased it down. Then he leaned out through the window again. The wheels fore and aft on the left side were halfway out of the wells. Must be some radar in the plane that automatically activated the wheel-lowering mechanism when it came within a certain distance of the ground.

The front wheels touched a second before the back wheels, which came down with a bang.

"How do I stop this plane?" he said. "Where are the brakes?"

He had released his grip on the inflatable wheel rim, but the vehicle was still going at about five miles an hour. He had to steer around several bushes blocking their path.

Tappy groped along the panel until she touched a slight protuberance, a purple panel glowing with a faint light. She pushed in on it. The panel lost its glow, and the plane slowed down, then stopped. He pressed the panel again and turned the plane into the forest. Somewhere on that panel or maybe on the wheel was a control that would permit him to lessen or increase the speed below five mph. At the moment, he would have to do without it, improvise.

"Can the wings be folded?" he said.

She shrugged.

"Don't know, right?"

The plane taxied between the arches of two trees, its wingtips almost scraping the bark. Then he swung sharply right and went under an arch. When the craft was behind the trunk, unseeable from the forest edge, he pressed the purple panel. The plane rolled about ten more feet before stopping. It was still behind the tree, which had a trunk ten times thicker than that of a California sequoia.

The seat belts hardened and slid back into their recesses.

"Know how to back this thing up?"

Tappy shook her head.

As he got out of the plane, Jack realized how tight and tense he was. His body ached, and his neck muscles were as stiff as a hardcover book. After he got Tappy to knead his neck, he could bend his head without the neck vertebrae cracking. He did the same for her. Then they explored the area, though making sure not to go too far. It would be easy to get lost in this vast shadowy place where the longest line of sight ended at sixty feet.

They drank deeply from a brook, decided not to eat some big juicy-looking red berries on a bush, listened to the screeching pandemonium of the numerous birds above them, and then returned to the plane. They ate from a jar in the storage compartment, a thick pudding colored chocolate brown and tasting like beef mixed with chestnuts.

Tappy then pulled on his arm with one hand as she gestured toward the north with the other.

"I know you want to push on now," he said. "But we can't cross the plain in the daylight. Now... you want to get into that cloud, right?"

She nodded vigorously.

"We'd better get some sleep first and fill our bellies, too, before we venture out."

First, though, he put some containers of food and water in a plastic sack he found in a box. He looked for and found a flashlight. He removed most of the stuff in the storage space so that she could curl up on its floor. He would try to rest on the seat she had occupied, his feet on the pilot's seat. But a minute after he had settled into the least uncomfortable position he could find, his eyes opened.

"I just thought of something," he said. "The cabin lights. They come on automatically when it gets dark. The light'll be a beacon for the Gaol. You know how to override the automatic turn-on for them?"

She did not. But, as he reviewed the flight, he remembered a panel light that had been illuminated when the cabin lights had come on as the plane entered the storm. He pressed the inset under the light, and the cabin lights sprang into photonic being. Another pressure, and the lights died.

"That's done," he said. "We can both sleep now."

But, a minute later, he sat up, eyes open.

"Does Malva... the Gaol... know where you were heading? I mean, do they know the cloud, that flashing light, is where you want to go?"

She had her eyes closed. She sat up, too, and spread out her hands and lifted her shoulders.

She was uncertain about what they knew.

He lay back down.

"Go to sleep, Tappy. I promise not to say anything more until we've had a good long snooze."

It was some time before he drifted off. He could not keep from worrying about Malva setting up a trap for them in the camp. However, he and Tappy would not know about it until they went into the camp. So, let the Fates decide.

That was not a thought to ease his anxiety. Anxiety. A psychological jargon-word for fear.

Finally, he slept. And he dreamed that he was painting one of those gigantic figures that marched along the inner wall of the crater. When he awoke, his neck stiff again, his back aching, he remembered the dream. He thought. That's what I should be doing now. Painting. Not be running scared through a world I never made and never would make. But Earth was also a world I never made and would considerably alter if I'd had anything to do with the Creation.

Take things as they are— you can't do anything about changing its basic structure— and deal with them as best you can.

He got up without disturbing Tappy. As he crawled out, though, he heard her muttering in her sleep.

"Reality is a dream."

Sometimes it's a nightmare, he thought. Once more, he wondered why she could speak English while asleep yet could not do so while awake.

Tappy woke up four hours later. She looked refreshed, though the hard floor must have been uncomfortable. By then, clouds had covered the night sky, and thunder and lightning were playing rough games in the west. A wind had come down hard like a swatter against a fly. Even in the comparatively sheltered forest, it whistled and streamed Tappy's long hair out. All that cheered up Jack. The visibility on the plain would be limited, and the Gaol would be snug in their tents and huts. He hoped. If it would only rain, he and Tappy would not care if they were soaked. That would be one more thing to help them.

He did wish, however, that Tappy could tell him why they were going to that cloud and what awaited them.

They set out across the plain. He carried the radiator in one hand. After walking two miles, leaning a little sideways into the wind, they were in a savage downpour. The cold water made them even more miserable, but it did make them step up their pace.

After what seemed a long while but was not, they were at the rim of the shallow valley. The light from the center of the cloud was still coming on every seven seconds. The cloud itself, otherwise invisible in this darkness, was outlined when the light flashed.

There were lights on in the shelters and strung along paths which led to huts that Jack assumed were latrines. Not a human being was in sight. That did not mean that no sentries were posted. It could be that he just could not see them. But what did the Gaol have to fear? Besides, this camp looked to him more like a scientific expedition than a military base.

On the other hand, what did he know?

The lightning arrived at the camp at the same time he and Tappy got there. The white streaks helped illuminate the camp for them. But it would also help any guards to see the intruders. He waited awhile, crouched on the rim, and surveyed the scene for sentinels. If there were any, they were well hidden.

Finally, he said, "Let's go, Tappy."

They scrambled down the muddy and rock-strewn slope, slipping now and then. He held the radiator high to keep it from getting dirty. However, the rain cleaned their clothes in a short time. Shivering from more than the cold water and wind, they walked across a fairly even ground to the outer rim of the camp. Crouching, they passed between two wind-flapped tents. He held the radiator ready, the pencil in the other hand. Loud voices came from the tents. Lights shone from the little windows. They left these behind, passing, after a quarter mile of sticky mud, several of the huge machines Jack had seen. These stood on towering tripods the ends of which were stuck in the ground. Cables also ran from them to big metal pegs driven at an angle into the earth. Other cables led from them into the darkness toward the camp. Jack assumed that these were power conductors. The machines on top of the tripods resembled giant cameras, but he doubted that they were for photographic purposes.

While lightning screwed through the sky, exploding at a so-far-safe distance from them, and thunder banged maniacally, they crossed about a half mile of plastic covering. That kept them from sinking in the mud.

Then they were dazzled by the light in the center of the cloud, Now closer to the whiteness, they could see more clearly. Its source seemed to be a titanic building. It was, perhaps, not more than five stories high, but its length was at least two thousand feet. They could not be sure about that nor about the roundness of the structure. But Jack got the impression of a Brobdingnagian cylinder. Whether or not one of its ends was pointed, he could not determine.

Jack halted. The light disappeared, though the afterimage of the building lingered for a second or two. He did not wish to go into that cloud, which, now that he was near it, roiled like the storm in the sky and extended pseudopodia and shrank them back into itself.

The light blazed again.

This time, he saw the center thing more clearly. The end on his right was pointed. The main body was rounded.

Tappy had been holding his hand. She moved ahead, pulling him after her. If she was courageous enough to plunge into the cloud, he could not hang back. And she should know what she was doing. Would she penetrate the cloud if she thought they were in danger?

Yes, she would if it held something she desired or thought was worth the risk.

The cloud closed around them. Instantly, the wind ceased. He felt no rain pouring on him. Somehow, the cloud repelled or evaporated it before it got to the ground. But the stuff that enveloped him was oily and sticky. Moreover, after a few steps, be seemed to slow down, to have to push against the cloud. It was as if its essence was a very thin jelly. That must be a delusion, he thought. If the cloud really was thickening, it should make it harder for him to breathe. That did not seem to be happening.

Then he smelled a sickening odor. As he drove on against the ever-thickening element, he was permeated with the stink. It reminded him of rotting beef. If it got worse, he was going to vomit.

Tappy was pulling harder on him as if she were getting impatient with his lagging.

Then she fell, her hand sliding out of his. He could not see until the bright light came back. For seven seconds, he had a good look at her. She had fallen over something. Just before the light went away, leaving him in the greasy darkness, he realized that she had stumbled over a body. It was in the uniform of a Gaol, and it was lying facedown, but its neck and body and arms and legs were swollen.

The source of the stench was the dead man.

He thought, Up in the airplane, I saw men going into the cloud. But I did not see any coming out.

Tappy got up, though he did not know it until her groping hand touched his chest. He reached out and pulled her close. She was trembling.

"What's going on?" he said, holding her close.

She could not answer him, of course. She released herself from his arms, felt along his arm, and gripped his hand again. Then she was leading him into the cloud.

The stink of death was left behind after only a few paces. That cloud must be heavy and keep the molecules of the decaying body from going far. Certainly, the stuff sheathing him was getting denser. He had to push even more against it. His growing nausea, however, was now receding.

I'll bet no Gaol has reached the building or whatever it is, he thought. Why does Tappy think she can succeed? Even if she does have some ability the others lack, she'll have to leave me behind.

And why did that man die? If he could not go ahead, why did he not turn around and come back out of the cloud? What killed him?

Finally, he could not struggle any more. He was winded, and each breath was heavy with oiliness. The stuff seemed to soak into his mouth and nose, his throat, his lungs. He was trapped like a fly in molasses. Panicky, he yanked back on Tappy's hand, but she did not move. Her hand came loose from his. He struggled to take a step backward and found that he could not move his hind foot more than several inches.

If I die, he thought, will my corpse sag slowly, sinking by inches until I finally lie on the ground? Will my body begin decomposing halfway through my slow-motion fall?

Then something touched his chin.

The light, brighter than lightning, returned, and he saw Tappy. She was turned around, had gotten closer to him, and had reached out with a questing finger.

She could move, though her briefly seen face was twisted with effort.

"Go on, Tappy!" he shouted. "You can't help me! Go on!"

He could hear his voice, but it seemed to be inside his head. He doubted that his words got very far from his lips before they were absorbed.