THE CATERPILLARS QUESTION Read online

  Was she crazy? He could not accept that!

  He returned to the motel, and tumbled onto his bunk without undressing, without checking on Tappy. Maybe the night would offer some possible solution. Maybe some miracle.

  He slept erratically, his dreams a turmoiled rampage of mountains and scars and unutterable pleasure. Of a metal brace touching his leg. Larva, ChrYsalis, Imago ... Rape. He woke with a feeling of terrible remorse to the desolation of darkness. Now perhaps he could appreciate Tappy's state of sightlessness. Of hopelessness.

  Then he was being touched. Tappy was there, her hand on his shoulder, shaking him. "What is it?" he asked blearily.

  She kept pulling at his shoulder, urgently. "Tappy, what I did with you was wrong," he said. "I should never have touched you, and I deeply regret it. Certainly I shall not do it again." Yet there was a core of doubt.

  But she ignored his protest. She wanted him to get up; she was not trying to repeat their liaison, it seemed. What could she be after?

  He got up, feeling grubby in his unchanged clothes. The glow on his watch said 3 A.M. "What do you want?" he asked, half fearing the answer.

  She tugged him to the door.

  "Something out there? Let me turn on the lights-"

  But she pulled him imperiously on. "No lights? Tappy, you know I can't see in the dark! At least let me get a flashlight."

  At that she paused. He felt for the drawer where he had put the emergency flash, and found it. But it occurred to him that she might have reason to stay out of sight. Were there robbers near?

  "I have it, but I'll leave it off if you'll lead me where you want to go."

  She reached and found his hand with the light, and patted it. "You don't mind if I turn it on? You're not hiding from anything?"

  She patted his hand again, then resumed her motion toward the door. Baffled, he turned on the flash and walked after her.

  She opened the door and stepped out. He saw that she had her shoes on, and a jacket, over her nightie. She was definitely going out, and she was in a hurry.

  He followed her out. "Tappy, tell me where you're going! I'll take you there. It will be faster that way."

  She paused to gesture in the darkness. He shone the light on her. She was pointing with her right hand toward the mountain they had climbed, while holding The Little Prince in her left.

  "Up there? Now?" he asked incredulously. "Tappy, that's-" He broke off, catching himself before saying "crazy."

  She nodded vigorously. That was where she was going.

  "But why? There's nothing up there, not even a view, at this 'time of night. You didn't find anything before!"

  She headed off across the lawn. He had to follow; he could not let her go into the forest alone. "Tappy, if you would only tell me what this is all about! If it's because of what we did last night-"

  She turned then to face him momentarily. Her head shook no, and she was smiling. Then she gestured him on and resumed her route.

  She certainly didn't seem suicidal! She was happy, ALMOSt glowing with excitement. Yet she wasn't trying to vamp him either. She obviously knew the significance of what they had done, and was if anything pleased with herself, not ashamed.

  She wanted him with her, but this was something else.

  Yet what could there possibly be atop the mountain at this hour?

  He could think of nothing. Nothing they might want to encounter!

  Had Tappy really gone over the edge? Had she convinced herself that there was some kind of salvation or atonement up there?

  If she was crazy, it was his fault. All he could do now was go along and try to see that nothing else happened to her. "This way," he said, taking over. "We found a better route on the way down, remember? Here." He followed his light to the route he remembered.

  Then he remembered the book. "Tappy, that mountain gets steep. You'll need your hands, and you can't tuck the book into your shirt. You have no shirt. Here." He checked the Jacket she wore, opened it wide, and found a huge pocket in the inner lining.

  The book just fit. Then he closed the jacket around her slight torso, inadvertently brushing one of her breasts in the process, and buttoned it up. He suffered a pang of guilt, condemning himself for even thinking about what he never should have done.

  There ensued two hours of struggle. What had seemed open in the daytime seemed impenetrable in the darkness. Branches loomed out of nothingness to bar their passage, and vines caught at their feet. They were both tired from the prior day's exertions.

  But Tappy was driven by some imperative he could not fathom, and despite his misgivings some of it translated to him. They scrambled together for the summit, heedless of the bruises on their bodies and the tears in their clothing. The night was chilly but they were laboring so hard it didn't matter; in fact, IT helped them keep going.

  As they got closer to the top, Tappy's urgency only increased.

  She was desperate to GET THERE FASTER AND THAT COMMUNICATED itself to him; he found his heart beating with more than the considerable exertion. When they encountered the worst of the climb, where a section was almost vertical, he picked her up and virtually hurled her to the higher ledge, then scrambled up himself. It was all moss and grass and dirt, no sharp edges, but at this point they didn't care about abrasions. They had to get there at the ultimate speed.

  The sky was thinking about brightening as they made it to the edge of the bald summit. Just as well; he had turned off his flashlight whenever he could, to conserve its waning power, but it had almost expired by this time. Now Tappy clambered up so quickly that he could hardly keep up. They would be at the top to see the dawn come in-yet what was that to her, blind?

  could it be that she was recovering her sight? Had she wanted to test it on the most wonderful thing she remembered, the sunrise? Yet she had given no evidence of sight; she had not flinched when his flashlight played across her face.

  She charged, panting, toward the rock that had fascinated her by day, gesturing to him to follow. She oriented on it unerringly, as though she could see it.

  They came there, and almost collapsed on the stone. Tappy was so excited she was virtually dancing; her smudged face shone with expectancy. She grasped his hand with her left, and with her right reached out to touch the rock.

  Nothing happened, of course. He touched it with his free hand, somehow feeling the need to verify its solidity. It was cool and hard, exactly as a rock should be.

  "But what brought you here?" he asked her.

  She clung to his hand, not responding, not disappointed. She stood by the rock, expectantly.

  "Tappy, I want to understand," he said. "You brought me here for a reason. You can tell me, if you want to. I have heard you speak in your sleep. Please, I want so much to know about you.

  Maybe if you talk, you won't have to go to that clinic. Anything '-can do-"

  She faced him, her eyes not quite finding his. She spread her hands in a gesture of incapacity. She would not, or could not, speak to him in words.

  He started to move away, but instantly she grabbed him, catching his shirt. She would not let him leave.

  "All right , I'll wait," he said. "Just let me sit down." He turned, to settle on the rock.

  This time she almost tackled him. She shoved him away from the rock, but held his arm, refusing to let him go either.

  He could not understand what she wanted, but he waited with her there by the rock while the sky brightened gloriously in the east. Dawn was coming. Too bad he had not brought his paints.

  Every few seconds Tappy touched the rock, delicately, as if afraid it would explode. There was something about it that mesmERIZED him MAKING him Fall, losing touch with such reality as she had known?

  The sunrise swelled to its full wonder. He was tired and battered, but he loved it. He stood there, describing its colors to Tappy, as the phases of it manifested.

  Then the first beam of direct sunlight speared through and touched the rock. He was remarking on that, aloud, when T
appy grasped his hand again, and reached for the rock once more.

  This time her hand passed into it. It was as if the stone were fog.

  As he stared, not quite believing his eyes, she made an inchoate sound and half stepped, half tumbled into the rock.

  Her body disappeared within it. He opened his mouth to exclaim in amazement-but then her trailing hand hauled on his arm, urgently drawing him after her.

  Jack understood none of this, except for one thing: Tappy was not crazy. She had somehow known that this rock would change, and that she could enter it as the first sunbeam touched it. It had been some kind of a window, a portal-to what? To Imago?

  Her hand tugged again, becoming desperate. Tappy was going there, unafraid, and she wanted him with her. could he refuse?

  What was there to hold him in his familiar world? Trial on a charge of rape? No, he had reason to go elsewhere. Far elsewhere!

  He knew that if he took any time at all to think about it, he would know better. He had no business stepping into rocks! But he could not let her go alone.

  Jack entered the rock. Its substance enveloped him, passing across his body with a faint electrical tingle. Then his head followed, and he was through.

  LATER, he wondered why he had entered the immense boulder.

  If he had stopped to consider the other dangers that might await them, he would have yanked Tappy from the boulder.

  His will and his reason at that moment seemed to have stepped outside for a chat, leaving his body without guidance. He felt numb, though something thrilled beneath the crystalline surface of his frozen brain. Still not believing that he would find the rock anything but impenetrable or that he could ignore its petrous imperative, he stepped forward. He did not know what to expect when his hand, holding Tappy's, went into the rock.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Except for the honking leader, all were SILENT.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Most of it seemed to be covered with green and scarlet plants, the branches of which surelY extended over the minI Streams that must run down from the walls. There had to be a lot of rainfall to keep all this vegetation alive.

  Now he could see more clearly what had seemed to be just splotches on the crater walls when he had been in the valley. The entire circle of crater wall was covered with gigantic figures and symbols.

  The walls had to be at least thirty miles away. Perhaps fifty.