The Caterpillar's Question by Piers Anthony and Philip José Farmer (13 page)

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.