The Caterpillar's Question by Piers Anthony and Philip José Farmer (21 page)

Tappy looked anything but happy. In fact, her left hand was gripping her right hand tightly, and she was biting her lip.

"What's the matter?" he said.

She shook her head.

He said, "You are troubled. Don't deny it. I have to know what it is."

He picked up the recorder from the little table and nudged her shoulder with it. After she had taken it, he handed her the stylus.

"Tell me," he said.

She wrote: I reely dont know but I get paniky, sick at my stomik, feel cold as ice, when I think of being hipnutizd.

She added: Please dont make me do it.

She was terrified. Why? Because, he was sure, whoever had installed that block had also put in a command to make her resist fiercely any attempt to remove it. Since he did not intend to have her hypnotized, he found it easy to reassure her.

He said, "Don't be afraid. We won't do it. You're safe from that. I swear."

She relaxed at once and smiled, though shakily.

Now, though, she would fight against anything she could interpret as an attempt to probe her mind. The only thing to do was to sedate her while she was asleep and then have the AI insert the false memories. He hated the idea. Nevertheless, it had to be done.

He pulled her up from the chair and held her tightly. She was still trembling and did not quit until several minutes passed. He spoke soothingly and told her that, somehow, things would work out well. Though she probably did not believe him, she may have found some comfort in his words. Perhaps, she was interpreting his embrace and his concern as an expression of his love for her.

That made him feel even more traitorous.

What a Judas he was!

Finally, he released her. It was evident that she did not want him to do that, but he held her at arm's length, one hand resting lightly on her shoulder. "I have to talk to the AI," he said. "I'll be back. First, though, is there anything I can get them to get for you? They can probably provide anything you'll want."

Except safety and peace of mind and my love, he thought.

She wrote: Id love a big reel big mug of hot coco with a marshmello.

The child's spelling caused him to be engulfed with tenderness. She was a child, and she had been terribly wronged. And now he was wronging her.

"I'll do that," he said. "Be back shortly."

He started to withdraw his hand. She grabbed it and held on. Then she made signs with one hand that she wanted to go with him. "I'm very sorry," he said. "I just can't do that."

He gently pulled his hand away and walked out of the room. By the time he got to the fountain, an AI, a female, was waiting for him.

He told it about Tappy's request for cocoa.

"It'll be ready for you when you go back," the AI said.

"Put a sedative in it," Jack said. "She needs to sleep a long time while we're planning what kind of memories to give her. And when we're ready to insert them, she'll need something to make her unconscious before she's put wherever you plan to put her during the operation."

"It will be done. She must be very disturbed. We received impressions of great fear from her."

"Do you blame her?" Jack said.

"We don't blame or praise," the AI said.

"You just do the job you were made for, right? Give me the cocoa. I'll take it to her and stay with her until she falls asleep."

He was startled, though he should have been prepared for something like it, when the waves appeared behind the AI. They suddenly cleared to reveal another AI, a male. It held on a tray a mug with at least a quart of steaming cocoa and a huge marshmallow floating on it. He took it. About six minutes later, he returned. The male was gone.

"It didn't take long," he said. "She fell asleep before she'd drunk a quarter of the cocoa."

He had thought that he would be taken to the city-ship for the conference. But the female AI, Candy, was the only one he saw, and they stayed in the entrance room. He sat down on a pile of huge pillows and made notes on the recorder while they talked. Candy stood in one place and moved only its lips. Its lack of the gestures and twitchings and slight shiftings of the bodies all humans make while talking bothered Jack. It also lessened his feeling that the AI were human. Though he had known they were androids, he had clothed them with humanity, with real life. Now they were naked of these. They were just machines. So, what was he doing talking with machines?

It was, he acknowledged, better than having no one to talk to. After they had covered various possibilities, Jack said, "Okay, here's how it'll go, if you agree it can be done. You'll make and then insert about seven major memories per year over a seven-year period. Forty-nine very strong incidents. That is, memories of incidents which have been powerful in maturing her.

"Then you'll insert a number of lesser incidents. Things that might not be significant to other people but Tappy will remember... seem to remember, anyway... because they're important to her. Things mostly pleasurable, I'd say. She might as well have some happiness in her past even though they're false memories."

"Seven years is a long time for a human," Candy said. "And, as I understand it, time seems to go more slowly for a youth than for an adult. The older you get, the faster time seems to go. Is that correct?"

"That's what older people say," Jack said. "I know that my childhood seemed to stretch out for a much longer time than when I was a teenager." "Then, logically, shouldn't she have more memories in the earlier years of her pseudomemories than she has in the later years? The first four of her seven years should contain more memories than the last three?"

"Not necessary," Jack said. "Just give her a sense of extended time during those years, the feeling that the first four were the longest. For the last year, though, since the events of that year will seem to be the most recent, you should increase the number of pseudomemories."

Writing a scenario for seven years was not easy and required much rewriting. Tappy had awakened before dawn. Jack had to quit work, talk to her awhile, and give her another sedative in a fresh cup of cocoa. She was not aware that much time had passed between the two drinks.

While he ate breakfast, he worked on the scenario. Though he desperately wanted to sleep, he kept writing and talking to Candy until he had completed his work. Then he said, "You can start work on the memories."

"It seems satisfactory," Candy said.

It was silent and unmoving for a minute. Jack's eyes were drooping; his body sagged; he felt that his immediate surroundings were sliding in and out, in and out. They seemed to be drawers filled with tableaux which someone invisible was pulling out and then shutting.

Suddenly, Candy was shaking his shoulder. Jack said, "Wha... ? Wha'ss going on?"

"You were sleeping," Candy said. "We didn't want to wake you up, but you should know that the work is complete. Tappy has her seven years of pseudomemories."

That brought him up off the pillows and to a standing position. His legs felt numb, his back ached, and his brain seemed to be filled with antifreeze.

"How, how long have I been asleep?"

"Fifteen minutes and thirty-two seconds," Candy said.

"That quick?"

"The scenario was prepared while you wrote it out, and the changes were made immediately," the AI said.

"I thought you had to take Tappy to the equipment!"

"You assumed that. All the pseudodata was transmitted to her mind while she slept in the bedroom."

Jack asked for a large mug of black coffee. It arrived about ten seconds later, carried by a male AI. After Jack had downed the hot liquid as swiftly as he could stand it, he walked to the bedroom and looked in it. By then, the sun had come up, but the pole lights were still on. Tappy was sleeping on her side. She was in a new nightgown. Near her, on hangers on a line, were her new clothes.

Her old clothes had been stripped off and thrown away. When she woke up, she would have to have different garments, of course. In fact, one of the false memories was of throwing the original nightgown away.

Held in one arm was a big fuzzy teddy bear. That had been given her, supposedly several years ago, as a birthday gift. She had, supposedly, asked for it, and, since then, had used it as her No. 2 security blanket. Her No. 1 was Jack himself.

The suspended bed had been replaced by a conventional one. It was large enough for Tappy and Jack to romp around on in sexual play. Jack was supposed to have been sleeping with her for the last five years.

The formerly bare room was now filled with many things: furniture, machines that played the music of many planets, though not of Earth, dolls, an ice-cream dispensing machine, a table loaded with cosmetics, which she supposedly used for makeup, and a mirror she could not use as yet, games for blind people, and dozens of other items, some useful, some recreational.

One of the AI had followed Jack to the bedroom entrance. Jack turned to it.

"The Imago?" he said very softly. "Shouldn't it be manifesting itself?"

His heart battered his chest hard. He felt a great fear and awe. It was as if he would soon be in the presence of the living God.

He did not know if he could endure such an experience. His flesh would become wax and would melt in the terrible light and heat. He looked at Tappy and drought he saw, for a second, something stirring in her, something no human eyes could look upon without being seared.

"Why doesn't it wake her up?" he said softly. His voice trembled.

Part of his fear was the knowledge that she would no longer be the Tappy he had known. She would be a fleshly tool of the Imago.

"What do you mean?" me AI said.

"It... the Imago... should awaken her when it awakens."

"I don't know why," the AI said. It added, "There's no guarantee that the woman will have matured. Even though she may think she's seven years older, her body might not. Or her subconscious may not be fooled. Or the Imago may perceive the truth."

"Can you give her a shot of something to make her wake up?"

"It's better to allow her to awake naturally."

At that moment, Tappy turned onto her back.

Jack said, "For God's sake!"

Her nightgown revealed the top half of her breasts. Between them was a bulge the size of a large egg. The tight and dark red skin over it looked as if it were about to burst. Around it at its base was a purplish swelling. A yellowish liquid shone on its surface, and that oozed out even as Jack stared at it.

He strode to her bedside and reluctantly touched the skin on top of the bulge. It was fever-hot. Her forehead felt hot, too, though it was cooler than the bulge.

"The egg the honker inserted!" he said. "It's infected!"

"No. It's just grown," the AI said. It put a finger on the bulge and then on Tappy's forehead. "Notice how much weight she seems to have lost in the last few hours. The egg's grown so fast it's sucked energy from her. The whole process probably involves an enormous expenditure of energy. She should be all right as soon as the process is completed."

"What does this mean for Tappy?"

Despite the AI's reassurance, Jack was certain that she was sick and that she could die from the disease.

"I do not know. It must be part of the Imago's maturing process. Or hers. Or both. Or it could have nothing to do with the Imago. We'll have to wait and observe."

Tappy, though still sleeping-- or unconscious from the fever-- jerked. That was followed by a twitching of her hands, which then became motionless. Her eyelids fluttered but did not open. Then a line redder than the rest of the skin appeared on the very top of the bulge. One end was pointed toward her chin; the other, toward her navel.

Then the break gaped like two thin lips. A few seconds later, it extended itself for a half inch on each side of the bulge, revealing something dark greenish below it. Then the line very quickly ran down both sides and disappeared into the purplish fester.

"We have to do something!" Jack cried.

"We can only wait and observe."

The line bisecting the skin gap on the top widened slightly.

The greenish round thing pushed upward a trifle.

The AI, standing by Jack, touched his shoulder. He looked up and then behind him as the AI gestured to him.

A haze just beyond the entrance was clearing. It cleared, revealing a female AI. It walked in swiftly and stopped a few feet from Jack before speaking with the usual emotionless tones of the androids.

If it had been human, it would have screamed out the news.

"The Gaol have found us!"

Chapter 9

A flurry of questions surged through Jack's mind. Could they flee again? Obviously not, or the AI would have done so. Could they fight the Gaol? Same answer. Could they talk the Gaol out of it? Unlikely.

Jack realized that their ploy to age Tappy in her fancy, so as to evoke the Imago immediately, no longer mattered. The Imago might be awake, or it might still be asleep; either way, the Gaol had won, because they had closed in too soon. There just hadn't been time!

He sighed. This was the part he hated. "Then do what you have to do," he told the AI.

"And what is that?"

"Destroy us both. So the Imago will be freed to seek another host. It's the only way we can foil the Gaol now."

"We are unable to do that."

Jack was perversely annoyed. "What do you mean, unable? You told me that you would do it, to prevent the Imago from falling into Gaol power. There's very little time left. So do it now, while you can."

The scene was fading or changing. The exotic vegetation he had first seen from the station's window appeared around them. The AI assumed better definition, and became the voluptuous creature he had named Candy. "No."

"No? Why?"

"Because we no longer serve the Imago. We have been taken over by the Gaol and are now agents of the empire."

Jack saw the awful logic of it. Naturally the Gaol knew how to handle the AI. They had nullified those androids at the outset, before physically taking over the station. Maybe they had managed to deceive the AI about their approach, so that the AI thought they had more time than they did.