The Caterpillars Question - txt Read online

  She did not reply. Angered and bewildered, he walked closely behind her. He had to break his surly silence to warn her of a house-sized boulder ahead of her. As if she already knew that it was there, she walked up to it and began feeling its rough reddish side. Shaking her head, she went around it and walked on northward.

  An hour before dusk, they stopped. He made another fire and recooked the meat, which was too rare for him. Its blood and grease had coated the inside of his jacket pocket and drawn a bloom of pesky flying midges that he had to keep brushing off. These also bit savagely, making him even more angry. After they had eaten, however— the pancake-sized vegetables were raw but delicious, tasting like a mixture of cheese and asparagus— he began reproaching himself. He should not have bad feelings toward her. He could have refused to go into that gateway-boulder with her, and she must be under some kind of obsession or compulsion or both. Under a "spell," so to speak.

  He continued on the same path of thought while climbing trees to search for a place to bed down. When he found one, he kept only half his mind on the task of finding dead branches on the ground and getting them up into the tree and placing them with their ends across two limbs. The auxiliary branches and the knobs and sharp points were removed, smoothed off with his jackknife. His knife was getting duller, he noted. The time would come when it would be useless, and the lighter would be empty. That thought made him feel panicky. However, perhaps he could trade more coins with a honker for a flint knife or an axe.

  Shortly after the moon had risen, they were lying on their platform of hard branches. These were far from comfortable, and they could get warmth and softness only in each other and the little protection their clothes gave. Tappy was in his arms, his jacket spread over their upper parts. She hummed a tune he had never heard before, then fell asleep. The leg brace, which she had taken off, lay between her legs. Though he was very tired, he could not sink as swiftly as she into merciful unconsciousness.

  He could not stop trying to make sense of what had happened, to find a pattern in the events that would give them an order and a goal.

  Just how were Tappy's relatives— the two who had reluctantly given her a home— involved? Had they really been so eager to get rid of her? Was that eagerness an act? Could they have known somehow that Tappy was far more than she appeared to be? Mr. Melvin E. Daw and his wife, Michaela, upper-middle-class people, affluent, had seemed pleasant enough, though they had not been able to hide their dislike of Tappy. Their instructions on how he was to take Tappy to the clinic had been specific. But they had certainly not volunteered any information to answer his unspoken questions. They had given him a map of the route he was to take to New Hampshire and had stressed that he should not deviate from it. Why? There were other roads he could have taken.

  Could they possibly have directed him to that road by which was the rural motel he and Tappy had stayed in? Could they have estimated his traveling time so that he would take lodging there overnight? There were, as far as he knew, no other motels in that area.

  How could the Daws have known that he and Tappy would go up that hill and find that boulder?

  Reviewing the conversation with the Daws and their gestures and expressions, he thought that what had seemed innocent enough then was now sinister. That interpretation, however, could be shaped by his suspicions, which had been shaped by the bizarre events occurring after they had stopped at the motel.

  And how could a blind thirteen-year-old know, consciously or unconsciously, that the gateway-boulder was there? How could she even know about gates to other worlds?

  Something— when and how he could not guess— had been implanted in her. It was driving her toward a goal that she could not explain or would not explain because something was keeping her from doing so.

  "Empire of the stars."

  A science-fiction cliche, essence of corn.

  "Reality is a dream."

  First said by some ancient Chinese philosopher.

  "Larva... Chrysalis... Imago."

  Entomological. But he did not think that these words applied to insects.

  "Alien menace... only chance is to use the radiator."

  That radiator certainly was not part of an automobile.

  "Alien menace..."

  He shivered. He had been conditioned by too many movies with horrible and evil monsters from outer space.

  But that did not mean that such things did not exist.

  He was in a situation which needed a superhero to deal with it, and he was far from being a Flash Gordon or Luke Skywalker. He was not even a good imitation. He had never shot a gun and knew nothing of fencing or the martial arts beyond what he had seen in films.

  He awoke from a nightmare. He had been in his studio, a studio that had never existed in reality but one he had imagined he would have some day. Bright sunlight fell through the enormous skylight like the shower of gold that had impregnated Danae, bathing a nude Tappy in the center of the room. Not the Tappy he knew, but an older and fully developed young woman. He was before his easel and had the portrait almost done. All he needed were a few more strokes of the brush to get her face just right, to give it a hint of the ethereal. No, of the unearthly.

  The light darkened. Looking up, he saw that black clouds had slid under the sun, though the sky had been, a moment ago, without a trace of the nebulous. Then the clouds lowered green-gray tendrils-tentacles— and somehow they came through skylight glass and began misting the room. He could see Tappy only vaguely now.

  The horror did not begin at once. It was hidden behind the swirling fingers of the cloud as they reached out for him. They touched him at the same time that he saw that Tappy's skin had become greasy. The glistening fatty exudation dripped from her as if she were a burning candle and pooled around her feet.

  The shiny and greasy stuff began to rise before her. Very quickly, Tappy became gaunt, and then she was skin wrapped around bones. Now she was walking toward him, her arms held out. The figure forming from the grease had been left behind, but it was sliding along behind her on the trail. He could see through Tappy's skin and bones despite the weak light, and he could see that the figure was a rapidly swelling replica of her.

  He wanted to scream but could not. His throat was plugged with semi-liquid fat rising from deep within himself.

  Tappy's hand almost touched him. The figure behind her reached around her, slid her arm along Tappy's outstretched arm, and shot her hand toward his mouth.

  He came out of the nightmare to find himself groaning.

  Though the moon did not relieve the darkness much, he could see Tappy's eyes staring at him. But she could not see him at all, of course. Or could she?

  She muttered something. He said, "It's all right. Go back to sleep."

  She closed her eyes and began snoring softly.

  Larva... Chrysalis... Imago, he thought.

  Was she going to change from what she was now into something as different as a larva was from an imago? Or did those words apply to someone else?

  Then one of those sudden and unexplainable shifts of mind happened, and he began worrying that he might have made her pregnant. After a while, he dismissed the worry with a rueful grin. They were in a situation so serious that the chance that she might have a baby was a slight problem. As of now, anyway. Nine months from now, it might be very grave. If they lived that long.

  He fell asleep again, and he was making love to Mullins Blanchflower, if what he was doing could be called making love. He awoke at the tail end of a wet dream, wondering why his unconscious would choose Mullins for his dream partner. She was a rather plain and chubby girl he had known in high school, though not in the biblical sense. He had never consciously wished to make her. But copulation with undesirable girls had happened occasionally in his night fantasies. The unconscious was a tricky and unpredictable bastard.

  He thought: Now I'll have to wash out my shorts. And I thought I was too tired, hungry, and miserable even to contemplate screwing. If I'd known ho
w things were going to be, I'd have tried it with Tappy. But then she'd have been too tired, hungry, and wretched or would have thought she was. Anyway, for God's sake, I was just worrying about her maybe being pregnant. Of course, there are other ways to get off. But she might not be ready for those.

  What a jerk I am!

  He was lying on his side, and something— it must be Tappy's leg— was next to his chest and stomach. He opened his eyes and saw her profile, though dimly. He also saw something dark astride her legs and leaning far forward. Her body was bare to just above her breasts. The nightgown had been pulled up above them.

  He tried to shout and at the same time to rise and grab the thing sitting on Tappy. He could only tremble; his throat and tongue seemed numb; his body had no more muscles than a log. He hurled his will at his body, screaming at it to move. But he was as lax as if he had been bitten by a poisonous snake.

  Now he was able to see the figure on her a little better than when he had awakened. Though it was not raping Tappy, as he had first thought, he did not lose any of his sickening fright. It was bending far over her, its face against her breasts or between them. Then it sat upright, pulled its legs up, and got to its feet. Jack rolled his eyes sidewise to keep its head in sight. He could make out, dimly, the knight's-helmet face of a honker, and its male organ. It-he-bent over to look down at Jack. His tongue moved far out and then back in. Faint as the light was, it showed the white thorny tip at the end of the honker's tongue.

  The honker patted Jack on the forehead as if it were reassuring or comforting him. It turned away, still bending over, and placed something between Tappy's breasts. Then it climbed slowly down from the platform and faded into the blackness.

  Jack, sweating despite the chill, wondered if he was to stay paralyzed until he starved to death or, more likely, was eaten alive by beasts or insects. Then he felt ashamed, because he had considered his own plight before thinking of Tappy's.

  He did not know how much time had passed when he began to be able to move his fingers and toes. After a little while, he could turn his head. Some time later, he could utter some slurred words and lift his arms and legs. Meanwhile, Tappy was also making sounds and moving her head and limbs. Presently, both he and she sat up. Something fell from her chest and between her legs onto the platform. She lifted it up and put it close to her eyes, though why she would do that when she was blind Jack did not know. She handed it to him. As soon as he had it in his hand, he knew that it was the quarter he had given the honker in exchange for the food.

  He did not have time to think about the implications of its return. Thinking would have done no good, anyway. Tappy, weeping, was in his arms. Jack stroked her bare back and told her that everything was okay. She shook her head, rubbing her face against his chest. Then she pulled away, took his right hand, and placed it between her breasts.

  He said, "My God!"

  A hard swelling the size of a marble was under her skin. It felt very warm.

  She touched the side of her neck and put the tip of her finger on the side of his neck. The pressure made him aware that where she had touched was very tender. He felt sicker. The honker must have stuck the thorny tip on its tongue into their necks and injected a temporarily paralyzing poison.

  When dawn came, they climbed down and washed their hands and faces to refresh themselves. Jack decided that he would wash out his shorts and bathe when the air became much warmer. He told Tappy to lift her nightgown so that he could examine the swelling between her breasts. It had grown no bigger, and the skin over it did not seem as warm. As far as he could determine, there was no break in the skin. However, when full sunlight came, he looked closely at it and saw a very small reddish dot in the center.

  The honker had stuck the thorny excrescence— maybe it was an organ— into her chest. The thorn must be both a poison injector and an ovipositor, though he did not know if an egg had been shot through the thorn's hollow shaft into her. Whatever it was that had been planted just under the skin, it had grown very fast.

  Or was there some other explanation?

  "For God's sake, Tappy," he said, "If you have any idea of what's going on, you must tell me if you can! Talk! Please talk!"

  Tappy, looking distressed, shook her head. Her index finger felt the round lump.

  He mastered the impulse to grab her by the throat and force words out of her. That would not do it, he knew, or thought he knew, but he felt that he had to do something to get answers to his questions. If he did not soon get at least a little explanation of what had been happening, he would go crazy, amok, completely out of his mind.

  At that moment, a deep thrumming came from above. He seized her hand and pulled her along until he came to one of the narrow breaks in the forest ceiling. Above him, far up, was something enormous. It was descending slowly, and the sound it was making becoming ever louder.

  "It's got to be that ship I saw outlined by the moon," he muttered.

  Though the size of the vessel was awesome and its mission was unknown and, thus, possibly dangerous for him and Tappy, he almost felt relief. Whatever happened, he might be able to get some answers. Though it was probable that he would not like them.

  He told Tappy to stay where she was while he climbed a tree. She looked frightened but nodded. When he got to the top of the tree, he could see the bottom of a truly titanic ring. It had to be at least a mile in diameter and two hundred feet thick. The purplish-gray sides went up for an indeterminate distance, and from its upper edge curved many gigantic metal beams of the same color as the circular base. The curving beams or ribs met at the center to form an open cap or cage. Here and there boxlike structures clung to the circle at the bottom and along the sides of the ribs. There were no rocket exhausts, no obvious means of propulsion.

  As the vessel dropped closer, the thrumming became a roar that was so loud he thought he would scream. Standing on a branch, with one arm wrapped around the thin trunk top, he put his fingertips into his ears. That did not help much.

  The circular structure was now about two hundred feet above but a quarter of a mile away. At that moment, the coins, his wrist-watch, his jackknife, everything metallic in his pockets, became hot. He tried to get rid of them before they burned him, but he was slowed down because he had to cling to the trunk with one hand. His fingers were scorched before he had thrown the hot objects down through the branches. He climbed down to find that Tappy had removed her leg brace. They clung tightly to each other while the bellowing around them became so loud that it seemed solid.

  Suddenly, there was silence. He looked up through the break and saw, far up, some of the curving ribs. The weight of the machine must have crushed trees beneath it, and its lower edge must have sunk deep into the ground. He released Tappy, and she sat down, pale and shaking.

  An animal resembling a furless anteater ran past them. Jack could not fully hear its whining and its claws slapping the ground, but at least his hearing was beginning to return.

  Tappy groped around until she found her leg brace. She touched it gingerly, then picked it up. It had cooled off by now.

  Jack, not knowing what else to do, wanting to do something, began looking for the items he had discarded. But he stopped. Tappy was holding the brace up with one hand and feeling along its inner side. That had been covered with a soft thick fabric to prevent skin-chafing, hut it had been partially melted away. At one end of the inner side was a long and narrow opening. It had been hidden by a panel that had, for some reason, slid into a recess in the brace.

  He said, "Hold it, Tappy! Wait!"

  He took the brace from her and examined the opening. There were six tiny orange-colored buttons inside, two rows of three, with a somewhat larger scarlet button at the head of the rows.

  "What the hell!"

  He seemed to have been saying that a lot lately.

  Only a baby's fingers could have pushed one button without pushing another next to it. He said, "We got something here, Tappy. Just what I don't know."

&
nbsp; He took one of the pencils from the leather holder in his jacket pocket. Holding the pencil in his right hand, he gripped the brace in the middle, and he pointed one end at a nearby tree but away from his body. He made sure that the other end did not point at Tappy.

  "Maybe I shouldn't," he said. "Do I know what I'm doing? No. But I'll do it, anyway."

  Using the eraser end of the pencil, he pressed on the larger, scarlet button. Nothing happened. Had he really thought that it would?

  He paused to tell Tappy what he was doing. She looked surprised but not as much as he had expected.

  He said, "It can't be a weapon, Tappy. It'd be too awkward to use as such, unless..."

  Perhaps it was a weapon, but the designer had been forced to camouflage it as a leg brace and, hence, could not avoid cumbersomeness in its handling.

  He placed the pencil end on one of the orange buttons nearest to the scarlet button.