The Caterpillars Question

Chapter 18

Jack strode toward the shaman. "What happened?" he cried. "What happened?"

The Integrator, of course, did not understand him. Jack asked Tappy, who was behind him, to interpret for him. But the shaman dropped the Gaol head, hobbled to her, fell on his knees, and put his bloodied arms around her legs. His head was bent back as he stared up at her and honked loudly.

She said, "He's dumbfounded. How did we get out of the Land of the Shadow? He says that no one who goes through the death-shadow ever returns to this land. He cannot understand it."

The other Latest, fallen silent, listened while she told her story to the shaman. Then he got up to his feet, somewhat shakily, and he began to dance. The others joined him. Jack waited until the jubilation had died down somewhat.

"Now," he said, "ask him what happened back there."

She did so, but, first, the shaman had the head brought to him. While he issued a long series of blasts, he waved the ghastly head around and his tentacle thrashed. His one good eye glared, and the snake and the navel-beast twisted frenziedly. These two had aided the Integrator greatly in his struggle with the captain, and the shaman's tentacles had spurted poison into him. The Gaol must have felt as if he had been attacked by five people, not just one aged honker. Nevertheless, the captain had fought well.

The other honkers interspersed their comments or encouragement while the shaman "talked." Perhaps, these were their equivalent of "Right on!" or "Hallelujah! Amen!" Toward the end, the shaman's excitement swept through them, and they began a war dance, waving their spears, stomping their feet, mock-fighting, and whirling around and around. The sun glistened on the fungus-deterrent grease they had smeared on their bodies; their feet, slamming onto the hard earth, made a primitive beat which echoed in the ears and the blood. Even Jack was not unaffected by it.

When the shaman had finished, his warriors continued making a hullabaloo. Candy had come up to Jack meanwhile but stood without speaking. Her right shoulder and left leg had been wounded, but these were healing swiftly.

"They saw us escape through the death-shadow," Tappy said. "However, they're too strongly conditioned against going through the shadows. Millennia of taboos keep them from even getting close to them, plus horror stories about them. They would die before they'd enter one."

And, dying, they would go to that world, anyway, Jack thought.

The airboat, which the honkers had appropriated from the spaceship, was speeding across the plain. It contained only one person, the pilot. Apparently, it was simple to operate. Otherwise, this untrained honker wouldn't be able to handle it.

"As soon as we jumped through the shadow, they fled into the woods, only two of them being hit, one killed, one wounded," Tappy continued. "When they got there, they released the venomous flies they hadn't had a chance to let loose in the ship because the bubbles had enclosed them too swiftly. Then the three with beamers shot at the robots. The flies injected their venom in the human Gaol who followed the robots, and the Gaol dropped where they stood. Cyborgs came out, too, and the flies bit their metal coverings in vain. But enough stung the few areas of exposed flesh surface to paralyze them, too. This discouraged the few surviving Gaol.

"Candy and the Latest could have gotten away down the shaft inside the tree. But the shaman feared that the ship's heavy rays would be used to excavate the earth and pursue the warriors until they were caught and wiped out. So, he gave the order to charge. They lost a few, but they got all those who had come out of the ship. Then the Integrator had all the flies released inside the ship. He thinks that the detectors in the ship weren't set for anything which had a mass as small as the flies did. Or the detectors weren't working because the fungus had gotten to them. In any event, the flies swarmed all over the ship, barred only from entering rooms with closed hatches. There weren't many of those, and none of the crew except the captain was protected then by a bubble."

"But the captain still had his involition radiator," Jack said.

"Not by then!" Tappy said. She gave a short nervous laugh.

"The fungus was still working in some parts of the ship. It caused malfunctions in the involition radiator mechanism. It might've been quickly repaired if the technicians hadn't been paralyzed or killed or locked in rooms with closed hatches. The automatic mechanical-repair devices were also malfunctioning. But he did order robots to troubleshoot the circuits. They might've done the job in time to restore the radiator before the honkers entered. But they had a big task because so much equipment and so many cables were impaired."

"How did the Integrator know that?" Jack said. "I'd think he'd have been afraid to venture into the ship."

"He sent Candy to scout it. She isn't subject to the involition broadcaster. Why should she be? The Gaol had her programmed to do all they wanted her to do. It never occurred to them when they made her that she would resist their commands. They didn't figure on the Imago empathy affecting her."

"And?"

"And she went in and looked the situation over and then returned to report."

"And the honkers stormed on in?"

"Right. But by then the captain, who had been in the bubble, had managed to get a gas-supplier to him. By a still-functioning robot, I suppose. I don't think he could have communicated with the robot by radio or whatever means he normally used. The equipment for that would've been impaired by the fungus. He probably used hand signals or whatever to tell the robot to bring protective cloths and a gas-supplier to him. The supplier was some sort of scuba device, according to the Integrator. The captain was protected against the fly bites by heavy blankets thrown over his exterior skeleton, by gloves, and so forth, also brought by the robot. The captain was out of the bubble and just about to operate the ship controls manually when the Latest showed up. The Integrator said he doubts that the captain could have worked the controls because the fungus probably had wrecked all the electrical circuits.

"Anyway, the Integrator attacked the captain in the control room. Instead of just shooting the captain, who didn't have a weapon yet, he tackled him with bare hands."

"Why?" Jack said. "That was stupid!"

"Not by honker standards. It's something to do with their honor and prestige. Anyway, the shaman and the captain had an awful struggle while the other honkers stood by and watched. They'd been ordered not to interfere. Of course, if the Gaol won, then the bonkers could shoot him. Despite losing an eye and a tentacle, the shaman strangled the captain and then cut off his head as a trophy. The honkers will sing a song about the epic fight for a long time."

"Sing? They can't sing."

"Their equivalent, anyway."

The Latest were jubilant and should be. They had, from their viewpoint, won a great victory. But it was really only a very small battle which did not affect the course of the war. The Gaol empire was set back a trifle, and it would not be long before their forces would be here. If, indeed, they were not already here. He looked at the sky. Only a few wispy clouds floated there. However, there could be hundreds of space-dreadnoughts assembled in a stationary orbit, and he would not be able to see them.

Tappy put her hand on his arm.

"Look!"

He turned. Here came the airboat shooting across the plain. Though he could not distinguish individual figures at this distance from it, he could see that the interior of the vessel was crowded with honkers. Something else had also been loaded into the air-boat. By the time that it stopped about forty feet from him, he recognized the Gaol cyborg, Garth. It was partly exposed through the pile of honkers on it.

The canopy slid back. Honkers spilled out, reminding him of the tiny circus cars from which a seemingly unending line of clowns emerged. Other honkers had unloaded a collapsible wooden ramp— how had they crammed that into the vessel?— and had propped it up against the edge of the canopy.

Garth rolled out of the boat on his wheels. When it had gotten to the ground, the honkers pulled the ramp away. The Integrator spoke to an aide, and she hurried to the pilot and conversed with him. Then the canopy slid shut, the boat rose, turned, and accelerated away.

Garth came speedily to Tappy. It whistled a long series of dots and dashes. When it stopped, Candy said, "Garth says that it is ready to interpret for the commander of the fleet."

"Fleet?" Jack said, but he knew what she meant.

Candy pointed upward. He looked again at the sky and still saw only clouds.

"Garth has been receiving messages for the last half hour," Candy said.

Tappy spoke as if she were suddenly short of breath. "What did the commander say?"

"She wants to send down a negotiator. He'll come down in a small vessel, and he'll be alone and unarmed. He just wants to present the empire's demands."

"I thought he wanted to negotiate?"

"The Gaol don't know the difference between demanding and negotiating. You should know that, Jack."

"Yeah, I know. Candy, when does the commander want the meeting to take place?"

"As soon as possible."

"Tell Garth to tell the commander she'll get the time of the meeting shortly. We have to confer about it first."

While the android was whistling at the cyborg, Jack swiftly considered the possible consequences of permitting the Gaol to come down in the spaceboat. Why this face-to-face confrontation? Why not just talk via Garth? It could not be because the commander wanted a close look at the situation. She could see them as clearly through her instruments as if she were hovering just above them.

Maybe she thought that her demands would be much more powerful if they were delivered personally. Issuing from a scary-looking creature with its ratcage-body, its brutal face, and its lack of brainpan, the demands would have an impact that could not be matched by messages relayed via Garth.

But then the Gaol probably did not think of themselves as frighteningly alien and horrible. On the other hand, they must have observed that their appearance did nauseate the bipedal species they had encountered. See a Gaol; feel like throwing up.

It was an anthropocentric reaction, but it was natural.

The Gaol would not wish to destroy the Imago's host except as a last resort. Did the Gaol believe that this situation demanded that Tappy be killed? He did not think so. It had not developed to the point where they would say, "Screw it!" and then kill her. Not yet, anyway, though it could lead to that.

It was not likely that the negotiator's boat was armed or equipped with an atom bomb. The Gaol would not have to depend upon that to kill Tappy if the commander decided that that was the only solution to their problem. Missiles launched from the orbiting ships could do that work much more effectively and with no warning at all.

He told Candy and Tappy what he had been thinking.

"The Gaol boat might be equipped with remote-controlled machinery," he said. "Controlled either by the negotiator or, more likely, from the spaceship by the commander. She might have ideas about abducting you, Tappy. I don't know how, but I'm thinking of something like paralyzing gas sprayed from it, then the boat opening up and scooping you into it and taking off. The negotiator would be sacrificed, but they wouldn't care."

They agreed, and so did the Integrator when they explained what they had been talking about. Jack told Candy to send a message through Garth.

"The boat must land at least half a mile from us," Jack said. "The negotiator will walk to us. Just after he leaves the boat, it will ascend. When it's at least a hundred miles above the surface, the negotiator can start walking toward us. Tell the commander that you have radar capabilities and can ascertain that the boat rises to the agreed-upon altitude. And you'll know immediately if it starts to go below that height."

Garth whistled. Candy said, "He says he doesn't have long-range radar."

"The commander probably doesn't know that. Even if she checks up on the specs for Garth's type of cyborg and they don't indicate he has radar, she can't be sure we haven't installed the equipment in him."

The airboat had returned. It was as packed with passengers as during the first haul. They spilled out, the number of males being the same as the number of females. Now that he thought of it, the first load had been an equal division of the sexes. That was strange because the warriors who had attacked the ship had been mostly male.

The women and men were covered with war paint, black, white, and red stripes. Interspersed among these were stars and triple crosses. The women bore crimson six-pointed stars, and the men bore blue five-pointed stars. The triple crosses were all purple edged with yellow. The foreheads of both sexes were marked with three concentric circles. The outer circle was white; the next circle, black; the inner circle, blue. Around the women's navels were three similarly colored concentric circles. The navels were painted a bright rosy red.

The men's penises were decorated with three red wavy lines radiating from the longitudinal axis. The same number of wavy lines, colored blue, spread out from each side of the women's vaginas and across the upper thighs.

The second boatload had brought brushes and paint pots with them. They proceeded at once, in the midst of much honking and gesticulating, to paint the first boatload.

What were they up to? Jack thought. They certainly were not going to attack the Gaol negotiator. Probably, they were getting ready for some sort of magical ceremony. Though they were far advanced in biological science and technology, they were otherwise primitives. They believed in magic. That, at least, was the impression he had gotten during his brief but intense experiences with them.

But he could be mistaken.

Garth whistled. When he was done, Candy said, "The commander agrees to your terms. Everything will be done as you wish. The boat will land in approximately an hour."

"Ask the commander if we can get a preview of the offers that'll be made by the negotiator," Jack said. "We can think them over while we're waiting for him."

In less than a minute, the commander's reply was relayed by Candy.

"She prefers that the negotiator deliver the terms in person."

"Okay," Jack said. "We can't force her."

He wondered what the Gaol were planning. It would be nothing good for anybody in this camp and especially not for Tappy.

During the hour allotted, five more boatloads of honkers came. The sixth was jammed with cooking utensils and food. Jack asked Tappy to ask the Integrator about the reason for bringing in all these people. Also, she should ask him why they were all painted. By then, the shaman had also been decorated.

Tappy, after a brief exchange with the shaman, said, "He'll only say that this is all for, uh..."

She cocked her head as she did so often when thinking hard. "Uh, the best translation would be, 'for the big showdown.' "

"Showdown?" Jack said.

"Yes. And that's all he'll say."

"How the hell could this be a showdown? And how would he know it is?"

"He won't say anything more about it. Don't press him. Jack. It's not the honker way. He'd be offended."

"He knows or thinks he knows much more man I do. More than you, too, right, Tappy?"

"Yes, I think so. I hope so."

Jack strode back and forth, fuming and muttering to himself. Sometimes, he believed that he was the leader, the captain, the man with the ultimate authority. The Integrator had let him make decisions and so deluded him into believing that he was the leader. But when the shaman wanted to do certain things, he just ignored Jack.

Tappy was looking even more distraught than when they had first come to this place. In fact, she seemed to be coiling in on herself. She needed consolation, moral support, assurance, and love. He started toward her to give her what she needed. Garth's whistles halted him.

He stopped and went back to Candy. By the time he got there, the cyborg had quit speaking.

The android said, "The commander says that the spaceboat will soon be in sight."

Jack went to tell Tappy and the Integrator. But the shaman was busy marshaling his people into three still-ragged concentric circles which had the rose-red throne as its center. He was honking away, and his aides were pushing and pulling their charges into their places. Everybody had a short stick with a gourd at its end. These had come with the food and cooking utensils but had not been unloaded until a few minutes ago.

The commander, viewing this scene from her spaceship, must be as uncertain about this activity as he was, Jack thought.

Then the entire group of Latest blasted out a sustained sound. While doing this, they looked upward and lifted their sticks and rattled the gourds with a mighty noise. Jack also gazed upward.

The spaceboat was a black dot in the blue sky. It swelled quickly and became a small needle-shaped vessel. The honkers went back to their preparations for whatever they were going to do.