The Caterpillar's Question by Piers Anthony and Philip José Farmer Read Free Book Online Page B

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