"But I have a condition."
"Is this something that will facilitate your effort?"
"I think so. You have told me the bleak alternatives. Now I'm telling you that you can't treat Tappy like a machine. You want me to make her do things which she fears will make her independent of me. That's the one kind of thing she won't do for me: help me get rid of her. Not if she knows what she's doing."
"We do not follow your logic."
"You don't have to. Just take my word for it. If I have to do your dirt, it has to be my way."
"What is your way?"
"Put us in your greenhouse."
Again that pause. "If this is not effective, we shall have to destroy both of you before the Gaol arrive."
They were machines. They did not bluff. He was putting his life on the line, and Tappy's. "Just don't jump the gun, okay?"
"You are asking us not to act prematurely?"
"Yes."
"Then we shall do it your way. When she is able to see you and talk to you, you must emerge from the garden. Then we will know that the two of you are ready."
Jack nerved himself, and gave himself no time to waver. "Then get on with it. Where's Tappy?"
The room widened. There stood Tappy, in the green dress and yellow sash he had imagined during the survey, with the matching ribbon. She was unscoffed, and her feet were in yellow slippers, without trace of any leg brace. Her body seemed to have filled out somewhat, though that could have been the enhancement of the dress. There was an intangible glow about her, which could have been the animation of the strengthening Imago, or of the love they said she felt for him, Jack. She was, to his eyes, at once young and vulnerable and in need of protection, and absolutely beautiful in her own right.
Then he saw that she held a book in her hand. That would be The Little Prince. He felt like laughing and crying, without being quite sure why.
"Tappy," he said.
She turned toward the sound of his voice, smiling. In her face was sheer adoration. But that was not what shocked him.
Then the chamber faded, and strange vegetation appeared around them. They were in the garden.
THE three-day garden, Jack thought.
The many-colored wonder around him, the exotic plants and queer insects, the multitude of birdsongs would, under other circumstances, have thrilled him. He would have run from this fascinating growth to that fascinating growth and dragged Tappy behind him while he chattered away, describing everything he saw, moving her hand so that she could feel the trunks and leaves and fruits and berries, all of them strange and delightful.
Not now. All he could think of was the time limit they had.
Three days. He had to perform a miracle before they had passed.
And he was no god. God, he was no god!
loveliness and form beauty. They imaged forth despair.
He closed his eyes to shut out the garden. He needed to think without distractions. A human in an unfamiliar place tended to think unfamiliar thoughts. It did not slide along the old groove; it lacked the oil of the accustomed; it halted because of the friction of the strange. True, the unfamiliar would, in time, become the familiar. But time was what he did not have.
He felt Tappy's left hand touch his right shoulder, move down fits arm, find his right hand, and slip hers into his. It was as if the correct key had been inserted into the correct lock. But, for some reason, the key could not turn.
He said, "It'll be all right, Tappy. We'll make it."
He opened his eyes. She was standing by his side, her head turned to took at him. Look? She could not see. If he did not find a way soon to restore her vision, both of them would be dead and forever sightless. That thought soared like a silent scream from the garden and drilled into the sky.
He was close to breaking down.
Become at ease with the surroundings, he told himself. Then you can think straight, whatever pressure you might be under.
Maybe.
The sky was blue, and the sun, now straight overhead, looked like Earth's. It could be real or it could be an illusion made by the AI. It made no difference. It was a clock. When it was at the zenith for the fourth time, it would mark the end of the third day.
Oh, time! Run slowly! Flow no faster than a glacier!
Still holding Tappy's hand, he turned toward her. She was smiling as if she knew something he did not. He was going to ask her if she really did when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He switched hands and kept on turning. The object was a huge tent that looked like one of those he'd seen in Arabian Nights movies. Caliph Haroun al-Rashid's or Aladdin's. It was scarlet with strange green, yellow, black, and white symbols on it, with a wide entrance over which sheer drapes fell, with symbol-bearing flags fluttering in a light breeze. He led Tappy into its cool interior. The ground was covered with very thick Oriental-type rugs displaying abstract designs. Six rooms were within, gauzy drapes forming their walls. In the center of the entrance room was a marble fountain with running water. A faint quite-pleasant musky odor was everywhere.
He found a table large enough for six diners. On it were many covered dishes and silver cups and cutlery. In two other rooms were beds suspended from the overhead poles. One room contained a washbowl, a bathtub, and a toilet. Plenty of towels, washrags, soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and toilet paper. Everything, in fact, including cosmetics, that they could possibly need.
Much more than they could use in three days.
"Maybe we'll have guests," he murmured.
Since neither was hungry, they went back outside. He was silent for a long while as they walked through the garden. He led her by the hand, but, often, she stopped when her free hand felt something interesting. Then she caressed it until she had the shape and texture and odor of the tree hole or flower or bush branch or berry in her mind.
Once, while she was doing that, he said, "You're like one of the four blind men who felt the elephant. You can feet a part of the elephant, so you think you know how all of it looks."
He paused for emphasis.
"But! But if you could see, you would know what an elephant really looks like! And if you could talk, you could describe how the elephant looks to those who can't see."
She frowned with puzzlement.
He said, "So, okay, you haven't heard that story."
He told her the ancient Arabian tale of the four blind men who had, for the first time in their life, a chance to feel an elephant. When asked what it "looked" like to them, each gave a different answer. The man who'd felt the tail said the elephant was like a rope. The second, having fingered the trunk, said the beast resembled a large snake. The third groped around a leg and reported that the elephant was undoubtedly shaped like a living hairy monolith, was, in fact, a very tall uniped. The fourth felt a tusk and said that the beast was more like a hard-shelled fish than anything else.
"I may not remember that grade-school story very well," Jack said. "But it was something like that. You get the idea. Feeling and hearing aren't enough. You can't get the whole picture, the true picture, of the world unless you can see."
He waited for a reaction. She was expressionless for a minute or so while they stood there. Then her face became sad, and a tear oozed from her left eye. She gestured with her free hand as if she were signaling hopelessness. At least, that was how he interpreted it. It could have indicated helplessness.
"What if those blind men only had to open their eyelids to see?" he said harshly.
He hurt inside. The pain resonated with hers, but he could not be too tender, too careful of bruising her feelings.