"If they had refused to see ... well, they should've been kicked in the ass."
A second amoeba-shaped tear crawled out and ingested the first. And she pulled her hand away from his.
"Oh, hell!" he murmured.
Doing this was like attacking her with a spear equipped with a blade on each end. He stabbed himself and her at the same time.
They were standing by a tree with a twenty-foot-wide trunk at the ground level. Instead of bark, it had a transparent and skin-smooth covering. Below it were blue and red networks.
The finger-thick red tubes and the pencil-thick blue tubes pulsed alternately. The trunk bent abruptly just above the ground, became horizontal, then curved into an upward spiral. The trunk narrowed as it ascended, becoming a thin tip when a hundred feet high.
Atop it was a flower which looked like a Christmas-tree star.
Corkscrew branches bearing round purple leaves grew from the trunk halfway up it.
Jack thought he saw the vertical part of the tree move itself slightly toward him. It almost had the air of an eavesdropper bending his head to hear better. No. Must be his imagination.
But, several seconds later, something fast slammed 'nto the tree a few feet above him. Instead of bouncing off, it clung with eight tiny legs. The legs telescoped from below the buttercup-yellow body, which was hemispherical and as large as a half-coconut. It had no head or wings that Jack could see. Then, from the bottom center of its body, a thin and stiff member extended downward.
Its sharp tip plunged through the glassy skin into a red tube. The skin rippled violently. The thing, insect, whatever, was propelled from the skin. It fell onto its back and lay there while its legs telescoped into themselves, the red-fluid-tipped proboscis became limp, and the yellow body turned green and then black.
Jack had no idea of what had happened. But the tree had gotten rid of the parasite just as a horse twitches its hide to get rid of a biting fly. But the twitch doesn't kill the fly.
Where had the AI gotten the fauna and flora of the garden?
From what strange world had they come?
Distractions, he thought. I've no time to explore the garden and to contemplate its wonders and beauties. The tent should be pitched in the middle of a flat desert.
He became aware that Tappy looked as if she had a question.
Suddenly, he recalled that she, like him. had been startled by the loud noise of the impact of the creature on the trunk. He said, "It's okay. Just a big 'nsect running headlong 'nto a tree. Must've been going fifty miles an hour."
He wanted to be alone for a while so he could think. But he could not leave her. Since neither had had any sleep for a long time, he suggested that they lie down in the tent. He did not intend to take a nap. That would waste time. But sleep would give her the energy she was going to need when he started the intense process of artificial emotional maturation. Force-feedin of the psyche. When he started? If he started! At the moment, he did not have a smidgeon of confidence that he would be able to think of a plan that would work within the strictly allotted time.
In fact, he doubted that he would be able to imagine anly plan at all.
They entered the tent and went into a room with two large hanging beds. Tappy crawled into one and gestured that he should join her. He was pleased. She must have gotten over her wounded feelings, and she would want the physical and emotional warmth of his body next to hers. Any other time, he would have la'n down by her.
He went to the bed, leaned over, and kissed her. Then he said, "I have to think, Tappy. I'll be in the other bed while you sleep.
Believe me, it's absolutely vital for me to be undisturbed. If I held you, I'd have thoughts I couldn't control. You understad'2"
She shook her head, and she held out her arms.
"You have to grow up fast," he said softly. "Become an adult in hothouse time. Part of being an adult is being able to g' we up something so you can achieve something better."
He kissed her on the I*ps again and patted her.
"That's the way it's going to be."
As he got into the bed, however, he did not feel nearly as confident as he had * sounded. His project was, in some ways, equal to God's creation of the world. But God took four days just to make the heavens and the earth and divide the waters from the dry land and make plants and then the animals. The work assigned by the AI to one puny Earthmen had to be done in three days.
The big difference, aside from the Power demanded, was that God knew how to go about doing what must be done.
No, there was another difference. Tappy had free will.
Assumedly, once God had created humans, He had left the use of their free will entirely up to them. Tappy did not want to see and speak, and God Himself wasn't going to change her mind.
He stared up at the sagging ceiling of the tent. The girl was snoring gently. Somehow, she had managed to fall asleep at once.
That pleased him. She very much needed the rest, and she would -not be bothering him with her silent but seen presence.
It was not easy to organize his thoughts and slide them down a single channel. He kept thinking of the Al's words. "Past manifestations of the Imago have not had incidental interests of the flesh."
Put simply, "She won't care at all about affection or screwing."
Well, he could handle that.
That was what one part of him said. Another part was greatly Akurbed by it.
He steered his mind innly back to the initial phase of his task:
Project Tappy. How could he get her to see and to speak?
Then, there was the warning the AI had given him. He must make sure that Tappy did not misuse the power of the Imago. But that sounded as if she would have some control over the Imago.
If she did, how much?
Hey! he told himself. I've drifted off the first phase. Back to the track.
Then, there was the promise of the AI to help him with the project. No. The AI had said that he would be working under its guidance. But no AI had shown up to help him, and it-they had not told him how to summon them.
And he had to use Tappy's love for him to get her to do what must be done-if he ever figured out what to do. Since he didn't love her-did he?-he was somehow not lionorable. To use her love as a tool against her-though it was actually for her-he might have to pretend that he was madly in 'love with her. That made him feel sneaky and treacherous. Really rotten. unclean.
Suddenly, he heard bells ringing loudly.
They might be warning bells or wedding bells.
Or funeral bells.
What a crazy idea, he thought. Almost at once, he realized that he had fallen asleep between the thought of how rotten he was and the wakening thought of the bells. Or had the latter been the tag end of a dream he did not remember?
He sat up, rocking the bed.
"Oh, Lord!" he said loudly. "Whatever I do, I'll lose her!"
If he could not make her mature enough within three days, he and Tappy would be destroyed.
If he did succeed, he would keep her alive. But she would no longer be completely human. She would be the fleshly instrument of the Imago.
Tappy must have heard his exclamation. She turned slightly.
But she did not awaken. Presently, he heard her mutter, "Reality is a dream."
Was that phrase the key to the door which would admit the Imago?
I'm just not up to this! he told himself. Talk about, your frail vessel or your brittle tool! I'm it! I just can't do it! Might as well give me a spoon and tell me to dig the Panama Canal! In three days!
He got out of bed and went to the entrance room. There he drank deeply from a cut-quartz glass filled with the fountain water. Then he turned toward the entrance. He stopped.