But Candy moved more swiftly than he thought possible, and intercepted him. Suddenly he had an armful of phenomenal woman who was nevertheless not a woman at all. She closed her arms around him and lifted him from the floor. He felt her awesome power and knew that he was helpless. She might look like a siren, but she was also as deadly as one.
"All right!" he gasped. "Put me down. I'm helpless."
She set him down.
"So what happens now?" he asked. He doubted that he would be able to distract her or change the course of the conquering Gaol, but he was casting about for anything that might conceivably make a difference.
"Now we wait for the arrival of the minion of the Gaol."
"Oh, you mean Malva," he said jokingly, remembering the woman who had tempted and threatened him, back on the honkers' planet.
"Yes. She is the human interface for the Gaol."
No luck there. He looked around. "What's happened here? Did the vision change?"
"The effect of the plants has been nullified by the Gaol. This is reality."
Reality is a dream. Jack remembered that statement of the sleep-talking Tappy. Suddenly it had new meaning. Could this be just another dream, a product of his own worry? So that the Gaol had not captured them? In that case, all he had to do was change it.
He heard a small noise. It was just a kind of plop.
He turned to Tappy— and stopped. Because now he saw that the egg-thing on her chest had completed its hatching. There was just a purple wound with yellowish froth. Something green was sliding, rolling, or scrambling away from her: the hatchling.
Candy dived for it. But the thing scooted around one of the plants, just eluding her grasp. She tried to pursue it, but it was lost.
"What is it?" Jack asked.
"We do not know. But the artifacts of the honkers can have devious effects. It is better to destroy it immediately."
"Too late for that," Jack said, privately satisfied. "You'd have to destroy the whole greenhouse to get it now."
She did not reply. Instead she went to Tappy. "We shall cleanse and cover this injury," she said. "It will not prevent the host of the Imago from surviving."
And the Gaol did want that host to survive so that the Imago could not escape to occupy some other, unknown, host.
But here he was, taking this vision literally again. He needed to change it to something more acceptable. To a dream in which the Gaol were far away and the AI still served the Imago. He concentrated.
Nothing changed. But perhaps it would change when he slept, as it had before. Except that this last change had happened while he was awake and alert. Just as it would if reality were taking over. Damn!
Then he realized that it didn't matter. If this were merely another dream, then the Gaol were not here anyway. There was no point in scaring himself. He could believe anything he wanted, good or bad, but Tappy would remain safe. And maybe the Imago would wake.
Maybe all it needed was to be evoked. To be called up. "Imago!" he said. "I charge you, wake! We have dire need of you."
Nothing happened. Candy was treating and bandaging Tappy, ignoring him. She evidently took this dream seriously.
Suppose this was reality? If he gambled that it wasn't, and did nothing, Tappy was doomed. He had to assume that it was, and search for any possible way to save her. If he succeeded, and it was real, then Tappy won; if he failed, and it was a dream, Tappy won. Only if he failed in reality did Tappy lose, even if he seemed to be succeeding in a dream.
So this was reality. It was the only safe assumption, despite the seemingly hopeless situation.
Jack squatted and touched Tappy's hand. "Imago! Wake!"
There was still no response. Whatever it took to wake the Imago, this wasn't it.
Unless its consciousness was linked to Tappy's. "Tappy, wake!" he cried, squeezing her hand.
Her eyes opened. She smiled. "Oh, Jack, I see you!"
He felt an electric thrill. She saw him! She was talking to him! Their ploy had worked!
She sat up, and she looked at Candy. "And who is this woman?"
"You have a— an injury," Jack said, still elated over this success, though her questions were awkward. "This is an AI android. She is treating you."
Tappy looked down. "Oh, it stings!"
"Here is the bandage," Candy said. "Let me apply it."
Tappy lay back again, allowing the treatment to proceed. "This won't interfere with our lovemaking, will it. Jack?"
The implanted memories! She remembered five years of sexual activity with him. What was he to say to that?
"The injury won't interfere," he said carefully. "But there is something else that will. Tappy, the Gaol have caught us, and only the Imago can get us free. Can you— is it— did it wake with you?"
She hesitated, as if exploring her inner being. "No. There is nothing."
Tappy had been fooled, but not the Imago! It was a Pyrrhic victory. How much better it would have been if it had been the Imago instead of Tappy who had gained the ability to see and speak!
"It hardly matters," a new voice said. "We have gained control."
Jack turned, startled. There was Malva, the human minion of the Gaol they had encountered on the honkers' planet. The woman they had tricked, because she had not known about the honker's egg and its effect.
Jack saw nothing to be gained by politeness. "You wouldn't have control, you quisling, if the Imago had matured in time."
"We are assuming that the Imago has matured," Malva said. "Didn't the androids tell you its nature?"
"No." Surely the AI knew, but somehow in the rush of other things he had never thought to ask them directly, so of course they had not told him.
"It is a creature of extreme empathy. Any living entity with whom it associates closely becomes similarly empathic, and transfers this quality in turn to others, though the effect diminishes with each transfer. In due course it damps out, but the presence of the Imago continually renews it. If it lives free, the Imago will in due course conquer the galaxy. This is of course why the Gaol oppose it."
"Empathy?" Jack was bewildered. "How can that hurt the Gaol?"
"It does not hurt any creatures, directly. It merely changes them. Empire becomes impossible."
Candy continued to work on Tappy, who was listening; evidently she had not known this either.
"I must be really dense," Jack said. "As I understand empathy, it is merely a matter of identifying so closely with something else that you seem to fee! its nature yourself. You seem to project your personality into it. You feel its feelings as your own. That's nice for understanding, but not much for blowing up enemy spaceships."
Malva smiled. "You are indeed somewhat obtuse about this, but this can be attributed to your primitive background. Do you mistreat, oppress, or exploit a person or creature for whom you feel empathy? Tappy, for example?"
"No, of course not!" Then Jack began to understand. "You mean the Imago causes others to feel empathy for it? So they won't hurt it?"
"No one can hurt the Imago, because it has no tangible essence. It is eternal and invulnerable. However, it is true that others soon lose their inclination to mistreat whatever host the Imago occupies. But this is only part of it; they develop general empathy for all living things, and that changes their lives."
"And it affects the Gaol, too!" Jack exclaimed. "So they don't feel like exploiting other species!"
"Precisely. Therefore the Gaol take steps to prevent exposure of any other creatures to the Imago. It will be isolated for the lifetime of its current host."
"But I'm with the Imago!" Jack said. "And Candy, and you. We've all been exposed."