The Project Gutenberg EBook of Novice, by James H. Schmitz
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Title: Novice
Author: James H. Schmitz
Illustrator: Schoenherr
Release Date: November 12, 2009 [EBook #30458]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOVICE ***
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Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction June 1962.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright
on this publication was renewed.
novice
by James H. Schmitz
A novice is one who is inexperienced--but that doesn't mean
incompetent. Nor does it mean stupid!
ILLUSTRATED BY SCHOENHERR
* * * * *
There was, Telzey Amberdon thought, someone besides TT and herself in
the garden. Not, of course, Aunt Halet, who was in the house waiting
for an early visitor to arrive, and not one of the servants. Someone
or something else must be concealed among the thickets of
magnificently flowering native Jontarou shrubs about Telzey.
She could think of no other way to account for Tick-Tock's spooked
behavior--nor, to be honest about it, for the manner her own nerves
were acting up without visible cause this morning.
Telzey plucked a blade of grass, slipped the end between her lips and
chewed it gently, her face puzzled and concerned. She wasn't
ordinarily afflicted with nervousness. Fifteen years old, genius
level, brown as a berry and not at all bad looking in her sunbriefs,
she was the youngest member of one of Orado's most prominent families
and a second-year law student at one of the most exclusive schools in
the Federation of the Hub. Her physical, mental, and emotional health,
she'd always been informed, was excellent. Aunt Halet's frequent
cracks about the inherent instability of the genius level could be
ignored; Halet's own stability seemed questionable at best.
But none of that made the present odd situation any less
disagreeable....
The trouble might have begun, Telzey decided, during the night, within
an hour after they arrived from the spaceport at the guest house
Halet had rented in Port Nichay for their vacation on Jontarou. Telzey
had retired at once to her second-story bedroom with Tick-Tock; but
she barely got to sleep before something awakened her again. Turning
over, she discovered TT reared up before the window, her forepaws on
the sill, big cat-head outlined against the star-hazed night sky,
staring fixedly down into the garden.
Telzey, only curious at that point, climbed out of bed and joined TT
at the window. There was nothing in particular to be seen, and if the
scents and minor night-sounds which came from the garden weren't
exactly what they were used to, Jontarou was after all an unfamiliar
planet. What else would one expect here?
But Tick-Tock's muscular back felt tense and rigid when Telzey laid
her arm across it, and except for an absent-minded dig with her
forehead against Telzey's shoulder, TT refused to let her attention be
distracted from whatever had absorbed it. Now and then, a low, ominous
rumble came from her furry throat, a half-angry, half-questioning
sound. Telzey began to feel a little uncomfortable. She managed
finally to coax Tick-Tock away from the window, but neither of them
slept well the rest of the night. At breakfast, Aunt Halet made one of
her typical nasty-sweet remarks.
"You look so fatigued, dear--as if you were under some severe mental
strain ... which, of course, you might be," Halet added musingly. With
her gold-blond hair piled high on her head and her peaches and cream
complexion, Halet looked fresh as a daisy herself ... a malicious
daisy. "Now wasn't I right in insisting to Jessamine that you needed a
vacation away from that terribly intellectual school?" She smiled
gently.
"Absolutely," Telzey agreed, restraining the impulse to fling a
spoonful of egg yolk at her father's younger sister. Aunt Halet often
inspired such impulses, but Telzey had promised her mother to avoid
actual battles on the Jontarou trip, if possible. After breakfast, she
went out into the back garden with Tick-Tock, who immediately walked
into a thicket, camouflaged herself and vanished from sight. It seemed
to add up to something. But what?
Telzey strolled about the garden a while, maintaining a pretense of
nonchalant interest in Jontarou's flowers and colorful bug life. She
experienced the most curious little chills of alarm from time to time,
but discovered no signs of a lurking intruder, or of TT either. Then,
for half an hour or more, she'd just sat cross-legged in the grass,
waiting quietly for Tick-Tock to show up of her own accord. And the
big lunk-head hadn't obliged.
Telzey scratched a tanned knee-cap, scowling at Port Nichay's park
trees beyond the garden wall. It seemed idiotic to feel scared when
she couldn't even tell whether there was anything to be scared about!
And, aside from that, another unreasonable feeling kept growing
stronger by the minute now. This was to the effect that she should be
doing some unstated but specific thing....
In fact, that Tick-Tock _wanted_ her to do some specific thing!
Completely idiotic!
Abruptly, Telzey closed her eyes, thought sharply, "Tick-Tock?" and
waited--suddenly very angry at herself for having given in to her
fancies to this extent--for whatever might happen.
* * * * *
She had never really established that she was able to tell, by a kind
of symbolic mind-picture method, like a short waking dream,
approximately what TT was thinking and feeling. Five years before,
when she'd discovered Tick-Tock--an odd-looking and odder-behaved
stray kitten then--in the woods near the Amberdons' summer home on
Orado, Telzey had thought so. But it might never have been more than a
colorful play of her imagination; and after she got into law school
and grew increasingly absorbed in her studies, she almost forgot the
matter again.
Today, perhaps because she was disturbed about Tick-Tock's behavior,
the customary response was extraordinarily prompt. The warm glow of
sunlight shining through her closed eyelids faded out quickly and was
replaced by some inner darkness. In the darkness there appeared then
an image of Tick-Tock sitting a little way off beside an open door in
an old stone wall, green eyes fixed on Telzey. Telzey got the
impression that TT was inviting her to go through the door, and, for
some reason, the thought frightened her.
Again, there was an immediate reaction. The scene with Tick-Tock and
the door vanished; and Telzey felt she was standing in a pitch-black
room, knowing that if she moved even one step forwards, something that
was waiting there silently would reach out and grab her.
Naturally, she recoiled ... and at once found herself sitting, eyes
still closed and the sunlight bathing her lids, in the grass of the
guest house garden.
She opened her eyes, looked around. Her heart was thumping rapidly.
The experience couldn't have lasted more than four or five seconds,
but it had been extremely vivid, a whole, compact little nightmare.
None of her earlier experiments at getting into mental communication
with TT had been like that.
It served her right, Telzey thought, for trying such a childish stunt
at the moment! What she should have done at once was to make a
methodical search for the foolish beast--TT was bound to be
_somewhere_ nearby--locate her behind her camouflage, and hang on to
her then until this nonsense in the garden was explained! Talented as
Tick-Tock was at blotting herself out, it usually was possible to spot
her if one directed one's attention to shadow patterns. Telzey began a
surreptitious study of the flowering bushes about her.
Three minutes later, off to her right, where the ground was banked
beneath a six-foot step in the garden's terraces, Tick-Tock's outline
suddenly caught her eye. Flat on her belly, head lifted above her
paws, quite motionless, TT seemed like a transparent wraith stretched
out along the terrace, barely discernible even when stared at
directly. It was a convincing illusion; but what seemed to be rocks,
plant leaves, and sun-splotched earth seen through the wraith-outline
was simply the camouflage pattern TT had printed for the moment on her
hide. She could have changed it completely in an instant to conform to
a different background.
Telzey pointed an accusing finger.
"See you!" she announced, feeling a surge of relief which seemed as
unaccountable as the rest of it.
The wraith twitched one ear in acknowledgment, the head outlines
shifting as the camouflaged face turned towards Telzey. Then the
inwardly uncamouflaged, very substantial looking mouth opened slowly,
showing Tick-Tock's red tongue and curved white tusks. The mouth
stretched in a wide yawn, snapped shut with a click of meshing teeth,
became indistinguishable again. Next, a pair of camouflaged lids drew
back from TT's round, brilliant-green eyes. The eyes stared across the
lawn at Telzey.
Telzey said irritably, "Quit clowning around, TT!"
The eyes blinked, and Tick-Tock's natural bronze-brown color suddenly
flowed over her head, down her neck and across her body into legs and
tail. Against the side of the terrace, as if materializing into
solidity at that moment, appeared two hundred pounds of supple, rangy,
long-tailed cat ... or catlike creature. TT's actual origin had never
been established. The best guesses were that what Telzey had found
playing around in the woods five years ago was either a bio-structural
experiment which had got away from a private laboratory on Orado, or
some spaceman's lost pet, brought to the capital planet from one of
the remote colonies beyond the Hub. On top of TT's head was a large,
fluffy pompom of white fur, which might have looked ridiculous on
another animal, but didn't on her. Even as a fat kitten, hanging head
down from the side of a wall by the broad sucker pads in her paws, TT
had possessed enormous dignity.
Telzey studied her, the feeling of relief fading again. Tick-Tock,
ordinarily the most restful and composed of companions, definitely was
still tensed up about something. That big, lazy yawn a moment ago, the
attitude of stretched-out relaxation ... all pure sham!
"What _is_ eating you?" she asked in exasperation.
The green eyes stared at her, solemn, watchful, seeming for that
fleeting instant quite alien. And why, Telzey thought, should the old
question of what Tick-Tock really was pass through her mind just now?
After her rather alarming rate of growth began to taper off last year,
nobody had cared any more.
For a moment, Telzey had the uncanny certainty of having had the
answer to this situation almost in her grasp. An answer which appeared
to involve the world of Jontarou, Tick-Tock, and of all unlikely
factors--Aunt Halet.
She shook her head, TT's impassive green eyes blinked.
* * * * *
Jontarou? The planet lay outside Telzey's sphere of personal
interests, but she'd read up on it on the way here from Orado. Among
all the worlds of the Hub, Jontarou was _the_ paradise for zoologists
and sportsmen, a gigantic animal preserve, its continents and seas
swarming with magnificent game. Under Federation law, it was being
retained deliberately in the primitive state in which it had been
discovered. Port Nichay, the only city, actually the only inhabited
point on Jontarou, was beautiful and quiet, a pattern of vast but
elegantly slender towers, each separated from the others by four or
five miles of rolling parkland and interconnected only by the threads
of transparent skyways. Near the horizon, just visible from the
garden, rose the tallest towers of all, the green and gold spires of
the Shikaris' Club, a center of Federation affairs and of social
activity. From the aircar which brought them across Port Nichay the
evening before, Telzey had seen occasional strings of guest houses,
similar to the one Halet had rented, nestling along the park slopes.
[Illustration]
Nothing very sinister about Port Nichay or green Jontarou, surely!
Halet? That blond, slinky, would-be Machiavelli? What could--?
Telzey's eyes narrowed reflectively. There'd been a minor
occurrence--at least, it had seemed minor--just before the spaceliner
docked last night. A young woman from one of the newscasting services
had asked for an interview with the daughter of Federation
Councilwoman Jessamine Amberdon. This happened occasionally; and
Telzey had no objections until the newshen's gossipy persistence in
inquiring about the "unusual pet" she was bringing to Port Nichay with
her began to be annoying. TT might be somewhat unusual, but that was
not a matter of general interest; and Telzey said so. Then Halet moved
smoothly into the act and held forth on Tick-Tock's appearance,
habits, and mysterious antecedents, in considerable detail.
Telzey had assumed that Halet was simply going out of her way to be
irritating, as usual. Looking back on the incident, however, it
occurred to her that the chatter between her aunt and the newscast
woman had sounded oddly stilted--almost like something the two might
have rehearsed.
Rehearsed for what purpose? Tick-Tock ... Jontarou.
Telzey chewed gently on her lower lip. A vacation on Jontarou for the
two of them and TT had been Halet's idea, and Halet had enthused about
it so much that Telzey's mother at last talked her into accepting.
Halet, Jessamine explained privately to Telzey, had felt they were
intruders in the Amberdon family, had bitterly resented Jessamine's
political honors and, more recently, Telzey's own emerging promise of
brilliance. This invitation was Halet's way of indicating a change of
heart. Wouldn't Telzey oblige?
* * * * *
So Telzey had obliged, though she took very little stock in Halet's
change of heart. She wasn't, in fact, putting it past her aunt to have
some involved dirty trick up her sleeve with this trip to Jontarou.
Halet's mind worked like that.
So far there had been no actual indications of purposeful mischief.
But logic did seem to require a connection between the various
puzzling events here.... A newscaster's rather forced looking interest
in Tick-Tock--Halet could easily have paid for that interview. Then
TT's disturbed behavior during their first night in Port Nichay, and
Telzey's own formless anxieties and fancies in connection with the
guest house garden.
The last remained hard to explain. But Tick-Tock ... and Halet ...
might know something about Jontarou that she didn't know.
Her mind returned to the results of the half-serious attempt she'd
made to find out whether there was something Tick-Tock "wanted her to
do." An open door? A darkness where somebody waited to grab her if she
took even one step forwards? It couldn't have had any significance. Or
could it?
So you'd like to try magic, Telzey scoffed at herself. Baby games....
How far would you have got at law school if you'd asked TT to help
with your problems?
Then why had she been thinking about it again?
She shivered, because an eerie stillness seemed to settle on the
garden. From the side of the terrace, TT's green eyes watched her.
Telzey had a feeling of sinking down slowly into a sunlit dream, into
something very remote from law school problems.
"Should I go through the door?" she whispered.
The bronze cat-shape raised its head slowly. TT began to purr.
Tick-Tock's name had been derived in kittenhood from the manner in
which she purred--a measured, oscillating sound, shifting from high to
low, as comfortable and often as continuous as the unobtrusive pulse
of an old clock. It was the first time, Telzey realized now, that
she'd heard the sound since their arrival on Jontarou. It went on for
a dozen seconds or so, then stopped. Tick-Tock continued to look at
her.
It appeared to have been an expression of definite assent....
The dreamlike sensation increased, hazing over Telzey's thoughts. If
there was nothing to this mind-communication thing, what harm could
symbols do? This time, she wouldn't let them alarm her. And if they
did mean something....
She closed her eyes.
* * * * *
The sunglow outside faded instantly. Telzey caught a fleeting picture
of the door in the wall, and knew in the same moment that she'd
already passed through it.
She was not in the dark room then, but poised at the edge of a
brightness which seemed featureless and without limit, spread out
around her with a feeling-tone like "sea" or "sky." But it was an
unquiet place. There was a sense of unseen things on all sides
watching her and waiting.
Was this another form of the dark room--a trap set up in her mind?
Telzey's attention did a quick shift. She was seated in the grass
again; the sunlight beyond her closed eyelids seemed to shine in
quietly through rose-tinted curtains. Cautiously, she let her
awareness return to the bright area; and it was still there. She had a
moment of excited elation. She was controlling this! And why not, she
asked herself. These things were happening in her mind, after all!
She would find out what they seemed to mean; but she would be in no
rush to....
An impression as if, behind her, Tick-Tock had thought, "Now I can
help again!"
Then a feeling of being swept swiftly, irresistibly forwards, thrust
out and down. The brightness exploded in thundering colors around her.
In fright, she made the effort to snap her eyes open, to be back in
the garden; but now she couldn't make it work. The colors continued to
roar about her, like a confusion of excited, laughing, triumphant
voices. Telzey felt caught in the middle of it all, suspended in
invisible spider webs. Tick-Tock seemed to be somewhere nearby,
looking on. Faithless, treacherous TT!
Telzey's mind made another wrenching effort, and there was a change.
She hadn't got back into the garden, but the noisy, swirling colors
were gone and she had the feeling of reading a rapidly moving
microtape now, though she didn't actually see the tape.
The tape, she realized, was another symbol for what was happening, a
symbol easier for her to understand. There were voices, or what might
be voices, around her; on the invisible tape she seemed to be reading
what they said.
A number of speakers, apparently involved in a fast, hot argument
about what to do with her. Impressions flashed past....
* * * * *
Why waste time with her? It was clear that kitten-talk was all she was
capable of!... Not necessarily; that was a normal first step. Give her
a little time!... But what--exasperatedly--could such a small-bite
_possibly_ know that would be of significant value?
There was a slow, blurred, awkward-seeming interruption. Its content
was not comprehensible to Telzey at all, but in some unmistakable
manner it was defined as Tick-Tock's thought.
A pause as the circle of speakers stopped to consider whatever TT had
thrown into the debate.
Then another impression ... one that sent a shock of fear through
Telzey as it rose heavily into her awareness. Its sheer intensity
momentarily displaced the tape-reading symbolism. A savage voice
seemed to rumble:
"Toss the tender small-bite to me"--malevolent crimson eyes fixed on
Telzey from somewhere not far away--"and let's be done here!"
Startled, stammering protest from Tick-Tock, accompanied by gusts of
laughter from the circle. Great sense of humor these characters had,
Telzey thought bitterly. That crimson-eyed thing wasn't joking at all!
More laughter as the circle caught her thought. Then a kind of
majority opinion found sudden expression:
"Small-bite _is_ learning! No harm to wait--We'll find out
quickly--Let's...."
The tape ended; the voices faded; the colors went blank. In whatever
jumbled-up form she'd been getting the impressions at that
point--Telzey couldn't have begun to describe it--the whole thing
suddenly stopped.
* * * * *
She found herself sitting in the grass, shaky, scared, eyes open.
Tick-Tock stood beside the terrace, looking at her. An air of hazy
unreality still hung about the garden.
She might have flipped! She didn't think so; but it certainly seemed
possible! Otherwise ... Telzey made an attempt to sort over what had
happened.
Something _had_ been in the garden! Something had been inside her
mind. Something that was at home on Jontarou.
There'd been a feeling of perhaps fifty or sixty of these ... well,
beings. Alarming beings! Reckless, wild, hard ... and that red-eyed
nightmare! Telzey shuddered.
They'd contacted Tick-Tock first, during the night. TT understood them
better than she could. Why? Telzey found no immediate answer.
Then Tick-Tock had tricked her into letting her mind be invaded by
these beings. There must have been a very definite reason for that.
She looked over at Tick-Tock. TT looked back. Nothing stirred in
Telzey's thoughts. Between _them_ there was still no direct
communication.
Then how had the beings been able to get through to her?
Telzey wrinkled her nose. Assuming this was real, it seemed clear that
the game of symbols she'd made up between herself and TT had provided
the opening. Her whole experience just now had been in the form of
symbols, translating whatever occurred into something she could
consciously grasp.
"Kitten-talk" was how the beings referred to the use of symbols; they
seemed contemptuous of it. Never mind, Telzey told herself; they'd
agreed she was learning.
The air over the grass appeared to flicker. Again she had the
impression of reading words off a quickly moving, not quite visible
tape.
"You're being taught and you're learning," was what she seemed to
read. "The question was whether you were capable of partial
understanding as your friend insisted. Since you were, everything else
that can be done will be accomplished very quickly."
A pause, then with a touch of approval, "You're a well-formed mind,
small-bite! Odd and with incomprehensibilities, but well-formed--"
One of the beings, and a fairly friendly one--at least not unfriendly.
Telzey framed a tentative mental question. "Who are you?"
"You'll know very soon." The flickering ended; she realized she and
the question had been dismissed for the moment. She looked over at
Tick-Tock again.
"Can't _you_ talk to me now, TT?" she asked silently.
A feeling of hesitation.
"Kitten-talk!" was the impression that formed itself with difficulty
then. It was awkward, searching; but it came unquestionably from TT.
"Still learning too, Telzey!" TT seemed half anxious, half angry.
"We--"
* * * * *
A sharp buzz-note reached Telzey's ears, wiping out the groping
thought-impression. She jumped a little, glanced down. Her
wrist-talker was signaling. For a moment, she seemed poised
uncertainly between a world where unseen, dangerous-sounding beings
referred to one as small-bite and where TT was learning to talk, and
the familiar other world where wrist-communicators buzzed periodically
in a matter-of-fact manner. Settling back into the more familiar
world, she switched on the talker.
"Yes?" she said. Her voice sounded husky.
"Telzey, dear," Halet murmured honey-sweet from the talker, "would you
come back into the house, please? The living room--We have a visitor
who very much wants to meet you."
Telzey hesitated, eyes narrowing. Halet's visitor wanted to meet
_her_?
"Why?" she asked.
"He has something _very_ interesting to tell you, dear." The edge of
triumphant malice showed for an instant, vanished in murmuring
sweetness again. "So please hurry!"
"All right." Telzey stood up. "I'm coming."
"Fine, dear!" The talker went dead.
Telzey switched off the instrument, noticed that Tick-Tock had chosen
to disappear meanwhile.
Flipped? She wondered, starting up towards the house. It was clear
Aunt Halet had prepared some unpleasant surprise to spring on her,
which was hardly more than normal behavior for Halet. The other
business? She couldn't be certain of anything there. Leaving out TT's
strange actions--which might have a number of causes, after all--that
entire string of events could have been created inside her head. There
was no contradictory evidence so far.
But it could do no harm to take what _seemed_ to have happened at face
value. Some pretty grim event might be shaping up, in a very real way,
around here....
"You reason logically!" The impression now was of a voice speaking to
her, a voice that made no audible sound. It was the same being who'd
addressed her a minute or two ago.
The two worlds between which Telzey had felt suspended seemed to glide
slowly together and become one.
"I go to Law school," she explained to the being, almost absently.
Amused agreement. "So we heard."
"What do you want of me?" Telzey inquired.
"You'll know soon enough."
"Why not tell me now?" Telzey urged. It seemed about to dismiss her
again.
Quick impatience flared at her. "Kitten-pictures! Kitten-thoughts!
Kitten-talk! Too slow, too slow! YOUR pictures--too much YOU! Wait
till the...."
Circuits close ... channels open.... Obstructions clear? What _had_ it
said? There'd been only the blurred image of a finicky, delicate, but
perfectly normal technical operation of some kind.
"... Minutes now!" the voice concluded. A pause, then another thought
tossed carelessly at her. "This is more important to you, small-bite,
than to _us_!" The voice impression ended as sharply as if a
communicator had snapped off.
Not _too_ friendly! Telzey walked on towards the house, a new fear
growing inside her ... a fear like the awareness of a storm gathered
nearby, still quiet--deadly quiet, but ready to break.
"Kitten-pictures!" a voice seemed to jeer distantly, a whispering in
the park trees beyond the garden wall.
* * * * *
Halet's cheeks were lightly pinked; her blue eyes sparkled. She looked
downright stunning, which meant to anyone who knew her that the worst
side of Halet's nature was champing at the bit again. On uninformed
males it had a dazzling effect, however; and Telzey wasn't surprised
to find their visitor wearing a tranced expression when she came into
the living room. He was a tall, outdoorsy man with a tanned, bony
face, a neatly trained black mustache, and a scar down one cheek which
would have seemed dashing if it hadn't been for the stupefied look.
Beside his chair stood a large, clumsy instrument which might have
been some kind of telecamera.
Halet performed introductions. Their visitor was Dr. Droon, a
zoologist. He had been tuned in on Telzey's newscast interview on the
liner the night before, and wondered whether Telzey would care to
discuss Tick-Tock with him.
"Frankly, no," Telzey said.
Dr. Droon came awake and gave Telzey a surprised look. Halet smiled
easily.
"My niece doesn't intend to be discourteous, doctor," she explained.
[Illustration]
"Of course not," the zoologist agreed doubtfully.
"It's just," Halet went on, "that Telzey is a little, oh, sensitive
where Tick-Tock is concerned. In her own way, she's attached to the
animal. Aren't you, dear?"
"Yes," Telzey said blandly.
"Well, we hope this isn't going to disturbed you too much, dear."
Halet glanced significantly at Dr. Droon. "Dr. Droon, you must
understand, is simply doing ... well, there is something very
important he must tell you now."
Telzey transferred her gaze back to the zoologist. Dr. Droon cleared
his throat. "I, ah, understand, Miss Amberdon, that you're unaware of
what kind of creature your, ah, Tick-Tock is?"
Telzey started to speak, then checked herself, frowning. She had been
about to state that she knew exactly what kind of creature TT was ...
but she didn't, of course!
Or did she? She....
She scowled absent-mindedly at Dr. Droon, biting her lip.
"Telzey!" Halet prompted gently.
"Huh?" Telzey said. "Oh ... please go on, doctor!"
Dr. Droon steepled his fingers. "Well," he said, "she ... your pet ... is,
ah, a young crest cat. Nearly full grown now, apparently, and--"
"Why, yes!" Telzey cried.
The zoologist looked at her. "You knew that--"
"Well, not really," Telzey admitted. "Or sort of." She laughed, her
cheeks flushed. "This is the most ... go ahead please! Sorry I
interrupted." She stared at the wall beyond Dr. Droon with a rapt
expression.
* * * * *
The zoologist and Halet exchanged glances. Then Dr. Droon resumed
cautiously. The crest cats, he said, were a species native to
Jontarou. Their existence had been known for only eight years. The
species appeared to have had a somewhat limited range--the Baluit
mountains on the opposite side of the huge continent on which Port
Nichay had been built....
Telzey barely heard him. A very curious thing was happening. For every
sentence Dr. Droon uttered, a dozen other sentences appeared in her
awareness. More accurately, it was as if an instantaneous smooth flow
of information relevant to whatever he said arose continuously from
what might have been almost her own memory, but wasn't. Within a
minute or two, she knew more about the crest cats of Jontarou than Dr.
Droon could have told her in hours ... much more than he'd ever known.
She realized suddenly that he'd stopped talking, that he had asked her
a question. "Miss Amberdon?" he repeated now, with a note of
uncertainty.
"Yar-rrr-REE!" Telzey told him softly. "I'll drink your blood!"
"Eh?"
Telzey blinked, focused on Dr. Droon, wrenching her mind away from a
splendid view of the misty-blue peaks of the Baluit range.
"Sorry," she said briskly. "Just a joke!" She smiled. "Now what were
you saying?"
The zoologist looked at her in a rather odd manner for a moment. "I
was inquiring," he said then, "whether you were familiar with the
sporting rules established by the various hunting associations of the
Hub in connection with the taking of game trophies?"
Telzey shook her head. "No, I never heard of them."
* * * * *
The rules, Dr. Droon explained, laid down the type of equipment ...
weapons, spotting and tracking instruments, number of assistants, and
so forth ... a sportsman could legitimately use in the pursuit of any
specific type of game. "Before the end of the first year after their
discovery," he went on, "the Baluit crest cats had been placed in the
ultra-equipment class."
"What's ultra-equipment?" Telzey asked.
"Well," Dr. Droon said thoughtfully, "it doesn't quite involve the use
of full battle armor ... not quite! And, of course, even with that
classification the sporting principle of mutual accessibility must be
observed."
"Mutual ... oh, I see!" Telzey paused as another wave of silent
information rose into her awareness; went on, "So the game has to be
able to get at the sportsman too, eh?"
"That's correct. Except in the pursuit of various classes of flying
animals, a shikari would not, for example, be permitted the use of an
aircar other than as means of simple transportation. Under these
conditions, it was soon established that crest cats were being
obtained by sportsmen who went after them at a rather consistent
one-to-one ration."
Telzey's eyes widened. She'd gathered something similar from her other
information source but hadn't quite believed it. "One hunter killed
for each cat bagged?" she said. "That's pretty rough sport, isn't it?
"Extremely rough sport!" Dr. Droon agreed dryly. "In fact, when the
statistics were published, the sporting interest in winning a Baluit
cat trophy appears to have suffered a sudden and sharp decline. On the
other hand, a more scientific interest in these remarkable animals was
coincidingly created, and many permits for their acquisition by the
agents of museums, universities, public and private collections were
issued. Sporting rules, of course, do not apply to that activity."
Telzey nodded absently. "I see! _They_ used aircars, didn't they? A
sort of heavy knockout gun--"
"Aircars, long-range detectors and stunguns are standard equipment in
such work," Dr. Droon acknowledged. "Gas and poison are employed, of
course, as circumstances dictate. The collectors were relatively
successful for a while."
"And then a curious thing happened. Less than two years after their
existence became known, the crest cats of the Baluit range were
extinct! The inroads made on their numbers by man cannot begin to
account for this, so it must be assumed that a sudden plague wiped
them out. At any rate, not another living member of the species has
been seen on Jontarou until you landed here with your pet last night."
Telzey sat silent for some seconds. Not because of what he had said,
but because the other knowledge was still flowing into her mind. On
one very important point _that_ was at variance with what the
zoologist had stated; and from there a coldly logical pattern was
building up. Telzey didn't grasp the pattern in complete detail yet,
but what she saw of it stirred her with a half incredulous dread.
She asked, shaping the words carefully but with only a small part of
her attention on what she was really saying. "Just what does all that
have to do with Tick-Tock, Dr. Droon?"
Dr. Droon glanced at Halet, and returned his gaze to Telzey. Looking
very uncomfortable but quite determined, he told her, "Miss Amberdon,
there is a Federation law which states that when a species is
threatened with extinction, any available survivors must be
transferred to the Life Banks of the University League, to insure
their indefinite preservation. Under the circumstances, this law
applies to, ah, Tick-Tock!"
* * * * *
So that had been Halet's trick. She'd found out about the crest cats,
might have put in as much as a few months arranging to make the
discovery of TT's origin on Jontarou seem a regrettable
mischance--something no one could have foreseen or prevented. In the
Life Banks, from what Telzey had heard of them, TT would cease to
exist as an individual awareness while scientists tinkered around with
the possibilities of reconstructing her species.
Telzey studied her aunt's carefully sympathizing face for an instant,
asked Dr. Droon, "What about the other crest cats--you said were
collected before they became extinct here? Wouldn't they be enough for
what the Life Banks need?"
He shook his head. "Two immature male specimens are know to exist, and
they are at present in the Life Banks. The others that were taken
alive at the time have been destroyed ... often under nearly
disastrous circumstances. They are enormously cunning, enormously
savage creatures, Miss Amberdon! The additional fact that they can
conceal themselves to the point of being virtually indetectable except
by the use of instruments makes them one of the most dangerous animals
known. Since the young female which you raised as a pet has remained
docile ... so far ... you may not really be able to appreciate that."
"Perhaps I can," Telzey said. She nodded at the heavy-looking
instrument standing beside his chair. "And that's--?"
"It's a life detector combined with a stungun, Miss Amberdon. I have
no intention of harming your pet, but we can't take chances with an
animal of that type. The gun's charge will knock it unconscious for
several minutes--just long enough to let me secure it with paralysis
belts."
"You're a collector for the Life Banks, Dr. Droon?"
"That's correct."
"Dr. Droon," Halet remarked, "has obtained a permit from the Planetary
Moderator, authorizing him to claim Tick-Tock for the University
League and remove her from the planet, dear. So you see there is
simply nothing we can do about the matter! Your mother wouldn't like
us to attempt to obstruct the law, would she?" Halet paused. "The
permit should have your signature, Telzey, but I can sign in your
stead if necessary."
That was Halet's way of saying it would do no good to appeal to
Jontarou's Planetary Moderator. She'd taken the precaution of getting
his assent to the matter first.
"So now if you'll just call Tick-Tock, dear..." Halet went on.
Telzey barely heard the last words. She felt herself stiffening
slowly, while the living room almost faded from her sight. Perhaps, in
that instant, some additional new circuit had closed in her mind, or
some additional new channel had opened, for TT's purpose in tricking
her into contact with the reckless, mocking beings outside was
suddenly and numbingly clear.
And what it meant immediately was that she'd have to get out of the
house without being spotted at it, and go some place where she could
be undisturbed for half an hour.
She realized that Halet and the zoologist were both staring at her.
* * * * *
"Are you ill, dear?"
"No." Telzey stood up. It would be worse than useless to try to tell
these two anything! Her face must be pretty white at the moment--she
could feel it--but they assumed, of course, that the shock of losing
TT had just now sunk in on her.
"I'll have to check on that law you mentioned before I sign anything,"
she told Dr. Droon.
"Why, yes ..." He started to get out of his chair. "I'm sure that can
be arranged, Miss Amberdon!"
"Don't bother to call the Moderator's office," Telzey said. "I brought
my law library along. I'll look it up myself." She turned to leave the
room.
"My niece," Halet explained to Dr. Droon who was beginning to look puzzled,
"attends law school. She's always so absorbed in her studies ... Telzey?"
"Yes, Halet?" Telzey paused at the door.
"I'm very glad you've decided to be sensible about this, dear. But
don't take too long, will you? We don't want to waste Dr. Droon's
time."
"It shouldn't take more than five or ten minutes," Telzey told her
agreeably. She closed the door behind her, and went directly to her
bedroom on the second floor. One of her two valises was still
unpacked. She locked the door behind her, opened the unpacked valise,
took out a pocket edition law library and sat down at the table with
it.
She clicked on the library's view-screen, tapped the clearing and
index buttons. Behind the screen, one of the multiple rows of pinhead
tapes shifted slightly as the index was flicked into reading position.
Half a minute later, she was glancing over the legal section on which
Dr. Droon had based his claim. The library confirmed what he had said.
Very neat of Halet, Telzey thought, very nasty ... and pretty idiotic!
Even a second-year law student could think immediately of two or three
ways in which a case like that could have been dragged out in the
Federation's courts for a couple of decades before the question of
handing Tick-Tock over to the Life Banks became too acute.
Well, Halet simply wasn't really intelligent. And the plot to shanghai
TT was hardly even a side issue now.
Telzey snapped the tiny library shut, fastened it to the belt of her
sunsuit and went over to the open window. A two-foot ledge passed
beneath the window, leading to the roof of a patio on the right.
Fifty yards beyond the patio, the garden ended in a natural-stone
wall. Behind it lay one of the big wooded park areas which formed most
of the ground level of Port Nichay.
Tick-Tock wasn't in sight. A sound of voices came from ground-floor
windows on the left. Halet had brought her maid and chauffeur along;
and a chef had showed up in time to make breakfast this morning, as
part of the city's guest house service. Telzey took the empty valise
to the window, set it on end against the left side of the frame, and
let the window slide down until its lower edge rested on the valise.
She went back to the house guard-screen panel beside the door, put her
finger against the lock button, and pushed.
The sound of voices from the lower floor was cut off as outer doors
and windows slid silently shut all about the house. Telzey glanced
back at the window. The valise had creaked a little as the guard field
drove the frame down on it, but it was supporting the thrust. She
returned to the window, wriggled feet foremost through the opening,
twisted around and got a footing on the ledge.
A minute later, she was scrambling quietly down a vine-covered patio
trellis to the ground. Even after they discovered she was gone, the
guard screen would keep everybody in the house for some little while.
They'd either have to disengage the screen's main mechanisms and start
poking around in them, or force open the door to her bedroom and get
the lock unset. Either approach would involve confusion, upset
tempers, and generally delay any organized pursuit.
Telzey edged around the patio and started towards the wall, keeping
close to the side of the house so she couldn't be seen from the
windows. The shrubbery made minor rustling noises as she threaded her
way through it ... and then there was a different stirring which might
have been no more than a slow, steady current of air moving among the
bushes behind her. She shivered involuntarily but didn't look back.
She came to the wall, stood still, measuring its height, jumped and
got an arm across it, swung up a knee and squirmed up and over. She
came down on her feet with a small thump in the grass on the other
side, glanced back once at the guest house, crossed a path and went on
among the park trees.
* * * * *
Within a few hundred yards, it became apparent that she had an escort.
She didn't look around for them, but spread out to right and left like
a skirmish line, keeping abreast with her, occasional shadows slid
silently through patches of open, sunlit ground, disappeared again
under the trees. Otherwise, there was hardly anyone in sight. Port
Nichay's human residents appeared to make almost no personal use of
the vast parkland spread out beneath their tower apartments; and its
traffic moved over the airways, visible from the ground only as
rainbow-hued ribbons which bisected the sky between the upper tower
levels. An occasional private aircar went by overhead.
Wisps of thought which were not her own thoughts flicked through
Telzey's mind from moment to moment as the silent line of shadows
moved deeper into the park with her. She realized she was being sized
up, judged, evaluated again. No more information was coming through;
they had given her as much information as she needed. In the main
perhaps, they were simply curious now. This was the first human mind
they'd been able to make heads or tails of, and that hadn't seemed
deaf and silent to their form of communication. They were taking time
out to study it. They'd been assured she would have something of
genuine importance to tell them; and there was some derision about
that. But they were willing to wait a little, and find out. They were
curious and they liked games. At the moment, Telzey and what she might
try to do to change their plans was the game on which their attention
was fixed.
Twelve minutes passed before the talker on Telzey's wrist began to
buzz. It continued to signal off and on for another few minutes, then
stopped. Back in the guest house they couldn't be sure yet whether she
wasn't simply locked inside her room and refusing to answer them. But
Telzey quickened her pace.
The park's trees gradually became more massive, reached higher above
her, stood spaced more widely apart. She passed through the morning
shadow of the residential tower nearest the guest house, and emerged
from it presently on the shore of a small lake. On the other side of
the lake, a number of dappled grazing animals like long-necked, tall
horses lifted their heads to watch her. For some seconds they seemed
only mildly interested, but then a breeze moved across the lake,
crinkling the surface of the water, and as it touched the opposite
shore, abrupt panic exploded among the grazers. They wheeled, went
flashing away in effortless twenty-foot strides, and were gone among
the trees.
Telzey felt a crawling along her spine. It was the first objective
indication she'd had of the nature of the company she had brought to
the lake, and while it hardly came as a surprise, for a moment her
urge was to follow the example of the grazers.
"Tick-Tock?" she whispered, suddenly a little short of breath.
A single up-and-down purring note replied from the bushes on her
right. TT was still around, for whatever good that might do. Not too
much, Telzey thought, if it came to serious trouble. But the knowledge
was somewhat reassuring ... and this, meanwhile, appeared to be as far
as she needed to get from the guest house. They'd be looking for her
by aircar presently, but there was nothing to tell them in which
direction to turn first.
She climbed the bank of the lake to a point where she was screened
both by thick, green shrubbery and the top of a single immense tree
from the sky, sat down on some dry, mossy growth, took the law library
from her belt, opened it and placed it in her lap. Vague stirrings
indicated that her escort was also settling down in an irregular
circle about her; and apprehension shivered on Telzey's skin again. It
wasn't that their attitude was hostile; they were simply overawing.
And no one could predict what they might do next. Without looking up,
she asked a question in her mind.
"Ready?"
* * * * *
[Illustration]
Sense of multiple acknowledgment, variously tinged--sardonic;
interestingly amused; attentive; doubtful. Impatience quivered through
it too, only tentatively held in restraint, and Telzey's forehead was
suddenly wet. Some of them seemed on the verge of expressing
disapproval with what was being done here--
Her fingers quickly flicked in the index tape, and the stir of feeling
about her subsided, their attention captured again for the moment. Her
thoughts became to some degree detached, ready to dissect another
problem in the familiar ways and present the answers to it. Not a very
involved problem essentially, but this time it wasn't a school
exercise. Her company waited, withdrawn, silent, aloof once more,
while the index blurred, checked, blurred and checked. Within a minute
and a half, she had noted a dozen reference symbols. She tapped in
another of the pinhead tapes, glanced over a few paragraphs, licked
salty sweat from her lip, and said in her thoughts, emphasizing the
meaning of each detail of the sentence so that there would be no
misunderstanding, "This is the Federation law that applies to the
situation which existed originally on this planet...."
There were no interruptions, no commenting thoughts, no intrusions of
any kind, as she went step by step through the section, turned to
another one, and another. In perhaps twelve minutes she came to the
end of the last one, and stopped. Instantly, argument exploded about
her.
Telzey was not involved in the argument; in fact, she could grasp only
scraps of it. Either they were excluding her deliberately, or the
exchange was too swift, practiced and varied to allow her to keep up.
But their vehemence was not encouraging. And was it reasonable to
assume that the Federation's laws would have any meaning for minds
like these? Telzey snapped the library shut with fingers that had
begun to tremble, and placed it on the ground. Then she stiffened. In
the sensations washing about her, a special excitement rose suddenly,
a surge of almost gleeful wildness that choked away her breath.
Awareness followed of a pair of malignant crimson eyes fastened on
her, moving steadily closer. A kind of nightmare paralysis seized
Telzey--they'd turned her over to that red-eyed horror! She sat still,
feeling mouse-sized.
Something came out with a crash from a thicket behind her. Her muscles
went tight. But it was TT who rubbed a hard head against her shoulder,
took another three stiff-legged steps forward and stopped between
Telzey and the bushes on their right, back rigid, neck fur erect, tail
twisting.
Expectant silence closed in about them. The circle was waiting. In the
greenery on the right something made a slow, heavy stir.
TT's lips peeled back from her teeth. Her head swung towards the
motion, ears flattening, transformed to a split, snarling demon-mask.
A long shriek ripped from her lungs, raw with fury, blood lust and
challenge.
The sound died away. For some seconds the tension about them held;
then came a sense of gradual relaxation mingled with a partly amused
approval. Telzey was shaking violently. It had been, she was telling
herself, a deliberate test ... not of herself, of course, but of TT.
And Tick-Tock had passed with honors. That _her_ nerves had been half
ruined in the process would seem a matter of no consequence to this
rugged crew....
She realized next that someone here was addressing her personally.
It took a few moments to steady her jittering thoughts enough to gain
a more definite impression than that. This speaker, she discovered
then, was a member of the circle of whom she hadn't been aware before.
The thought-impressions came hard and cold as iron--a personage who
was very evidently in the habit of making major decisions and seeing
them carried out. The circle, its moment of sport over, was listening
with more than a suggestion of deference. Tick-Tock, far from
conciliated, green eyes still blazing, nevertheless was settling down
to listen, too.
Telzey began to understand.
Her suggestions, Iron Thoughts informed her, might appear without
value to a number of foolish minds here, but _he_ intended to see they
were given a fair trial. Did he perhaps hear, he inquired next of the
circle, throwing in a casual but horridly vivid impression of snapping
spines and slashed shaggy throats spouting blood, any objection to
that?
Dead stillness all around. There was, definitely, no objection.
Tick-Tock began to grin like a pleased kitten.
That point having been settled in an orderly manner now, Iron Thoughts
went on coldly to Telzey, what specifically did she propose they
should do?
* * * * *
Halet's long, pearl-gray sportscar showed up above the park trees
twenty minutes later. Telzey, face turned down towards the open law
library in her lap, watched the car from the corner of her eyes. She
was in plain view, sitting beside the lake, apparently absorbed in
legal research. Tick-Tock, camouflaged among the bushes thirty feet
higher up the bank, had spotted the car an instant before she did and
announced the fact with a three-second break in her purring. Neither
of them made any other move.
The car was approaching the lake but still a good distance off. Its
canopy was down, and Telzey could just make out the heads of three
people inside. Delquos, Halet's chauffeur, would be flying the
vehicle, while Halet and Dr. Droon looked around for her from the
sides. Three hundred yards away, the aircar began a turn to the right.
Delquos didn't like his employer much; at a guess, he had just spotted
Telzey and was trying to warn her off.
Telzey closed the library and put it down, picked up a handful of
pebbles and began flicking them idly, one at a time, into the water.
The aircar vanished to her left.
Three minutes later, she watched its shadow glide across the surface
of the lake towards her. Her heart began to thump almost audibly, but
she didn't look up. Tick-Tock's purring continued, on its regular,
unhurried note. The car came to a stop almost directly overhead. After
a couple of seconds, there was a clicking noise. The purring ended
abruptly.
Telzey climbed to her feet as Delquos brought the car down to the bank
of the lake. The chauffeur grinned ruefully at her. A side door had
been opened, and Halet and Dr. Droon stood behind it. Halet watched
Telzey with a small smile while the naturalist put the heavy
life-detector-and-stungun device carefully down on the floorboards.
"If you're looking for Tick-Tock," Telzey said, "she isn't here."
Halet just shook her head sorrowfully.
"There's no use lying to us, dear. Dr Droon just stunned her."
* * * * *
They found TT collapsed on her side among the shrubs, wearing her
natural color. Her eyes were shut, her chest rose and fell in a slow
breathing motion. Dr. Droon, looking rather apologetic, pointed out to
Telzey that her pet was in no pain, that the stungun had simply put
her comfortably to sleep. He also explained the use of the two sets of
webbed paralysis belts which he fastened about TT's legs. The effect
of the stun charge would wear off in a few minutes, and contact with
the inner surfaces of the energized belts would then keep TT
anesthetized and unable to move until the belts were removed. She
would, he repeated, be suffering no pain throughout the process.
Telzey didn't comment. She watched Delquos raise TT's limp body above
the level of the bushes with a gravity hoist belonging to Dr. Droon,
and maneuver her back to the car, the others following. Delquos
climbed into the car first, opened the big trunk compartment in the
rear. TT was slid inside and the trunk compartment locked.
"Where are you taking her?" Telzey asked sullenly as Delquos lifted
the car into the air.
"To the spaceport, dear," Halet said. "Dr. Droon and I both felt it
would be better to spare your feelings by not prolonging the matter
unnecessarily."
Telzey wrinkled her nose disdainfully, and walked up the aircar to
stand behind Delquos' seat. She leaned against the back of the seat
for an instant. Her legs felt shaky.
The chauffeur gave her a sober wink from the side.
"That's a dirty trick she's played on you, Miss Telzey!" he murmured.
"I tried to warn you."
"I know." Telzey took a deep breath. "Look, Delquos, in just a minute
something's going to happen! It'll look dangerous, but it won't be.
Don't let it get you nervous ... right?"
"Huh?" Delquos appeared startled, but kept his voice low. "Just
_what's_ going to happen?"
"No time to tell you. Remember what I said."
* * * * *
Telzey moved back a few steps from the driver's seat, turned around,
said unsteadily, "Halet ... Dr. Droon--"
Halet had been speaking quietly to Dr. Droon; they both looked up.
"If you don't move, and don't do anything stupid," Telzey said
rapidly, "you won't get hurt. If you do ... well, I don't know! You
see, there's another crest cat in the car...." In her mind she added,
"Now!"
It was impossible to tell in just what section of the car Iron
Thoughts had been lurking. The carpeting near the rear passenger seats
seemed to blur for an instant. Then he was there, camouflage dropped,
sitting on the floorboards five feet from the naturalist and Halet.
Halet's mouth opened wide; she tried to scream but fainted instead.
Dr. Droon's right hand started out quickly towards the big stungun
device beside his seat. Then he checked himself and sat still,
ashen-faced.
Telzey didn't blame him for changing his mind. She felt he must be a
remarkably brave man to have moved at all. Iron Thoughts, twice as
broad across the back as Tick-Tock, twice as massively muscled, looked
like a devil-beast even to her. His dark-green marbled hide was
criss-crossed with old scar patterns; half his tossing crimson crest
appeared to have been ripped away. He reached out now in a fluid,
silent motion, hooked a paw under the stungun and flicked upwards. The
big instrument rose in an incredibly swift, steep arc eighty feet
into the air, various parts flying away from it, before it started
curving down towards the treetops below the car. Iron Thoughts lazily
swung his head around and looked at Telzey with yellow fire-eyes.
"Miss Telzey! Miss Telzey!" Delquos was muttering behind her. "You're
_sure_ it won't...."
Telzey swallowed. At the moment, she felt barely mouse-sized again.
"Just relax!" she told Delquos in a shaky voice. "He's really quite
t-t-t-tame."
Iron Thoughts produced a harsh but not unamiable chuckle in her mind.
* * * * *
The pearl-gray sportscar, covered now by its streamlining canopy,
drifted down presently to a parking platform outside the suite of
offices on Jontarou's Planetary Moderator, on the fourteenth floor of
the Shikaris' Club Tower. An attendant waved it on into a vacant slot.
Inside the car, Delquos set the brakes, switched off the engine,
asked, "Now what?"
"I think," Telzey said reflectively, "we'd better lock you in the
trunk compartment with my aunt and Dr. Droon while I talk to the
Moderator."
The chauffeur shrugged. He'd regained most of his aplomb during the
unhurried trip across the parklands. Iron Thoughts had done nothing
but sit in the center of the car, eyes half shut, looking like instant
death enjoying a dignified nap and occasionally emitting a ripsawing
noise which might have been either his style of purring or a snore.
And Tick-Tock, when Delquos peeled the paralysis belts off her legs at
Telzey's direction, had greeted him with her usual reserved
affability. What the chauffeur was suffering from at the moment was
intense curiosity, which Telzey had done nothing to relieve.
"Just as you say, Miss Telzey," he agreed. "I hate to miss whatever
you're going to be doing here, but if you _don't_ lock me up now, Miss
Halet will figure I was helping you and fire me as soon as you let her
out."
Telzey nodded, then cocked her head in the direction of the rear
compartment. Faint sounds coming through the door indicated that Halet
had regained consciousness and was having hysterics.
"You might tell her," Telzey suggested, "that there'll be a grown-up
crest cat sitting outside the compartment door." This wasn't true, but
neither Delquos nor Halet could know it. "If there's too much racket
before I get back, it's likely to irritate him...."
A minute later, she set both car doors on lock and went outside,
wishing she were less informally clothed. Sunbriefs and sandals tended
to make her look juvenile.
* * * * *
The parking attendant appeared startled when she approached him with
Tick-Tock striding alongside.
"They'll never let you into the offices with that thing, miss," he
informed her. "Why, it doesn't even have a collar!"
"Don't worry about it." Telzey told him aloofly.
She dropped a two-credit piece she'd taken from Halet's purse into his
hand, and continued on towards the building entrance. The attendant
squinted after her, trying unsuccessfully to dispel an odd impression
that the big catlike animal with the girl was throwing a double
shadow.
The Moderator's chief receptionist also had some doubts about TT, and
possibly about the sunbriefs, though she seemed impressed when
Telzey's identification tag informed her she was speaking to the
daughter of Federation Councilwoman Jessamine Amberdon.
"You feel you can discuss this ... emergency ... only with the
Moderator himself, Miss Amberdon?" she repeated.
"Exactly," Telzey said firmly. A buzzer sounded as she spoke. The
receptionist excused herself and picked up an earphone. She listened a
moment, said blandly, "Yes.... Of course.... Yes, I understand,"
replaced the earphone and stood up, smiling at Telzey.
"Would you come with me, Miss Amberdon?" she said. "I think the
Moderator will see you immediately...."
Telzey followed her, chewing thoughtfully at her lip. This was easier
than she'd expected--in fact, too easy! Halet's work? Probably. A few
comments to the effect of "A highly imaginative child ...
overexcitable," while Halet was arranging to have the Moderator's
office authorize Tick-Tock's transfer to the life Banks, along with
the implication that Jessamine Amberdon would appreciate a discreet
handling of any disturbance Telzey might create as a result.
It was the sort of notion that would appeal to Halet--
* * * * *
They passed through a series of elegantly equipped offices and
hallways, Telzey grasping TT's neck-fur in lieu of a leash, their
appearance creating a tactfully restrained wave of surprise among
secretaries and clerks. And if somebody here and there was troubled by
a fleeting, uncanny impression that not one large beast but two seemed
to be trailing the Moderator's visitor down the aisles, no mention was
made of what could have been only a momentary visual distortion.
Finally, a pair of sliding doors opened ahead, and the receptionist
ushered Telzey into a large, cool balcony garden on the shaded side of
the great building. A tall, gray-haired man stood up from the desk at
which he was working, and bowed to Telzey. The receptionist withdrew
again.
"My pleasure, Miss Amberdon," Jontarou's Planetary Moderator said, "Be
seated, please." He studied Tick-Tock with more than casual interest
while Telzey was settling herself into a chair, added, "And what may I
and my office do for you?"
Telzey hesitated. She'd observed his type on Orado in her mother's
circle of acquaintances--a senior diplomat, a man not easy to impress.
It was a safe bet that he'd had her brought out to his balcony office
only to keep her occupied while Halet was quietly informed where the
Amberdon problem child was and requested to come over and take charge.
What she had to tell him now would have sounded rather wild even if
presented by a presumably responsible adult. She could provide proof,
but until the Moderator was already nearly sold on her story, that
would be a very unsafe thing to do. Old Iron Thoughts was backing her
up, but if it didn't look as if her plans were likely to succeed, he
would be willing to ride herd on his devil's pack just so long....
Better start the ball rolling without any preliminaries, Telzey
decided. The Moderator's picture of her must be that of a spoiled,
neurotic brat in a stew about the threatened loss of a pet animal. He
expected her to start arguing with him immediately about Tick-Tock.
She said "Do you have a personal interest in keeping the Baluit crest
cats from becoming extinct?"
Surprise flickered in his eyes for an instant. Then he smiled.
"I admit I do, Miss Amberdon," he said pleasantly. "I should like to
see the species re-established. I count myself almost uniquely
fortunate in having had the opportunity to bag two of the magnificent
brutes before disease wiped them out on the planet."
[Illustration]
The last seemed a less than fortunate statement just now. Telzey
felt a sharp tingle of alarm, then sensed that in the minds which were
drawing the meaning of the Moderator's speech from her mind there had
been only a brief stir of interest.
She cleared her throat, said, "The point is that they weren't wiped
out by disease."
He considered her quizzically, seemed to wonder what she was trying to
lead up to. Telzey gathered her courage, plunged on, "Would you like
to hear what did happen?"
"I should be very much interested, Miss Amberdon," the Moderator said
without change of expression. "But first, if you'll excuse me a
moment...."
There had been some signal from his desk which Telzey hadn't noticed,
because he picked up a small communicator now and said "Yes?" After a
few seconds, he resumed, "That's rather curious, isn't it?... Yes, I'd
try that.... No, that shouldn't be necessary.... Yes, please do.
Thank you." He replaced the communicator, his face very sober; then,
his eyes flicking for an instant to TT, he drew one of the upper desk
drawers open a few inches, and turned back to Telzey.
"Now, Miss Amberdon," he said affably, "you were about to say? About
these crest cats...."
Telzey swallowed. She hadn't heard the other side of the conversation,
but she could guess what it had been about. His office had called the
guest house, had been told by Halet's maid that Halet, the chauffeur
and Dr. Droon were out looking for Miss Telzey and her pet. The
Moderator's office had then checked on the sportscar's communication
number and attempted to call it. And, of course, there had been no
response.
To the Moderator, considering what Halet would have told him, it must
add up to the grim possibility that the young lunatic he was talking
to had let her three-quarters-grown crest cat slaughter her aunt and
the two men when they caught up with her! The office would be
notifying the police now to conduct an immediate search for the
missing aircar.
When it would occur to them to look for it on the Moderator's parking
terrace was something Telzey couldn't know. But if Halet and Dr. Droon
were released before the Moderator accepted her own version of what
had occurred, and the two reported the presence of wild crest cats in
Port Nichay, there would be almost no possibility of keeping the
situation under control. Somebody was bound to make some idiotic move,
and the fat would be in the fire....
* * * * *
Two things might be in her favor. The Moderator seemed to have the
sort of steady nerve one would expect in a man who had bagged two
Baluit crest cats. The partly opened desk drawer beside him must have
a gun in it; apparently he considered that a sufficient precaution
against an attack by TT. He wasn't likely to react in a panicky
manner. And the mere fact that he suspected Telzey of homicidal
tendencies would make him give the closest attention to what she said.
Whether he believed her then was another matter, of course.
Slightly encouraged, Telzey began to talk. It did sound like a
thoroughly wild story, but the Moderator listened with an appearance
of intent interest. When she had told him as much as she felt he could
be expected to swallow for a start, he said musingly, "So they weren't
wiped out--they went into hiding! Do I understand you to say they did
it to avoid being hunted?"
Telzey chewed her lip frowningly before replying. "There's something
about that part I don't quite get," she admitted. "Of course I don't
quite get either why you'd want to go hunting ... twice ... for
something that's just as likely to bag you instead!"
"Well, those are, ah, merely the statistical odds," the Moderator
explained. "If one has enough confidence, you see--"
"I don't really. But the crest cats seem to have felt the same way--at
first. They were getting around one hunter for every cat that got
shot. Humans were the most exciting game they'd ever run into.
"But then that ended, and the humans started knocking them out with
stunguns from aircars where they couldn't be got at, and hauling them
off while they were helpless. After it had gone on for a while, they
decided to keep out of sight.
"But they're still around ... thousands and thousands of them!
Another thing nobody's known about them is that they weren't only in
the Baluit mountains. There were crest cats scattered all through the
big forests along the other side of the continent."
"Very interesting," the Moderator commented. "Very interesting,
indeed!" He glanced towards the communicator, then returned his gaze
to Telzey, drumming his fingers lightly on the desk top.
She could tell nothing at all from his expression now, but she guessed
he was thinking hard. There was supposed to be no native intelligent
life in the legal sense on Jontarou, and she had been careful to say
nothing so far to make the Baluit cats look like more than rather
exceptionally intelligent animals. The next--rather large--question
should be how she'd come by such information.
If the Moderator asked her that, Telzey thought, she could feel she'd
made a beginning at getting him to buy the whole story.
"Well," he said abruptly, "if the crest cats are not extinct or
threatened with extinction, the Life Banks obviously have no claim on
your pet." He smiled confidingly at her. "And that's the reason you're
here, isn't it?"
"Well, no," Telzey began, dismayed. "I--"
"Oh, it's quite all right, Miss Amberdon! I'll simply rescind the
permit which was issued for the purpose. You need feel no further
concern about that." He paused. "Now, just one question ... do you
happen to know where your aunt is at present?"
* * * * *
Telzey had a dead, sinking feeling. So he hadn't believed a word she
said. He'd been stalling her along until the aircar could be found.
She took a deep breath. "You'd better listen to the rest of it."
"Why, is there more?" the Moderator asked politely.
"Yes. The important part! The kind of creatures they are, they
wouldn't go into hiding indefinitely just because someone was after
them."
Was there a flicker of something beyond watchfulness in his
expression. "What would they do, Miss Amberdon?" he asked quietly.
"If they couldn't get at the men in the aircars and couldn't
communicate with them"--the flicker again!--"they'd start looking for
the place the men came from, wouldn't they? It might take them some
years to work their way across the continent and locate us here in
Port Nichay. But supposing they did it finally and a few thousand of
them are sitting around in the parks down there right now? They could
come up the side of these towers as easily as they go up the side of a
mountain. And supposing they'd decided that the only way to handle the
problem was to clean out the human beings in Port Nichay?"
The Moderator stared at her in silence a few seconds. "You're saying,"
he observed then, "that they're rational beings--above the Critical
I.Q. level."
"Well," Telzey said, "legally they're rational. I checked on that.
About as rational as we are, I suppose."
"Would you mind telling me now how you happen to know this?"
"They told me," Telzey said.
He was silent again, studying her face. "You mentioned, Miss Amberdon,
that they have been unable to communicate with other human beings.
This suggests then that you are a xenotelepath...."
"I am?" Telzey hadn't heard the term before. "If it means that I can
tell what the cats are thinking, and they can tell what I'm thinking,
I guess that's the word for it." She considered him, decided she had
him almost on the ropes, went on quickly.
"I looked up the laws, and told them they could conclude a treaty with
the Federation which would establish them as an Affiliated Species ...
and that would settle everything the way they would want it settled,
without trouble. Some of them believed me. They decided to wait until
I could talk to you. If it works out, fine! If it doesn't"--she felt
her voice falter for an instant--"they're going to cut loose fast!"
The Moderator seemed undisturbed. "What am I supposed to do?"
"I told them you'd contact the Council of the Federation on Orado."
"Contact the Council?" he repeated coolly. "With no more proof for
this story than your word Miss Amberdon?"
Telzey felt a quick, angry stirring begin about her, felt her face
whiten.
"All right," she said "I'll give you proof! I'll have to now. But
that'll be it. Once they've tipped their hand all the way, you'll
have about thirty seconds left to make the right move. I hope you
remember that!"
He cleared his throat. "I--"
"NOW!" Telzey said.
Along the walls of the balcony garden, beside the ornamental flower
stands, against the edges of the rock pool, the crest cats appeared.
Perhaps thirty of them. None quite as physically impressive as Iron
Thoughts who stood closest to the Moderator; but none very far from
it. Motionless as rocks, frightening as gargoyles, they waited, eyes
glowing with hellish excitement.
"This is _their_ council, you see," Telzey heard herself saying.
The Moderator's face had also paled. But he was, after all, an old
shikari and a senior diplomat. He took an unhurried look around the
circle, said quietly, "Accept my profound apologies for doubting you.
Miss Amberdon!" and reached for the desk communicator.
Iron Thoughts swung his demon head in Telzey's direction. For an
instant, she picked up the mental impression of a fierce yellow eye
closing in an approving wink.
"... An open transmitter line to Orado," the Moderator was saying into
the communicator. "The Council. And snap it up! Some very important
visitors are waiting."
The offices of Jontarou's Planetary Moderator became an extremely busy
and interesting area then. Quite two hours passed before it occurred
to anyone to ask Telzey again whether she knew where her aunt was at
present.
Telzey smote her forehead.
"Forgot all about that!" she admitted, fishing the sportscar's keys
out of the pocket of her sunbriefs. "They're out on the parking
platform...."
* * * * *
The preliminary treaty arrangements between the Federation of the Hub
and the new Affiliated Species of the Planet of Jontarou were formally
ratified two weeks later, the ceremony taking place on Jontarou, in
the Champagne Hall of the Shikaris' Club.
Telzey was able to follow the event only by news viewer in her
ship-cabin, she and Halet being on the return trip to Orado by then.
She wasn't too interested in the treaty's details--they conformed
almost exactly to what she had read out to Iron Thoughts and his
co-chiefs and companions in the park. It was the smooth bridging of
the wide language gap between the contracting parties by a row of
interpreting machines and a handful of human xenotelepaths which held
her attention.
As she switched off the viewer, Halet came wandering in from the
adjoining cabin.
"I was watching it, too!" Halet observed. She smiled. "I was hoping to
see dear Tick-Tock."
Telzey looked over at her. "Well, TT would hardly be likely to show up
in Port Nichay," she said. "She's having too good a time now finding
out what life in the Baluit range is like."
"I suppose so," Halet agreed doubtfully, sitting down on a hassock.
"But I'm glad she promised to get in touch with us again in a few
years. I'll miss her."
Telzey regarded her aunt with a reflective frown. Halet meant it quite
sincerely, of course, she had undergone a profound change of heart
during the past two weeks. But Telzey wasn't without some doubts about
the actual value of a change of heart brought on by telepathic means.
The learning process the crest cats had started in her mind appeared
to have continued automatically several days longer than her rugged
teachers had really intended; and Telzey had reason to believe that by
the end of that time she'd developed associated latent abilities of
which the crest cats had never heard. She'd barely begun to get it all
sorted out yet, but ... as an example ... she'd found it remarkably
easy to turn Halet's more obnoxious attitudes virtually upside down.
It had taken her a couple of days to get the hang of her aunt's
personal symbolism, but after that there had been no problem.
She was reasonably certain she'd broken no laws so far, though the
sections in the law library covering the use and abuse of psionic
abilities were veiled in such intricate and downright obscuring
phrasing--deliberately, Telzey suspected--that it was really difficult
to say what they did mean. But even aside from that, there were a
number of arguments in favor of exercising great caution.
Jessamine, for one thing, was bound to start worrying about her
sister-in-law's health if Halet turned up on Orado in her present
state of mind, even though it would make for a far more agreeable
atmosphere in the Amberdon household.
"Halet," Telzey inquired mentally, "do you remember what an all-out
stinker you used to be?"
"Of course, dear," Halet said aloud. "I can hardly wait to tell dear
Jessamine how much I regret the many times I...."
"Well," Telzey went on, still verbalizing it silently. "I think you'd
really enjoy life more if you were, let's say, about halfway between
your old nasty self and the sort of sickening-good kind you are now."
"Why, Telzey!" Halet cried out with dopey amiability. "What a
delightful idea!"
"Let's try it," Telzey said.
There was silence in the cabin for some twenty minutes then while she
went painstakingly about remolding a number of Halet's character
traits for the second time. She still felt some misgivings about it;
but if it became necessary, she probably could always restore the old
Halet _in toto_.
These, she told herself, definitely were powers one should treat with
respect! Better rattle through law school first; then, with that out
of the way, she could start hunting around to see who in the
Federation was qualified to instruct a genius-level novice in the
proper handling of psionics.
* * * * *
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