by Jerry
“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.
“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 t
ransportation. 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-flo
or 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.