Novice
Page 5
meant immediately was that she'd have to get out of thehouse without being spotted at it, and go some place where she couldbe 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 tellthese two anything! Her face must be pretty white at the moment--shecould feel it--but they assumed, of course, that the shock of losingTT 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 canbe arranged, Miss Amberdon!"
"Don't bother to call the Moderator's office," Telzey said. "I broughtmy law library along. I'll look it up myself." She turned to leave theroom.
"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. Butdon't take too long, will you? We don't want to waste Dr. Droon'stime."
"It shouldn't take more than five or ten minutes," Telzey told heragreeably. She closed the door behind her, and went directly to herbedroom on the second floor. One of her two valises was stillunpacked. She locked the door behind her, opened the unpacked valise,took out a pocket edition law library and sat down at the table withit.
She clicked on the library's view-screen, tapped the clearing andindex buttons. Behind the screen, one of the multiple rows of pinheadtapes shifted slightly as the index was flicked into reading position.Half a minute later, she was glancing over the legal section on whichDr. 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 threeways in which a case like that could have been dragged out in theFederation's courts for a couple of decades before the question ofhanding Tick-Tock over to the Life Banks became too acute.
Well, Halet simply wasn't really intelligent. And the plot to shanghaiTT was hardly even a side issue now.
Telzey snapped the tiny library shut, fastened it to the belt of hersunsuit and went over to the open window. A two-foot ledge passedbeneath the window, leading to the roof of a patio on the right.Fifty yards beyond the patio, the garden ended in a natural-stonewall. Behind it lay one of the big wooded park areas which formed mostof the ground level of Port Nichay.
Tick-Tock wasn't in sight. A sound of voices came from ground-floorwindows on the left. Halet had brought her maid and chauffeur along;and a chef had showed up in time to make breakfast this morning, aspart of the city's guest house service. Telzey took the empty valiseto the window, set it on end against the left side of the frame, andlet 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 herfinger against the lock button, and pushed.
The sound of voices from the lower floor was cut off as outer doorsand windows slid silently shut all about the house. Telzey glancedback at the window. The valise had creaked a little as the guard fielddrove the frame down on it, but it was supporting the thrust. Shereturned 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 patiotrellis to the ground. Even after they discovered she was gone, theguard screen would keep everybody in the house for some little while.They'd either have to disengage the screen's main mechanisms and startpoking around in them, or force open the door to her bedroom and getthe lock unset. Either approach would involve confusion, upsettempers, and generally delay any organized pursuit.
Telzey edged around the patio and started towards the wall, keepingclose to the side of the house so she couldn't be seen from thewindows. The shrubbery made minor rustling noises as she threaded herway through it ... and then there was a different stirring which mighthave been no more than a slow, steady current of air moving among thebushes behind her. She shivered involuntarily but didn't look back.
She came to the wall, stood still, measuring its height, jumped andgot an arm across it, swung up a knee and squirmed up and over. Shecame down on her feet with a small thump in the grass on the otherside, glanced back once at the guest house, crossed a path and went onamong 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 likea skirmish line, keeping abreast with her, occasional shadows slidsilently through patches of open, sunlit ground, disappeared againunder the trees. Otherwise, there was hardly anyone in sight. PortNichay's human residents appeared to make almost no personal use ofthe vast parkland spread out beneath their tower apartments; and itstraffic moved over the airways, visible from the ground only asrainbow-hued ribbons which bisected the sky between the upper towerlevels. An occasional private aircar went by overhead.
Wisps of thought which were not her own thoughts flicked throughTelzey's mind from moment to moment as the silent line of shadowsmoved deeper into the park with her. She realized she was being sizedup, judged, evaluated again. No more information was coming through;they had given her as much information as she needed. In the mainperhaps, they were simply curious now. This was the first human mindthey'd been able to make heads or tails of, and that hadn't seemeddeaf and silent to their form of communication. They were taking timeout to study it. They'd been assured she would have something ofgenuine importance to tell them; and there was some derision aboutthat. But they were willing to wait a little, and find out. They werecurious and they liked games. At the moment, Telzey and what she mighttry to do to change their plans was the game on which their attentionwas fixed.
Twelve minutes passed before the talker on Telzey's wrist began tobuzz. It continued to signal off and on for another few minutes, thenstopped. Back in the guest house they couldn't be sure yet whether shewasn't simply locked inside her room and refusing to answer them. ButTelzey quickened her pace.
The park's trees gradually became more massive, reached higher aboveher, stood spaced more widely apart. She passed through the morningshadow of the residential tower nearest the guest house, and emergedfrom it presently on the shore of a small lake. On the other side ofthe lake, a number of dappled grazing animals like long-necked, tallhorses lifted their heads to watch her. For some seconds they seemedonly mildly interested, but then a breeze moved across the lake,crinkling the surface of the water, and as it touched the oppositeshore, abrupt panic exploded among the grazers. They wheeled, wentflashing away in effortless twenty-foot strides, and were gone amongthe trees.
Telzey felt a crawling along her spine. It was the first objectiveindication she'd had of the nature of the company she had brought tothe lake, and while it hardly came as a surprise, for a moment herurge 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 herright. TT was still around, for whatever good that might do. Not toomuch, Telzey thought, if it came to serious trouble. But the knowledgewas somewhat reassuring ... and this, meanwhile, appeared to be as faras she needed to get from the guest house. They'd be looking for herby aircar presently, but there was nothing to tell them in whichdirection to turn first.
She climbed the bank of the lake to a point where she was screenedboth by thick, green shrubbery and the top of a single immense treefrom the sky, sat down on some dry, mossy growth, took the law libraryfrom her belt, opened it and placed it in her lap. Vague stirringsindicated that her escort was also settling down in an irregularcircle about her; and apprehension shivered on Telzey's skin again. Itwasn'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?"
* * * * *
Sense of multiple acknowledgment, variously tinged--sardonic;interestingly amused; attentive; doubtful. Impatience quivered throughit too, only tentatively held in restraint, and Telzey's forehead wassuddenly wet. Some of them seemed on the verge of expressingdisapproval with what was being done here--
Her fingers quickly flicked in the index tape, and the stir of feelingabout her subsided, their attention captured again for the moment. Herthoughts became to some degree detached, ready to dissect anotherproblem in the familiar ways and present the answers to it. Not a