James H. Schmitz - Telzey Amberdon

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2024-12-05 0 0 1.1MB 376 页 5.9玖币

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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, were 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

guesthouse 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,

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 lunkhead hadn't obliged.

Telzey scratched a tanned kneecap, 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-

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

guesthouse 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

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!

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 guesthouses,

similar to the one Halet had rented, nestling along the park slopes.

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 newscaster's

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 guesthouse 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

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

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 paging

book now, though she didn't actually see the book.

The book, 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 book

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

through Telzey as it rose heavily into her awareness. Its sheer

intensity momentarily displaced the book-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 book 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.

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摘要：

ownnerveswereactingupwithoutvisiblecausethismorning.Telzeypluckedabladeofgrass,slippedtheendbetweenherlipsandcheweditgently,herfacepuzzledandconcerned.Shewasn'tordinarilyafflictedwithnervousness.Fifteenyearsold,geniuslevel,brownasaberryandnotatallbadlookinginhersunbriefs,shewastheyoungestmemberofone...

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James H. Schmitz - Telzey Amberdon

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