“Yes,” Telzey said blandly.
“Well, we hope this isn’t going to disturb 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 a 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 ratio.”
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 known 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.