“Ready?”
* * *
Sense of multiple acknowledgments, variously tinged—sardonic; interestedly 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 brought up the Federation law index, 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 Her company waited, withdrawn, silent, aloof once more, while the index searched the library. Within a minute and a half she had a dozen reference symbols. She called up the first reference, 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’s 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!”