“Now, Miss Amberdon,” he said affably, “you were about to say? About these crest cats . . .”
Telzey swallowed. She hadn’t heard the other side of the conversation, but she could guess what it had been about. His office had called the guest house, had been told by Halet’s maid that Halet, the chauffeur and Dr. Droon were out looking for Miss Telzey and her pet. The Moderator’s office had then checked on the sportscar’s communication number and attempted to call it. And, of course, there had been no response.
To the Moderator, considering what Halet would have told him, it must add up to the grim possibility that the young lunatic he was talking to had let her three-quarters-grown crest cat slaughter her aunt and the two men when they caught up with her! The office would be notifying the police now to conduct an immediate search for the missing aircar.
When it would occur to them to look for it on the Moderator’s parking terrace was something Telzey couldn’t know. But if Halet and Dr. Droon were released before the Moderator accepted her own version of what had occurred, and the two reported the presence of wild crest cats in Port Nichay, there would be almost no possibility of keeping the situation under control. Somebody was bound to make some idiotic move, and the fat would be in the fire . . .
* * *
Two things might be in her favor. The Moderator seemed to have the sort of steady nerve one would expect in a man who had bagged two Baluit crest cats. The partly opened desk drawer beside him must have a gun in it; apparently he considered that a sufficient precaution against an attack by TT. He wasn’t likely to react in a panicky manner. And the mere fact that he suspected Telzey of homicidal tendencies would make him give the closest attention to what she said. Whether he believed her then was another matter, of course.
Slightly encouraged, Telzey began to talk. It did sound like a thoroughly wild story, but the Moderator listened with an appearance of intent interest. When she had told him as much as she felt he could be expected to swallow for a start, he said musingly, “So they weren’t wiped out—they went into hiding! Do I understand you to say they did it to avoid being hunted?”
Telzey chewed her lip frowningly before replying. “There’s something about that part I don’t quite get,” she admitted. “Of course I don’t quite get either why you’d want to go hunting . . . twice . . . for something that’s just as likely to bag you instead!”
“Well, those are, ah, merely the statistical odds,” the Moderator explained. “If one has enough confidence, you see—”
“I don’t really. But the crest cats seem to have felt the same way—at first. They were getting around one hunter for every cat that got shot. Humans were the most exciting game they’d ever run into.”
“But then that ended, and the humans started knocking them out with stunguns from aircars where they couldn’t be got at, and hauling them off while they were helpless. After it had gone on for a while, they decided to keep out of sight.
“But they’re still around . . . thousands and thousands of them! Another thing nobody’s known about them is that they weren’t only in the Baluit Mountains. There were crest cats scattered all through the big forests along the other side of the continent.”
“Very interesting,” the Moderator commented. “Very interesting, indeed!” He glanced towards the communicator, then returned his gaze to Telzey, drumming his fingers lightly on the desktop.
She could tell nothing at all from his expression now, but she guessed he was thinking hard. There was supposed to be no native intelligent life in the legal sense on Jontarou, and she had been careful to say nothing so far to make the Baluit cats look like more than rather exceptionally intelligent animals. The next—rather large—question should be how she’d come by such information.
If the Moderator asked her that, Telzey thought, she could feel she’d made a beginning at getting him to buy the whole story.
“Well,” he said abruptly, “if the crest cats are not extinct or threatened with extinction, the Life Banks obviously have no claim on your pet.” He smiled confidingly at her. “And that’s the reason you’re here, isn’t it?”
“Well, no,” Telzey began, dismayed. “I—”
“Oh, it’s quite all right, Miss Amberdon! I’ll simply rescind the permit which was issued for the purpose. You need feel no further concern about that.” He paused. “Now, just one question . . . do you happen to know where your aunt is at present?”
* * *
Telzey had a dead, sinking feeling. So he hadn’t believed a word she said. He’d been stalling her along until the aircar could be found.
She took a deep breath. “You’d better listen to the rest of it.”
“Why, is there more?” the Moderator asked politely.
“Yes. The important part! The kind of creatures they are, they wouldn’t go into hiding indefinitely just because someone was after them.”
Was there a flicker of something beyond watchfulness in his expression? “What would they do, Miss Amberdon?” he asked quietly.
“If they couldn’t get at the men in the aircars and couldn’t communicate with them”—the flicker again!—”they’d start looking for the place the men came from, wouldn’t they? It might take them some years to work their way across the continent and locate us here in Port Nichay. But supposing they did it finally and a few thousand of them are sitting around in the parks down there right now? They could come up the side of these towers as easily as they go up the side of a mountain. And supposing they’d decided that the only way to handle the problem was to clean out the human beings in Port Nichay?”
The Moderator stared at her in silence a few seconds. “You’re saying,” he observed then, “that they’re rational beings—above the Critical I.Q. level.”
“Well,” Telzey said, “legally they’re rational. I checked on that. About as rational as we are, I suppose.”
“Would you mind telling me now how you happen to know this?”
“They told me,” Telzey said.
He was silent again, studying her face. “You mentioned, Miss Amberdon, that they have been unable to communicate with other human beings. This suggests then that you are a xenotelepath . . .”
“I am?” Telzey hadn’t heard the term before. “If it means that I can tell what the cats are thinking, and they can tell what I’m thinking, I guess that’s the word for it.” She considered him, decided she had him almost on the ropes, went on quickly.
“I looked up the laws, and told them they could conclude a treaty with the Federation which would establish them as an Affiliated Species . . . and that would settle everything the way they would want it settled, without trouble. Some of them believed me. They decided to wait until I could talk to you. If it works out, fine! If it doesn’t”—she felt her voice falter for an instant—”they’re going to cut loose fast!”
The Moderator seemed undisturbed. “What am I supposed to do?”
“I told them you’d contact the Council of the Federation on Orado.”
“Contact the Council?” he repeated coolly. “With no more proof for this story than your word, Miss Amberdon?”
Telzey felt a quick, angry stirring begin about her, felt her face whiten.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll give you proof! I’ll have to now. But that’ll be it. Once they’ve tipped their hand all the way, you’ll have about thirty seconds left to make the right move. I hope you remember that!”
He cleared his throat. “I—”
“NOW!” Telzey said.
Along the walls of the balcony garden, beside the ornamental flower stands, against the edges of the rock pool, the crest cats appeared. Perhaps thirty of them. None quite as physically impressive as Iron Thoughts who stood closest to the Moderator; but none very far from it. Motionless as rocks, frightening as gargoyles, they waited, eyes glowing with hellish excitement.
“This is their council, you see,” Telzey heard herself saying.
The Moderator’s face had also paled. But he was, after all, an old shikari and a senior diplomat. He took an unhurried look around the circle, said quietly, “Accept my profound apologies for doubting you, Miss Amberdon!” and reached for the desk communicator.
Iron Thoughts swung his demon head in Telzey’s direction. For an instant, she picked up the mental impression of a fierce yellow eye closing in an approving wink.
” . . . An open transmitter line to Orado,” the Moderator was saying into the communicator. “The Council. And snap it up! Some very important visitors are waiting . . .”
The offices of Jontarou’s Planetary Moderator became an extremely busy and interesting area then. Quite two hours passed before it occurred to anyone to ask Telzey again whether she knew where her aunt was at present.