Novice Read online

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  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction June 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  novice

  by James H. Schmitz

  A novice is one who is inexperienced--but that doesn't mean incompetent. Nor does it mean stupid!

  ILLUSTRATED BY SCHOENHERR

  * * * * *

  There was, Telzey Amberdon thought, someone besides TT and herself inthe garden. Not, of course, Aunt Halet, who was in the house waitingfor an early visitor to arrive, and not one of the servants. Someoneor something else must be concealed among the thickets ofmagnificently flowering native Jontarou shrubs about Telzey.

  She could think of no other way to account for Tick-Tock's spookedbehavior--nor, to be honest about it, for the manner her own nerveswere acting up without visible cause this morning.

  Telzey plucked a blade of grass, slipped the end between her lips andchewed it gently, her face puzzled and concerned. She wasn'tordinarily afflicted with nervousness. Fifteen years old, geniuslevel, 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 familiesand a second-year law student at one of the most exclusive schools inthe Federation of the Hub. Her physical, mental, and emotional health,she'd always been informed, was excellent. Aunt Halet's frequentcracks about the inherent instability of the genius level could beignored; Halet's own stability seemed questionable at best.

  But none of that made the present odd situation any lessdisagreeable....

  The trouble might have begun, Telzey decided, during the night, withinan hour after they arrived from the spaceport at the guest houseHalet had rented in Port Nichay for their vacation on Jontarou. Telzeyhad retired at once to her second-story bedroom with Tick-Tock; butshe barely got to sleep before something awakened her again. Turningover, she discovered TT reared up before the window, her forepaws onthe 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 TTat the window. There was nothing in particular to be seen, and if thescents and minor night-sounds which came from the garden weren'texactly what they were used to, Jontarou was after all an unfamiliarplanet. What else would one expect here?

  But Tick-Tock's muscular back felt tense and rigid when Telzey laidher arm across it, and except for an absent-minded dig with herforehead against Telzey's shoulder, TT refused to let her attention bedistracted from whatever had absorbed it. Now and then, a low, ominousrumble came from her furry throat, a half-angry, half-questioningsound. Telzey began to feel a little uncomfortable. She managedfinally to coax Tick-Tock away from the window, but neither of themslept well the rest of the night. At breakfast, Aunt Halet made one ofher typical nasty-sweet remarks.

  "You look so fatigued, dear--as if you were under some severe mentalstrain ... which, of course, you might be," Halet added musingly. Withher gold-blond hair piled high on her head and her peaches and creamcomplexion, Halet looked fresh as a daisy herself ... a maliciousdaisy. "Now wasn't I right in insisting to Jessamine that you needed avacation away from that terribly intellectual school?" She smiledgently.

  "Absolutely," Telzey agreed, restraining the impulse to fling aspoonful of egg yolk at her father's younger sister. Aunt Halet ofteninspired such impulses, but Telzey had promised her mother to avoidactual battles on the Jontarou trip, if possible. After breakfast, shewent out into the back garden with Tick-Tock, who immediately walkedinto a thicket, camouflaged herself and vanished from sight. It seemedto add up to something. But what?

  Telzey strolled about the garden a while, maintaining a pretense ofnonchalant interest in Jontarou's flowers and colorful bug life. Sheexperienced 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 thebig lunk-head hadn't obliged.

  Telzey scratched a tanned knee-cap, scowling at Port Nichay's parktrees beyond the garden wall. It seemed idiotic to feel scared whenshe couldn't even tell whether there was anything to be scared about!And, aside from that, another unreasonable feeling kept growingstronger by the minute now. This was to the effect that she should bedoing 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?" andwaited--suddenly very angry at herself for having given in to herfancies to this extent--for whatever might happen.

  * * * * *

  She had never really established that she was able to tell, by a kindof 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-behavedstray kitten then--in the woods near the Amberdons' summer home onOrado, Telzey had thought so. But it might never have been more than acolorful play of her imagination; and after she got into law schooland grew increasingly absorbed in her studies, she almost forgot thematter again.

  Today, perhaps because she was disturbed about Tick-Tock's behavior,the customary response was extraordinarily prompt. The warm glow ofsunlight shining through her closed eyelids faded out quickly and wasreplaced by some inner darkness. In the darkness there appeared thenan image of Tick-Tock sitting a little way off beside an open door inan old stone wall, green eyes fixed on Telzey. Telzey got theimpression that TT was inviting her to go through the door, and, forsome reason, the thought frightened her.

  Again, there was an immediate reaction. The scene with Tick-Tock andthe door vanished; and Telzey felt she was standing in a pitch-blackroom, knowing that if she moved even one step forwards, something thatwas waiting there silently would reach out and grab her.

  Naturally, she recoiled ... and at once found herself sitting, eyesstill closed and the sunlight bathing her lids, in the grass of theguest house 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 communicationwith TT had been like that.

  It served her right, Telzey thought, for trying such a childish stuntat the moment! What she should have done at once was to make amethodical search for the foolish beast--TT was bound to be_somewhere_ nearby--locate her behind her camouflage, and hang on toher then until this nonsense in the garden was explained! Talented asTick-Tock was at blotting herself out, it usually was possible to spother if one directed one's attention to shadow patterns. Telzey began asurreptitious study of the flowering bushes about her.

  Three minutes later, off to her right, where the ground was bankedbeneath a six-foot step in the garden's terraces, Tick-Tock's outlinesuddenly caught her eye. Flat on her belly, head lifted above herpaws, quite motionless, TT seemed like a transparent wraith stretchedout along the terrace, barely discernible even when stared atdirectly. It was a convincing illusion; but what seemed to be rocks,plant leaves, and sun-splotched earth seen through the wraith-outlinewas simply the camouflage pattern TT had printed for the moment on herhide. She could have changed it completely in an instant to conform toa different background.

  Telzey pointed an accusing finger.
/>   "See you!" she announced, feeling a surge of relief which seemed asunaccountable as the rest of it.

  The wraith twitched one ear in acknowledgment, the head outlinesshifting as the camouflaged face turned towards Telzey. Then theinwardly uncamouflaged, very substantial looking mouth opened slowly,showing Tick-Tock's red tongue and curved white tusks. The mouthstretched in a wide yawn, snapped shut with a click of meshing teeth,became indistinguishable again. Next, a pair of camouflaged lids drewback from TT's round, brilliant-green eyes. The eyes stared across thelawn at Telzey.

  Telzey said irritably, "Quit clowning around, TT!"

  The eyes blinked, and Tick-Tock's natural bronze-brown color suddenlyflowed over her head, down her neck and across her body into legs andtail. Against the side of the terrace, as if materializing intosolidity at that moment, appeared two hundred pounds of supple, rangy,long-tailed cat ... or catlike creature. TT's actual origin