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
guest house 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 waited to grab her if she
took even one step forwards? It couldn't have had any significance. Or
could it?

So you'd like to try magic, Telzey scoffed at herself. Baby games....
How far would you have got at law school if you'd asked TT to help
with your problems?

Then why had she been thinking about it again?

She shivered, because an eerie stillness seemed to settle on the
garden. From the side of the terrace, TT's green eyes watched her.

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
unquiet place. There was a sense of unseen things on all sides
watching her and waiting.

Was this another form of the d