on the other
side, glanced back once at the guest house, crossed a path and went on
among the park trees.

* * * * *

Within a few hundred yards, it became apparent that she had an escort.
She didn't look around for them, but spread out to right and left like
a skirmish line, keeping abreast with her, occasional shadows slid
silently through patches of open, sunlit ground, disappeared again
under the trees. Otherwise, there was hardly anyone in sight. Port
Nichay's human residents appeared to make almost no personal use of
the vast parkland spread out beneath their tower apartments; and its
traffic moved over the airways, visible from the ground only as
rainbow-hued ribbons which bisected the sky between the upper tower
levels. An occasional private aircar went by overhead.

Wisps of thought which were not her own thoughts flicked through
Telzey's mind from moment to moment as the silent line of shadows
moved deeper into the park with her. She realized she was being sized
up, judged, evaluated again. No more information was coming through;
they had given her as much information as she needed. In the main
perhaps, they were simply curious now. This was the first human mind
they'd been able to make heads or tails of, and that hadn't seemed
deaf and silent to their form of communication. They were taking time
out to study it. They'd been assured she would have something of
genuine importance to tell them; and there was some derision about
that. But they were willing to wait a little, and find out. They were
curious and they liked games. At the moment, Telzey and what she might
try to do to change their plans was the game on which their attention
was fixed.

Twelve minutes passed before the talker on Telzey's wrist began to
buzz. It continued to signal off and on for another few minutes, then
stopped. Back in the guest house they couldn't be sure yet whether she
wasn't simply locked inside her room and refusing to answer them. But
Telzey quickened her pace.

The park's trees gradually became more massive, reached higher above
her, stood spaced more widely apart. She passed through the morning
shadow of the residential tower nearest the guest house, and emerged
from it presently on the shore of a small lake. On the other side of
the lake, a number of dappled grazing animals like long-necked, tall
horses lifted their heads to watch her. For some seconds they seemed
only mildly interested,