ark room--a trap set up in her mind?
Telzey's attention did a quick shift. She was seated in the grass
again; the sunlight beyond her closed eyelids seemed to shine in
quietly through rose-tinted curtains. Cautiously, she let her
awareness return to the bright area; and it was still there. She had a
moment of excited elation. She was controlling this! And why not, she
asked herself. These things were happening in her mind, after all!

She would find out what they seemed to mean; but she would be in no
rush to....

An impression as if, behind her, Tick-Tock had thought, "Now I can
help again!"

Then a feeling of being swept swiftly, irresistibly forwards, thrust
out and down. The brightness exploded in thundering colors around her.
In fright, she made the effort to snap her eyes open, to be back in
the garden; but now she couldn't make it work. The colors continued to
roar about her, like a confusion of excited, laughing, triumphant
voices. Telzey felt caught in the middle of it all, suspended in
invisible spider webs. Tick-Tock seemed to be somewhere nearby,
looking on. Faithless, treacherous TT!

Telzey's mind made another wrenching effort, and there was a change.
She hadn't got back into the garden, but the noisy, swirling colors
were gone and she had the feeling of reading a rapidly moving
microtape now, though she didn't actually see the tape.

The tape, she realized, was another symbol for what was happening, a
symbol easier for her to understand. There were voices, or what might
be voices, around her; on the invisible tape she seemed to be reading
what they said.

A number of speakers, apparently involved in a fast, hot argument
about what to do with her. Impressions flashed past....

* * * * *

Why waste time with her? It was clear that kitten-talk was all she was
capable of!... Not necessarily; that was a normal first step. Give her
a little time!... But what--exasperatedly--could such a small-bite
_possibly_ know that would be of significant value?

There was a slow, blurred, awkward-seeming interruption. Its content
was not comprehensible to Telzey at all, but in some unmistakable
manner it was defined as Tick-Tock's thought.

A pause as the circle of speakers stopped to consider whatever TT had
thrown into the debate.

Then another impression ... one that sent a shock of fear through
Telzey as it rose heavily into her awareness. Its sheer intensity
momentarily dis