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Novice By: James H. Schmitz (1911-1981) |
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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 in
the garden. Not, of course, Aunt Halet, who was in the house waiting
for an early visitor to arrive, and not one of the servants. Someone
or something else must be concealed among the thickets of
magnificently flowering native Jontarou shrubs about Telzey. She could think of no other way to account for Tick Tock's spooked
behavior nor, to be honest about it, for the manner her own nerves
were acting up without visible cause this morning. Telzey plucked a blade of grass, slipped the end between her lips and
chewed it gently, her face puzzled and concerned. She wasn't
ordinarily afflicted with nervousness. Fifteen years old, genius
level, 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 families
and a second year law student at one of the most exclusive schools in
the Federation of the Hub. Her physical, mental, and emotional health,
she'd always been informed, was excellent. Aunt Halet's frequent
cracks about the inherent instability of the genius level could be
ignored; Halet's own stability seemed questionable at best. But none of that made the present odd situation any less
disagreeable.... The trouble might have begun, Telzey decided, during the night, within
an hour after they arrived from the spaceport at the guest house
Halet had rented in Port Nichay for their vacation on Jontarou. Telzey
had retired at once to her second story bedroom with Tick Tock; but
she barely got to sleep before something awakened her again. Turning
over, she discovered TT reared up before the window, her forepaws on
the 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 TT
at the window. There was nothing in particular to be seen, and if the
scents and minor night sounds which came from the garden weren't
exactly what they were used to, Jontarou was after all an unfamiliar
planet. What else would one expect here? But Tick Tock's muscular back felt tense and rigid when Telzey laid
her arm across it, and except for an absent minded dig with her
forehead against Telzey's shoulder, TT refused to let her attention be
distracted from whatever had absorbed it. Now and then, a low, ominous
rumble came from her furry throat, a half angry, half questioning
sound. Telzey began to feel a little uncomfortable. She managed
finally to coax Tick Tock away from the window, but neither of them
slept well the rest of the night. At breakfast, Aunt Halet made one of
her typical nasty sweet remarks. "You look so fatigued, dear as if you were under some severe mental
strain ... which, of course, you might be," Halet added musingly. With
her gold blond hair piled high on her head and her peaches and cream
complexion, Halet looked fresh as a daisy herself ... a malicious
daisy. "Now wasn't I right in insisting to Jessamine that you needed a
vacation away from that terribly intellectual school?" She smiled
gently. "Absolutely," Telzey agreed, restraining the impulse to fling a
spoonful of egg yolk at her father's younger sister. Aunt Halet often
inspired such impulses, but Telzey had promised her mother to avoid
actual battles on the Jontarou trip, if possible. After breakfast, she
went out into the back garden with Tick Tock, who immediately walked
into a thicket, camouflaged herself and vanished from sight... Continue reading book >>
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