* * * * * A sharp buzz-note reached Telzey's ears, wiping out the groping thought-impression. She jumped a little, glanced down. Her wrist-talker was signaling. For a moment, she seemed poised uncertainly between a world where unseen, dangerous-sounding beings referred to one as small-bite and where TT was learning to talk, and the familiar other world where wrist-communicators buzzed periodically in a matter-of-fact manner. Settling back into the more familiar world, she switched on the talker. "Yes?" she said. Her voice sounded husky. "Telzey, dear," Halet murmured honey-sweet from the talker, "would you come back into the house, please? The living room--We have a visitor who very much wants to meet you." Telzey hesitated, eyes narrowing. Halet's visitor wanted to meet _her_? "Why?" she asked. "He has something _very_ interesting to tell you, dear." The edge of triumphant malice showed for an instant, vanished in murmuring sweetness again. "So please hurry!" "All right." Telzey stood up. "I'm coming." "Fine, dear!" The talker went dead. Telzey switched off the instrument, noticed that Tick-Tock had chosen to disappear meanwhile. Flipped? She wondered, starting up towards the house. It was clear Aunt Halet had prepared some unpleasant surprise to spring on her, which was hardly more than normal behavior for Halet. The other business? She couldn't be certain of anything there. Leaving out TT's strange actions--which might have a number of causes, after all--that entire string of events could have been created inside her head. There was no contradictory evidence so far. But it could do no harm to take what _seemed_ to have happened at face value. Some pretty grim event might be shaping up, in a very real way, around here.... "You reason logically!" The impression now was of a voice speaking to her, a voice that made no audible sound. It was the same being who'd addressed her a minute or two ago. The two worlds between which Telzey had felt suspended seemed to glide slowly together and become one. "I go to Law school," she explained to the being, almost absently. Amused agreement. "So we heard." "What do you want of me?" Telzey inquired. "You'll know soon enough." "Why not tell me now?" Telzey urged. It seemed about to dismiss her again. Quick impatience flared at her. "Kitten-pictures! Kitten-thoughts! Kitten-talk! Too slow, too slow! YOUR pictures--too much YOU! Wait till the...." Circuits close ... channels open.... Obstructions clear? What _had_ it said? There'd been only the blurred image of a finicky, delicate, but perfectly normal technical operation of some kind. "... Minutes now!" the voice concluded. A pause, then another thought tossed carelessly at her. "This is more important to you, small-bite, than to _us_!" The voice impression ended as sharply as if a communicator had snapped off.