The rhythm of the breathing changed. The sleeper stirred. One hand came slowly up, brushed blindly at the chest.
Clawly watched motionlessly. From all sides the heavy summery silence pressed in.
The rhythm of the breathing continued to change. The sleeper tossed. The hand fumbled restlessly at the neck of the loose house robe.
And something else changed. It seemed to Clawly as if the face of the Conjerly he knew were sinking downward into a narrow bottomless pit, becoming tiny as a cameo, vanishing utterly, leaving only a hollow mask. And then, as if another face were rising to fill the mask—and in this second face, if not malignity, at least grim and unswervingly hostile purpose.
The sleeper mumbled, murmured. Clawly bent low, caught words. Words with a shuddery, unplacable quality of distance to them, as if they came from another cosmos.
"... transtime machine ... invasion ... three days ... we ... prevent action ... until—"
Then, from the silence behind him, a different sound—a faint crunch.
Clawly whirled. Standing in the doorway, filling half its width and all its height, was Tempelmar.
And in Tempelmar's lean, horse-like face the vanishing flicker of a look in which suspicion, alarm, and a more active emotion were blended—a lethal look.
But by the time Clawly was looking straight at him, it had been replaced by an urbane, condescending, eyebrow-raising "Well?"