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.A minute later, they had left the more brightly lighted area of the walks and patios to take another look at the beasts.Esther seemed fascinated by animals in general.Jubal could take them or leave them.There was no problem getting around the grounds at night, at least in the areas that guests were generally expected to inhabit, and which were as well-lighted as any downtown streets that Jubal had ever seen.The lamps, on pillars, weren't simply glass, but glowing globes of alabaster.One of the caretakers at the zoo had already told Jubal that there were about three hundred animals altogether, not counting the fifteen hundred or so birds, who of course had their own enclosures.Of the four-legged beasts, the great majority were grazers—elephants, antelope, several kinds of goats, you name it—that were pretty much allowed to run free, inside vast fenced areas.Currently there were only a few meat-eaters on hand—one lion, a few bobcats, one cheetah, one leopard, and a bear—and all of these were behind secure barriers of one kind or another.The whole zoo area was brightly lighted, like the rest of the walks and patios.Halfway between the lion's cage and the leopard's, Jubal stopped and tilted his head to listen."Sounds like another plane coming in.""Will they land at night?" Esther wondered.Page 31ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html"I bet they've got lights at the strip.Sure, at a place like this they must have."And that, as Jubal Doors was to tell his son more than six decades later, that was where the experience began that was to change his life forever.First came thesound , echoing in Jubal's brain.Putting his fingers in his ears did not muffle it at all, suggested it was being created somehow inside his head—anyway, surely no animal that had ever walked on earth could make a noise like that.Not that it was actually thatloud , but…And the noise was only the beginning, it was only the least important part.Nothing seemed to have changed objectively in Jubal's surroundings.But it was as if the whole world had suddenly become a strange, forbidding, and unnatural place.None of the outlines or colors of the objects that he could see had been changed, but everything had somehow been transformed.The trees had extra branches, and their leaves were strange; palm fronds looked sawtoothed like dandelions.He saw a flower opening its mouth, and there were teeth inside.Whether these disturbing alterations were taking place only in Jubal's mind, or somewhere in the foundations of the surrounding world, he couldn't tell.But he endured a momentary, unpleasant suspicion that he was dreaming, followed quickly by an illogical regret that he was not.He was wide awake, and could not seriously imagine otherwise.At the same time, Esther gave a nervous start and looked around."What is it?" he demanded of her sharply.He had the feeling that if he once acknowledged the strangeness, the sickness, in his own mind, it would only become more powerful."I don't know." The tone of her voice was hard to interpret.Doing his best to be casual, Jubal said, "No need to be jumpy.No one minds if we stand here looking at the animals."And he thought the animals seemed to have been affected too.The leopard backed into a corner of its cage, and the lion began to cough out a series of odd sounds, almost like the beating of a drum.Almost, but not quite.Esther was saying, "It's not that.You heard it too?""I heard something.""It's just that—well, I thought I heard something like that earlier today.And I saw some strange sights, too.""Strange sights like what?""Oh, never mind."They started strolling again, leaving the suddenly noisy lion behind them, and leaving the zoo by a different footpath than the one that brought them Page 32ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlthere.But the new way only led them back in a great loop, to the upper-level esplanade, close to all the mansions, great and small."Here I am again," said Esther in a faintly puzzled voice, coming to a stop."What?""Nothing.Just that somehow I seem to keep coming back to this place, and I find myself looking at these stupid statues."Jubal hadn't really taken much notice of this particular group before.Compared to the dozens of life-sized figures in white marble that were scattered around the grounds, these were very crude.But now the more he looked at them the stranger they appeared.Water from a small pipe-fountain trickled into a little pond that was more or less surrounded by the four dark, staring, leonine faces carved of stone.Two of the four statues were little more than heads, the other two included slender, human-looking bodies, tall though portrayed in a sitting position.These two were marked as female by rounded breasts, carved under light stone draperies.Their arms were bent at the elbow so their hands lay flat on their skirted thighs."What are they supposed to be?" Jubal wondered."They all four look alike.""I asked my father, and he found out.It's an Egyptian goddess called Sekhmet.""Huh." He couldn't find anything more intelligent to say.Just as the young people were about to turn away again, Jubal thought he heard a kind of heavy, grating sound that seemed to issue from one of the versions of Sekhmet, he couldn't tell which."What was that?" he demanded.Now he wondered if someone was playing jokes."That squealing sound? I heard it too.It's not the lion or the leopard.""No.And I wouldn't call it squealing, exactly."It turned out that their two sets of ears had heard two quitedifferent sounds.All the faces of Sekhmet looked as strange as ever, but no stranger than they had looked before.One of the statues had full womanly breasts, represented by two spherical stone bulges of unattractive regularity, half-covered by stylized rolls of hair, or mane, or head-dress—Jubal could not be sure which.The lower half of the body was clad in a long, carved skirt or kilt, below which thick leonine ankles showed, and bare human feet.The wrists and forearms were heavy too.If the stone body was ambiguous, of some uncertain and imaginary species, the head was all inhuman predator, and he had no doubt that it was meant to represent a lion.Walking back and forth before the trickling fountain, Jubal sized up the statues first from one angle and then from another
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