thought_ully_

other indication of humanity on the planet.
She stood looking around, rubbing her arms with her hands to warm them. She was above a rounded dip in the mountains between two adjoining ridges. Hip-high brown grass and straggling trees filled the dip. A swift narrow stream wound through it. She’d grounded the car three quarters of the way up the western side. The far side was an almost vertical rock wall, festooned with yellow cobwebs of withering vines. That half of the dip was still bathed in sunlight coming over the top of the ridge behind her. Her side was in shadow.
She shivered in the chill, shook her head to drive away another wave of drowsiness. She seemed unable to concentrate on the problem of the psi beast. Her thoughts shifted to the sun-warmed rocks she’d crossed at the top of the ridge as she turned the Cloudsplitter down into the little valley.
She pictured herself sitting there, warmed by the sun. It was a convincing picture. In imagination she felt the sun on her shoulders and back, the warm rock beneath her, saw the dry thorny fall growth about—
Her eyes flickered, widened thoughtfully. After a moment, she brought the picture back into her mind.
I’m here, she thought. I’m sitting in the sun. I’m half asleep, nodding, feeling the warmth—forgetting I’m in danger. The wind blows over the rocks, and the bushes are rustling all around me . . . 
She relaxed the shield—“I’m here, Bozo!”—closed it.
She stood in the shadow of the western ridge, shivering and chilled, listening. Far above, for a moment, there’d been noises as if something plunged heavily about in the growth at the top of the ridge. Then the noises ended abruptly.
Telzey’s gaze shifted down into the dip between the ridges, followed the course of the little stream up out of the shadows to a point where it ran between flat sandy banks, glittering and sparkling in the after­noon sun—held there.
And now I’m here, she thought, and nodded down at the little stream. I’m sitting in warm sand, in the sun again, sheltered from the wind, listening to the friendly r