A Coming Of Age

"And Dr. Jarvis doesn't like following the pack?"

"Not when the pack is nosing uselessly around a locked door, no. But if anyone ever comes up with the key to that door, odds are it'll be Matthew Jarvis."

"Um," Tirrell grunted, and for a few minutes there was silence. Somerset glanced once at his watch, and Tirrell realized with a start that it was approaching five o'clock. He'd have to end this session soon and let the others get home. He was begi

"There's nothing for that period in any of the file drawers," she told Somerset. "I looked through the books for at least a year on either side of the months you gave me, and there's nothing at all on Transition B and M."

"Uh-huh." Somerset looked at Tirrell. "Well, you called it, Detective, but it doesn't make any sense. Why would a blackmailer want that particular book? The B and M curves we did can be found in every book on teekay published in the past three years."

"It does seem odd," Tirrell lied. It was pretty obvious to him that Jarvis had seen something while doing the study and had hurried to quit before his coworker could also pick up on it. Did the work involve any new techniques or anything?"

"Not really. The basic method was the one Matt came up with ten years ago. We just had to figure out a way to compensate for the wild fluctuations puberty causes in most of the useful test parameters. Matt found a statistical gimmick we could use by following a group of preteens through Transition, backtracking from their adult parameters, and—well, I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that we simply came up with a statistical trick which is of no particular commercial value. It's also been published, by the way."

Tirrell nodded, pursing his lips. "All right. One more quick question and I'll let you both go. I gather you had direct access to the preteens you did this study with. Did you also work directly with the children in the more recent tests? As opposed to letting someone else take the raw data, I mean."

"No, we worked with them right here," Cam said, frowning. "Why?"

"Just curious," Tirrell shrugged. "Well, I very much appreciate your time and help in this, both of you. I hope I won't have to interrupt your work again, and I'll again ask that you keep all of this to yourselves for now."

"You're welcome," Somerset said as they all stood up. "Please don't hesitate to call us again if there's anything else we can do."

"You'll be the first," Tirrell promised. "Good night."

Chapter 12

"No, bring that end over the other one," Jarvis said. Sitting cross-legged on the moist ground, he indicated with his fingers the way the knot should be tied.

Carefully, Colin did as instructed, teeking the end of the rope through its last two convolutions and out through the far side of the knot. "Good," Jarvis nodded, glancing surreptitiously at his watch. Thirty-five seconds to form the knot, subtract maybe five for hesitation and uncertainties.... He would have to check that against the B and M tables when they got back to the cabin, but it looked like Colin's teekay dexterity was about where it was supposed to be. That was good; nothing drastic should be happening for a long time yet.

"Now pull this tight?" Colin asked.

Jarvis nodded. "Yes, but not too tight or you'll put too much strain on the smaller branches."

Colin sucked his lip in concentration... and a moment later a handmade lean-to was standing proudly beneath the lowest branches of the conetree.

"Yay!" the boy crowed excitedly, clapping his hands. "It worked! Can I try it?"

"Sure, go ahead." Jarvis watched as Colin crawled carefully under the thick mesh of branches leaning at a forty-five-degree angle to the ground. A new pang slid through his chest like a knife as he once again reminded himself that Colin might someday have to use these outdoor skills for actual survival. If society overreacted—as it easily could—Colin could become an overnight outcast.

"Can I sleep here tonight, Matthew? Can I, huh?"

"I'm afraid not," Jarvis said, smiling despite his gloomy thoughts at the sight of Colin stretched out on the leaf-and-moss rug they'd laid out under the lean-to. "Maybe in a couple of weeks we'll go on a long hike, though, and then we'll sleep out like this every night."

"Why can't we go now?" Colin asked.

"Because you haven't learned enough woodlore yet," Jarvis explained. "You need to know how to catch animals for food first, for one thing."

"Okay." The boy scrambled out of the lean-to, coming within an ace of bringing the whole structure down in the process. "How do you catch animals?"

"We'll work on that some other day," Jarvis said firmly. It was already midafternoon, and he had no intention of starting such a topic without a full day ahead of them. Besides, he'd determined two days ago that he needed some information from his office, and he'd put off making that call long enough. "Right now I want you to show me you remember the knots I taught you. Then we'll go home and you can play until it's time for supper. Let's start with a half hitch; and I want you to tie it both by hand and with teekay."

"Okay," Colin said with the theatrical sigh he did so well. Teeking over a piece of rope, he got busy.

It was nearly four o'clock when Jarvis finally sat down at his desk and reached for the radiophone. For a moment he paused, checking his notes, pens, and paper and confirming that Colin was visible through the window, playing happily and showing no signs that he would be bursting into the cabin at the wrong time. Picking up the handset, the scientist punched in the operator code and then his office phone number.

Cam Mbar answered on the fifth ring. "Dr. Jarvis's office."

"This is a surprise," Jarvis said lightly. "I used to sneak off work at three when my boss was out of town."

"Dr. Jarvis!" Cam said, her voice unexpectedly intense. "Are you all right?"

Jarvis frowned. "Of course. Why shouldn't I be?"

"Uh..." Cam audibly struggled for control. "No reason," she said after a few seconds, her tone now exaggeratedly casual. "I just wasn't expecting you to call."

"I see," Jarvis said as something prickly seemed to settle into his neck. "I need some numbers from the second to the last of our hibernation-studies notebooks. Could you get that for me?"

"Sure. You want me to bring it to you? Just tell me where—"

"No, that's okay," he said hastily. "There's only one table I need; you can just read it over the phone."

"Oh." She sounded vaguely disappointed. "All right. I've got it; what do you need?"

The prickly thing on Jarvis's neck dug its barbs in a bit deeper. The cabinet where old lab books were locked wasn't within reach of any of the lab's phones... and yet Cam had found it instantly and without having to put down the handset. What would that book have been doing out at four in the afternoon?

"Dr. Jarvis?"

"Uh, yes. Um... about page eighty there are some figures on metabolism rate versus brain electrical activity...."

Cam found the place and read off the table, but Jarvis hardly heard the numbers as his hand dutifully took them down. Cam was the stereotypical unflappable scientist type—Jarvis had seen her spill hydrochloric acid down the front of her lab coat without getting as excited as she'd sounded a few minutes ago. Instinctively, his gaze flicked to Colin, who was examining a large dragonmite struggling helplessly in the boy's teekay grip. Had someone seen him putting Colin in his car back in Ridge Harbor and taken down the license plate? But surely the police would have long since found and raided his hiding place if that were the case. Wouldn't they?