A Coming Of Age

With a sigh, Omega put the thought on his mind's back burner. Time enough to worry about beating out the police after he had a force to beat them out with. Picking up a pen, he began working out his speech.

Chapter 15

"...and sort of light brown eyes," Lisa said, pausing both for breath and thought. "I don't know if he's got any scars or birthmarks or anything."

The burly police sergeant smiled briefly as his scratching pen caught up to where Lisa had finished. "This'll be just fine," he assured her. "You just wait here and I'll go see if we've got any information on your friend." He gave her a reassuring smile as he stood up and left the alcove.

Swiveling in her chair, Lisa watched him cross the duty lounge and disappear through a doorway behind the impassive-faced desk man. Five or six other policemen were working at desks in the lounge area, and two others were talking with people in alcoves similar to hers. It was far more relaxed a scene than the action movies had prepared her for; but despite that, she could almost hear her thudding heart over the quiet conversational background.

Just coming here had taken a tremendous amount of courage. Now, having given Daryl's name and description to the police, she felt uncomfortably like a dragonmite hovering near the edge of a spider web. Despite the fact that Daryl had disappeared nearly a week ago and Lisa had still not been picked up by any group of authorities, she couldn't shake the guilty feeling that she and her books were still somehow responsible. Maybe they just haven't gotten around to me yet, she thought nervously, watching the door and half expecting the officer to return with two or three righthands. In her mind's eye she watched herself undergo the humiliation of being arrested, heard Gavra a

The door opened and the sergeant came out alone. He said something to the desk man, then walked back to where Lisa waited. "Well, there's both good news and bad news," he said as he sat down again. "The good news is that no one matching your friend's description has turned up dead in the past week, at least nowhere this side of the Tessellates. The bad news is that we don't have any runaways, detainees, or hospital unknowns like him, either. I guess we still can't help you."

Lisa sighed. This had been her last hope. "All right. Thank you anyway."

He gave her a searching look. "Have you talked to the various schools in town? He must have been enrolled in one of them."

She nodded. "He was at the Lee Introductory School, at least until last Friday. But he's gone from there now, and no one there will tell me anything about it."

"Maybe he was simply transferred. They do that sometimes."

"Then why won't they tell me that? Every time I call they tell me he's not there, but they won't say anything more. And why wouldn't he have told me about it before he left?"

Thoughtfully, the sergeant tapped his teeth with the end of his pen. "Good questions," he admitted. "I wish I could give you the answers."

"So do I," Lisa sighed, slumping in her seat. The last bit of emotional strength seemed to have drained out of her, leaving her more fatigued than long work days and even fights in the hive had ever made her feel.

"You all right?" the sergeant's voice came as if from the far end of a Five's play tu

She managed a smile. "Yes, I'm fine. Thank you anyway for your help. I have to get back; it's almost di

"You're not sick or anything, are you? One of the men could drive you—"

"No. Thank you." Getting to her feet, Lisa nodded and walked past the desk to the exit.

Outside, she stood on the city building steps and took a deep breath, wondering what she was going to do next. The police couldn't help her; Lee Intro wouldn't. She could think of only one more avenue to try, and she would almost rather cut off a hand than take it. The humiliation of admitting her crimes to the one adult whose approval she still valued—

Do it for Daryl. If he's in trouble, it may be your fault... and humiliation's easier to live with than guilt.

Blinking away the dampness in her eyes—they were not tears—Lisa launched herself into the sky. Tonight, after di

"Thirty-eight," Hob Paxton muttered as the radiophone buzzed quietly, indicating a ring on the phone at the other end of the signal. It buzzed again: "Thirty-nine."

"Hang up," Tirrell said to Cam Mbar, feeling a minor wave of frustration wash over him. Once again, it seemed, Jarvis was one step ahead of them.

Cam replaced the radiophone handset and turned to Tirrell. "Do you think something's happened to him?" she asked anxiously.

"No, I think he's probably okay," Tirrell said, automatically soothing. "Maybe he's working outside or something."

But Cam was too intelligent to accept such reassurance blindly, even when it was what she obviously wanted. "Has he been working outside every other day this week, too?" She shook her head. "Something's wrong."

"Well, there's not much we can do about it," Paxton said gruffly. "Not now."

Tirrell threw his liaison an irritated look. Even if Cam was partially responsible for Jarvis's silence, there was no point making her feel worse than she already did. "It's also possible he's busy with a project and turned off the phone so he wouldn't be interrupted," he told her. "Or maybe there's a fault in his receiver—that does happen, you know."

She nodded heavily. "I hope you're right. If I somehow helped those..." She visibly searched for an adequate noun, gave up, and fell silent.

"I'm sure everything'll be okay," Tirrell said with more conviction than he felt. "You might as well go back to the lab—or home, if you'd like," he added, noting it was after four. "We'll have people standing by both here and with the direction finders twenty-one hours a day; if Dr. Jarvis contacts you, just press the button we've put by your phone and then keep him talking as long as you can."

"I understand." Nodding, Cam got to her feet, collected the notes she'd been pla

"You might as well go, too," Tirrell told the two headphone-equipped men standing on opposite sides of the huge table map that dominated the center of the room. "Your relief's due in twenty minutes, and Jarvis wouldn't be able to reach Ms. Mbar before then, anyway."

"Yes, sir."

Paxton waited until the men had left before asking the obvious question. "You think Jarvis smelled the trap and ran?"

"That he smelled something seems pretty obvious," Tirrell snorted. "Whatever Cam said last week when she talked to him apparently made him at least suspicious enough to stay clear of his phone."

"Or suspicious enough to pack up and run," Paxton mused. "No, that wouldn't be very smart."

"Especially since we've already postulated his cabin is as secure a place as he's going to find anywhere near civilization," Tirrell nodded.

"Well, then, we should still have a chance. What about this building contractor search you've been doing? Any leads?"

Tirrell shrugged. "I've checked with every contractor between here and Rand—no luck. Either Jarvis did all the work himself—and supply purchases indicated he at least bought all the materials himself—or else the contractor he hired went out of business sometime in the last four years."

"Four years." Paxton looked thoughtful. "You have the time any more exact?"

"He seems to have started building in April of three-oh-four, just eleven months after Colin was born. At least that's when he was buying and moving his materials."