A Coming Of Age

"Half a minute, tops. And we were onto the kid outside sooner than that."

"So there wasn't any time to bring a camera in through the open window," Tirrell concluded, more to himself than to the other.

"Camera?"

Letting the folder back down, Tirrell stood up. "This was a very slick job, Carylson. The torn-up rug means a spy-scope or some kind of fancy mirror setup was used to get the lock open; the fact the righthands lost her implies a prepla

"Maybe she broke into your office by mistake, thinking it was someone else's," Carylson suggested.

Tirrell shook his head. "According to your numbers, if she clobbered Weylin right away, she had nearly twenty minutes alone up here. Even if it took her five to open the door, figuring out she was in the wrong place shouldn't have taken the other fifteen." He looked around the office again. "I guess you might as well wake up the shakedown squad," he said, moving toward the door. "Maybe they can read things differently than I—"

He froze right at the doorway, his mind spi

Stepping back to his desk, Tirrell opened the bottom drawer and pulled out a thick stack of paper. All the interdepartmental memos, notices, and low-priority info sheets—the sort of paper that was usually skimmed once and then relegated to wastebaskets or taken home as fireplace kindling. Setting the pile on his desk, Tirrell leafed quickly through it. "Would you describe the girl again?" he asked Carylson, pulling out the sheet he wanted.

"About a meter sixty, slender build—probably somewhere short of forty-five kilograms—dark off-shoulder-length hair, dark eyes, maybe thirteen years old," the other said, frowning at the paper in Tirrell's hand. "You have something?"

"Take a look," Tirrell said, handing the sheet over. "The picture at bottom right."

Carylson glared at the paper as if it had just insulted his mother. "I'll be damned," he growled. "That's her, all right." His eyes shifted to the top of the sheet. "And I read this damn thing when it came out, too."

"Uh-huh." Tirrell took the sheet back, feeling cold inside. Lisa Duncan, 14, of Dayspring Hive, he read silently. Has learned to read and write, proficiency unknown. Level 10. So that was why she hadn't bothered to take anything from the office—for her the soil-types listing would have been just a dangerous nuisance to carry. How very convenient for someone to have had her available... and there was just one person who might be interested in his progress who also had the chutzpah and the skill to set something like this up.

"I think we can safely bump her up a few levels now, don't you?" Carylson cut into his thoughts. "Say, to level one?"

Tirrell tuned back in. "Put an all-points pickup out on her? Don't be silly—we can't afford to let anyone know we're on to her." He thought a moment. "All right. Seal my office until the shakedown squad can go through it—you might as well leave that till morning; there's no hurry now. Let me come down to the desk with you and use your phone for a couple of calls." Without waiting for a reply he headed off down the hall.

Carylson hurried to catch up. "Shouldn't we at least move her up to level eight? If someone spots her they should at least call it in."

"Can't risk it—we don't know what sort of surveillance system we're up against." But if Jarvis thought his preteen spy had gotten away with her little escapade, he and Tonio might just be able to pick her up quietly. Then, if he could establish a link between them, he might be able to use the threat of an accessory to kidnapping charge to force cooperation from her. And then—

Tirrell blanked the chain of thought from his mind. First things first, he reminded himself sternly. A call to the Skylight Hive to get Tonio awake and over here, another call to Cam Mbar to find out if Lisa Duncan had ever worked as a test subject on one of Jarvis's experiments, and then a quiet midnight visit to Dayspring.

It was likely to be a busy night.

"I still think you should go to Gavra right now with all of this," Sheelah said, looking u

Sitting next to her roommate, hunched over the pad of drawing paper on her lap, Lisa carefully finished the word she was on before laying down her colored pencil and straightening up. "I wish I could," she said, rubbing the fingers of her writing hand. "But I don't think she could do anything for me without getting into trouble herself. And if she calls the police, I don't know what'll happen to Daryl. My only chance is to hope the Prophet Omega can tell me where he is before anyone knows I was the one who was with Weylin tonight."

"Suppose Weylin tells the police himself?" Sheelah countered. "I don't trust him, Lisa—him or this Prophet Omega. If he really cared about you he should've helped you without making you do him a favor first. And what makes you think he can find Daryl, anyway?"

Lisa shrugged helplessly. "Everybody else out there seems to think he can do whatever he says he can. Besides, no one else had been willing to help me. What have I got to lose by letting him try?"

"That's a pretty dumb question from someone who's in as big a downdraft as you are," Sheelah said sourly. She paused, and in a more understanding tone said, "You kind of like Daryl, don't you?"

"Not the way you mean," Lisa told her, shaking her head. "I mean, he's a nice enough guy, but not for—you know. But I've got to find him. It's my fault he's in whatever trouble he's in; don't you see? If they've got him in jail or something..." She left the sentence unfinished.

"And if they have, then what? Break him out like they're always doing in the movies? You'll really get in trouble for something crazy like that."

Lisa's laugh was more like a painful cough. "More trouble than I'm already in?"

Sheelah grimaced and fell silent. Picking up her pencil again, Lisa returned her attention to the paper. Writing was much harder work for her than reading had ever been. Somehow, the letters never seemed to come out looking quite like those in the books, and many of the words wound up looking wrong, even though she usually couldn't tell why. She wished now she had spent more time on the writing lessons in Daryl's books instead of hurrying to get on to more reading. But it was too late to make up for her laziness now. Doggedly, she kept at it, trying to ignore the vision hovering before her eyes of fifty police righthands hurtling toward Dayspring.

But no one had burst into the room by the time she finally finished. "All right," she said, laying down the pencil with relief and folding the paper twice before handing it to Sheelah. "Give this to Gavra in the morning—not before, understand? If she asks you about it, you don't know anything. You've got to promise me that—I don't want you to lose all your points, too."

Sheelah took the paper gingerly, a dubious look on her face. "I still don't see what good a note will do."

"It'll tell her I'm all right but won't give her a chance to stop me," Lisa said. Teeking off the room lights, she went to the window and opened the curtains enough to peek out. "If I talked to her in person or used the phone, she'd have to call the police or get in trouble herself for not calling them."

"She won't have a chance to give you any advice, either," Sheelah pointed out. She signed loudly. "All right, I'll give her the note. Any righthands out there?"