A Coming Of Age

Sheelah's gaze was back on the floor, her throat making swallowing motions. In the silence Gavra stepped forward and sat down on the edge of the girl's bed. "Sheelah, is he right?" she asked gently.

The preteen closed her eyes and drew a shuddering breath, but otherwise remained silent. "Look," Tirrell said after a moment, "we know you're trying to protect her, but you're only making things worse for both of you. Aiding a fugitive, especially one who's committed assault, could—"

"Lisa didn't hurt that policeman!" Sheelah flared with a sudden fire that took Tirrell by surprise. "It was that other guy—Weylin something. He did it."

"So Lisa did come here," Gavra said, her voice tightening. "Why didn't you—?"

"Wait a second," Tirrell interrupted. "What makes you think Weylin was involved? He wasn't even in the same room at the time."

Sheelah's expression was pure puzzlement, without a trace of guile in it. "Yes, he was. He took Lisa there to... look at some things."

Tirrell stared at the girl for a long second, his brain adjusting to this unexpected revelation. It could be a lie, of course, Lisa trying to cover up what she had done. But the more he thought about it the more sense it made. Weylin had the necessary skill to use a spy-scope, and faking an attack on himself took nothing but determination and chutzpah. Belatedly, now, Hob Paxton's idle comment several weeks back about how Weylin had nagged him into requesting the liaison job took on a new significance. If Weylin had been spying for Jarvis all this time, then it was no wonder the scientist had outmaneuvered them at every turn—and in that case Lisa might simply have been recruited on some pretext for this specific job. If she had no especial loyalty to Jarvis she would make a good witness against him... if she could be found.

Gavra was speaking again. "What was she supposed to look at, Sheelah?"

The preteen shook her head. "I don't know, exactly. This Omega guy who sent her said it had something to do with a child who'd been kidnapped."

Gavra looked up at Tirrell, startled. But the detective nodded. "No, she's right—I am working on a kidnap case. I think Lisa was after our list of the kidnapper's possible locations. How much she got, I don't know."

"But why would anyone be interested in something like that?" Gavra asked. "It doesn't make any sense."

"It does if the man who sent her is also the kidnapper," Tirrell said bluntly.

Sheelah's eyes widened. "You mean... but Lisa said Omega was a prophet."

"Prophet, my foot," Tirrell growled. "He's a coldblooded kidnapper who thought nothing of snatching a five-year-old boy for—well, never mind." The detective had no intention of going into the whole story. "The point is, he's just using Lisa to find out how close we are to him. Once she's served her purpose, there's no telling what he'll do to make sure she can't tell us anything about his hideout."

This time Gavra's eyes went wide, too. "You mean he might... kill her?"

"He already faces charges of kidnapping and possibly of suborning a police righthand, depending on what we find out about Weylin," Tirrell pointed out. "I'd rather get to Lisa before we find out just how far he's prepared to go."

But Sheelah's face had gone rigid again. "You don't believe me, do you? You still think Lisa hit that policeman, and you're making up this whole thing about Lisa being used just so I'll tell you where she's gone. Well, I won't."

Clamping his teeth together, Tirrell counted to ten, cursing his loose tongue. Of course he wasn't going to pass final judgment on Weylin on Sheelah's unsupported word, but he hadn't intended for the girl to know that. "Sheelah—"

"No! You don't want to help Lisa, so just go away." Flopping down onto her back, Sheelah turned sideways to face the wall.

"All right, this has gone far enough," Gavra said, her voice abruptly hard. "Sheelah, this isn't some kind of game. If there's any chance at all Lisa's in danger, you owe it to her to tell Detective Tirrell everything he wants to know. You'll regret it the rest of your life if something happens to her that you could have helped prevent."

Sheelah said nothing, but Tirrell could see her body shaking with quiet sobbing under the sheet. Studying the back of her head, he decided that threats against her hive points would probably be a waste of time. "All right, Sheelah," he sighed. "We'll find her ourselves—and maybe prove Weylin's guilt or i

"How are you going to do that?" Gavra frowned.

"I'm going to call headquarters and tell them we've picked up Lisa and are bringing her in," Tirrell told her, watching Sheelah. The preteen was still facing the wall, but her shaking had stopped. If you can convince her you mean this—and can convince yourself it'll work—"I'll tell them that you, Ms. Norward, have told her not to say anything until she's formally charged, and that they should therefore call the hospital and have Weylin come back to the city building to make a positive identification of her."

"But you don't have Lisa."

"No, but Weylin won't know that—and if Sheelah's version is the truth, he'll know that the minute Lisa starts to talk his little charade will disintegrate. With any luck, when he runs he'll head straight to his boss's hideout." Tirrell nodded to Sheelah, who had now turned halfway back toward him. "Sheelah, if you can at least tell us which general direction Lisa went, it'll help us pick up Weylin's trail when he takes off."

Sheelah pursed her lips tightly. "South," she said at last.

"Thanks." Tirrell looked back at Gavra. "I noticed a phone at the other end of the hall. Can I get an outside line on it?"

"Yes—just punch one first. Can you find your own way out? I'd like to talk to Sheelah for a moment."

"No problem. Sheelah, whatever you might feel about it now, you did the right thing to tell us what you did. Thank you." Nodding once to Gavra, Tirrell left the room, closing the door behind him.

Tonio was hovering in the middle of the hall, his expression reminiscent of an approaching thunderstorm. "That lousy, rotten, batling eater!" he hissed.

"I gather you were listening in," Tirrell nodded. "Good. You think you'll be able to follow Weylin if he runs for it? Quietly, I mean, without being noticed."

"No problem." Though his expression said he'd rather teek Weylin into something solid.

"Okay. I want you to get going right away and find a good spot to watch the south side of Mercy Hospital from. Stop by the car first and grab a portacom—the private, not the broad-band; I don't want Weylin listening in if he thought to take a broad-band with him. Weylin or anyone else, for that matter."

"You're not going to tell the other police what we're doing?"

"Not yet. If Jarvis got to Weylin he might have gotten to one of the others, too, or even to some of the officers. For the moment, it's just going to be you and me on this. If and when Weylin leads us to Jarvis we'll think about how to get some help. Get going; I'll give you a few minutes to get in position before I make my call. I'll head out on the Plat City road when I'm done—give me a call when you've got a clear direction."

"Right." Taking off down the hallway, Tonio vanished into the stairwell.

Checking his watch, Tirrell followed more slowly, bypassing the stairs and stopping finally beside the phone fastened chest-high on the wall. How on Tigris did Jarvis get Weylin in on this? he wondered, staring at and through the phone. What could he have promised him in exchange for information? Or was he instead using some kind of blackmail? Or—and the sudden thought was sobering—has he come up with a genuinely foolproof method of mind control? The concept was not as farfetched as most people preferred to think; hypnotic drugs came disturbingly close as it was... and Jarvis had presumably kept Colin Brimmer under some kind of control these past two months.