A Coming Of Age

The techniques of breathing in fast flight, once learned, were never forgotten, and Tirrell had the extra advantage of not really needing to watch where they were going. He spent most of those first few minutes with his head turned to the side, windward eye closed tightly and the other open just a crack, breathing through the side of his mouth. Every few breaths he would take a quick look forward, just to keep some idea of their position. Tonio, of course, had to do that a lot more often.

They had been flying for perhaps ten minutes when Tonio abruptly brought them to almost a complete halt. "There he is!" the preteen said, pointing.

Tirrell swiped at his eyes and sca

"Neither do we," Tirrell told him with grim satisfaction. "Stay low and back and let's follow him in."

Tonio nodded and they started moving again. Ignoring the conetree tops brushing at his feet, Tirrell kept his eyes solidly fixed on Weylin. This was one game of hide-and-search he was not going to lose.

The tabernacle was quiet and dark, but the Prophet Omega was indeed waiting for them. "Lisa; I'm pleased to see you again," he said with a warm smile as Axel ushered her into the office she'd talked to the Prophet in before. The Prophet had changed since then from his white robe to a plainer blue one, but he looked no less impressive for all that. "Come sit by me and tell me all of the evening's events. Acolyte Schu, please wait outside."

Slowly, Lisa walked forward and sat down in the indicated chair by the Prophet's desk. Something was nagging at her, but she couldn't for the life of her figure out what it was. "Don't you already know?" she asked him. "I mean, you told me you had the Truth inside you—"

"Truth and knowledge are not identical," he told her, his tone that of a preteen lecturing a Seven. "Truth is more like wisdom, the ability to distinguish right from wrong. Else why would I have asked you to seek knowledge of the boy Colin for me? Now, begin."

Haltingly—the memory was still painful—Lisa told him everything that had happened from the time she and Weylin entered the city building to the time she escaped from the searching righthands. More from fear of the Prophet's disapproval than anything else, she skipped completely over her trip to the hive and everything that happened there. "So then I came back here to tell you what I could," she concluded. "Are you going to do anything to help Weylin?"

"Acolyte Weylin is in no danger if he followed my instructions," the Prophet said, a slight frown creasing his forehead. "Tell me, did you have trouble finding your way here?"

"Oh, yes," Lisa said, shivering slightly at the memory. "I was afraid I'd get completely lost and have to spend the night out there by myself."

The frown vanished. "That explains the time, then," he said. Before Lisa could ask what he meant, the Prophet picked up a large packet of paper from a corner of his desk and unfolded it into what turned out to be a duplicate of the map on Tirrell's office wall. "Now, Lisa," he said, spreading the paper across the center of the desk, "show me exactly where the circled areas are."

"Well..." Lisa swallowed. "I only found a couple in the right part of the map before the—before I had to leave." She found the letters and numbers she remembered and pointed out the spots.

"What do you mean, 'the right part'?" he asked. "Did the papers talk about that?"

"Oh! No—I forgot to tell you. There was a picture of Dr. Jarvis by the door downstairs in the city building—I'm not exactly sure what the pictures were for—"

"They're photos of people wanted by the police," the Prophet told her. "Go on."

"Well, I remembered seeing him. He was driving toward Rand one night last June. And he had a little boy with him who he said was his nephew, but I think it must have really been Colin."

"You talked to him? Jarvis, I mean?"

"Yes. I thought he might be having some trouble, driving between cities at night, so I stopped to ask if he was all right."

The Prophet muttered something under his breath and jabbed at the map. "Show me where," he ordered. "The exact spot."

She looked at it in bewilderment. "But... how do I—"

"You've flown over that road lots of times, haven't you? Well, each turn and bend shows up here as a curve in the line. Come on; I need to know."

But I wasn't flying along the road that night. Gritting her teeth, she leaned over the map, trying to think. She'd cut off parts of two curves catching up with the car, had stopped it on a smooth stretch, and had watched the car curve a little to the left as it left. "I think it was maybe about here," she said at last, her finger tracing a two-centimeter section of the line.

The Prophet brushed her hand aside and made a circle there with a pen. "Good. Now, let's see how far that is from Barona...." With a small disk-shaped device he carefully traced along the line back into the shape labeled BARONA. Glancing at the device's side, he scribbled a number by the circle. "Lisa," he said, looking up with a smile, "I am even more certain now that it was the Truth that guided you to me."

"You mean I... did all right?" she asked cautiously.

"You did wonderfully," he nodded, still smiling. "You see, I already know the boy Colin is being held within a hundred kilometers of Barona. You saw him at a point nearly eighty kilometers away, which means you have narrowed tremendously the area we must search. That plus these—" he touched the two spots she'd first given him—"gives me hope that we will soon have Colin freed from his satanic captor; possibly before this day is over. And for allowing the Truth to work through you, your own desire shall surely be granted."

"You'll find Daryl for me." It wasn't until the words were out that Lisa realized she'd made a statement instead of asking a question. In that moment she suddenly understood why Weylin had been able to trust this man so completely. Looking into his eyes, feeling the warmth of his pleasure at her accomplishment, she felt as if she had finally found something she hadn't even known she'd lost. Somehow, it made everything that she'd gone through worthwhile.

The Prophet nodded solemnly. "I give you my word—"

Abruptly, he broke off, his eyes shifting toward the door. Soft voices could be heard coming from outside the room; but even as Lisa strained her ears, the door swung open—

And Weylin Ellery strode into the room.

"Weylin!" Lisa exclaimed with delight. "I was afraid you'd—"

"How'd you get away from Tirrell?" Weylin interrupted her coldly.

"From who? I went out the window—"

"Tirrell called from your hive—said he'd caught you," Weylin bit out. "Wanted me to go back to the city building to identify you."

"And you ran?" the Prophet asked sharply. Lisa glanced back at him, startled by the sudden change in his ma

"Of course I did," Weylin said, his belligerent tone cooling some under the Prophet's gaze. "I figured she wouldn't know enough to shut up and let me do the talking."

"In other words, Tirrell set up a trap for you and you flew straight into it," the Prophet snapped. "At the very least he knows you've got something to hide over what happened tonight—and at the worst he had you followed and now knows exactly where we are!"

Weylin actually cringed. "No—no, I'm sure I wasn't followed. I got out too fast and made sure no one was behind me." His eyes swiveled to Lisa, turning angry again. "But why would Tirrell have done something like that in the first place?"