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"Why indeed?" The Prophet looked at Lisa, too, his earlier warmth gone without a trace. His eyes were cold and hard, his unsmiling face looking like that of another person altogether. "So you came here straight from the city building, did you? Who did you talk to, Lisa, that you conveniently forgot to mention? Was it Tirrell? Someone at your hive?"
"I... didn't—"
"Don't lie to me!" the Prophet thundered abruptly.
"Just my roommate," she blurted, shrinking back into her chair. "Only her—and she promised she wouldn't tell anyone."
"Well, she obviously did tell someone," the Prophet shot back. "What did you tell her?"
"I—I—" Lisa fumbled, her tongue tangled with confusion at the Prophet's abrupt change—
And suddenly her mind flashed back to the other picture on the city building wall, the one that had seemed vaguely familiar. "It was you!" she said without thinking. "But the name was Yerik Martel, not the Proph—
"Weylin, hold her," the Prophet said quietly.
For an instant Lisa sat in stu
"What's going on?" a new voice—Axel's—snapped from behind her.
"Help Weylin hold her," Omega ordered. "I think she's a police spy."
"No—" Lisa managed to croak before her jaw was abruptly teeked shut.
"Grack!" Axel muttered viciously. "What do we do with her?"
"We first of all don't panic," Omega said coldly. "Hold her arms, legs, and head really still; I'm going to check for hidden mikes."
Lisa tried to protest, but her mouth was still being held closed. Footsteps approached; and then Omega's hands were moving firmly over her body, kneading the material of her clothing and feeling the skin beneath it. She squeezed her eyes shut, every muscle painfully tense... and finally it was over. "She's clean," Omega told the others, relief evident in his tone. "Maybe she wasn't working with Tirrell, after all."
"We going to let her go, then?" Weylin asked.
"Of course not," Axel put in impatiently. "You think she wouldn't go straight to the police now?"
"But we can't keep her here—"
"Peace," Omega interrupted, his voice under control again. "Axel, how many of your people are here tonight?"
"Fifteen or twenty, I think."
"Go and get four of them. No, wait—tell Weylin their names and where they're sleeping and let him bring them."
"All right." Axel rattled off some names and instructions that were incomprehensible to Lisa. "And don't wake up anyone else," he added.
"Right," Weylin said. The teekay grip on Lisa eased some, and there was the sound of a door opening and closing.
"What are we going to do with her?" Axel asked.
"Leave her here, of course," Omega said. From the sounds behind her Lisa guessed he was picking up the books and papers she'd thrown at Weylin earlier. "You don't think we're going to take her with us to look for Jarvis, do you? She'll be suitably restrained, of course."
"You know where Jarvis is?"
"Close enough to make it worth trying. Anyway, we have no choice—Weylin's blown his cover and the police'll undoubtedly be making a push now to find him first. We'll leave here at first light—that should only be a couple of hours away now."
"Why not leave as soon as she's taken care of?" Axel suggested. "That area's a good two-hour flight away, and we can fly it just as easily in the dark."
"So you were listening at the door," Omega said coolly. "That's not a very polite thing to do, you know." There was a short, brittle silence before Omega continued. "We leave at first light because I want all of the regular kids out of here before we leave, and we never send them back to their hives in the dark. That's a lesson you should learn: breaking familiar patterns draws attention, and that kind of attention is always unwelcome. And we want the regular kids out first to make sure none of them accidentally stumbles across Lisa on their way out. I don't want to find this place swarming with police when we get back."
"Oh," Axel mumbled. "I hadn't thought of that."
"That's lesson number two for the day: leave the thinking to me. You haven't had enough practice at it."
Taking a careful breath, Lisa gingerly tested the teekay grip holding her face to the wall. If Axel's attention wavered even a little, she might be able to turn her head far enough to teek off the light. If she could then get out the door—knocking it flat if necessary—and out of the tabernacle, it should be dark enough outside for her to get away....
She was still probing for an opening when Weylin returned with the other preteens.
They took her outside the tabernacle and up the side of the mountain towering above. At Omega's direction Axel flew into the gaping hole that was the temple site; and a few minutes later he led the group to a small, cavelike hollow the workers had left in one of the sides. Omega pronounced it satisfactory... and as Lisa stood motionless within the space, pi
Drawing a shuddering breath, Lisa clenched her hands into painfully tight fists. "I'm not going to cry," she said aloud, mainly to relieve the silence hissing in her ears. Carefully—the rock surrounding her was jagged enough to cut—she felt every centimeter of the cave. She found nothing useful. With the full force of her teekay on it, the slab blocking the entrance would not budge so much as a millimeter, though she tried again and again. Once, she thought she had the answer when she discovered a layer of small stones directly beneath the huge rock. But after a solid half hour of teeking out as many as she could touch, the slab merely settled a few millimeters and, if anything, ended up leaning even more securely over the opening.
Finally, with a weary sigh, she gave up. Sitting down carefully, she closed her eyes, only then realizing how utterly fatigued nineteen hours without sleep had left her. And I trusted him, she thought bitterly, wishing she'd listened to Sheelah's doubts. He used me, got me in trouble with the police, and might even—
She swallowed. She'd never thought much about death before; certainly never really considered the possibility of dying before she became an adult. Now, it suddenly seemed likely that she would never even see sunlight again. The urge to scream for help bubbled up into her throat, and it was all she could do to choke it back down. Not yet, she told herself firmly. Omega wouldn't have put you anywhere someone could hear you. Save your strength; someone's got to come by sooner or later. One of the kids who's been working here, maybe even the police. She smiled painfully at the thought of how hard she'd been trying to escape from the police a bare four hours earlier.
But one way or another, no one was likely to find her for at least several hours. Stretching out as much as she could in the cramped space, she pillowed her head on her left arm. If anyone came by while she was sleeping, she would just be out of luck.... Groaning with the exertion, she sat up again and, maneuvering cautiously in the dark, wriggled out of her pants and underwear. The pants went back on; the panties she dangled outside her prison, anchoring one end securely to the top of the rock slab. It wasn't much of a signal, she knew, but it was better than nothing. And with fatigue dragging at her like a downdraft, it was the best she could do.