A Coming Of Age

"As long as the fagin charges are dropped, they won't be called on to testify. Besides, most of them never had any real proof other than your own statement, and we all know what a good liar you are. As to the others—well, I can take statements from them and alter them if necessary, but I gather Axel really didn't tell them all that much. He probably would have made you a fitting successor if he'd lived."

A strange sort of shadow crossed Martel's face. "Perhaps, he said. For a moment he hesitated, lips pressed tightly together, and then carefully returned the book to its place on the shelf. "Very well, Detective, I accept—on the condition that you tell me what exactly it is that Dr. Jarvis has discovered."

"Possibly a method to allow kids to keep teekay after puberty," Tirrell said. There was little to be gained by refusing the request; Martel had probably already guessed, anyway. "We won't know, of course, until Colin grows up. Possibly not even then." Standing up, he stepped to the office door and opened it. "Tonio?"

"Right here."

"Escort Martel back to his cell, if you would, and then see if Dr. Jarvis can come up here for a few minutes."

Martel stood up. "Good-bye, Detective. I'll see you in court."

Tirrell nodded silently and waited until they had left. Then, sinking back into his chair, he propped his elbows up on the desk and rubbed his eyes vigorously. It wouldn't be nearly as easy as he'd made it sound, of course—he would have to talk fast and loud to convince the various court officials that setting aside one set of charges in exchange for a flat-out guilty plea on the other set was a fair compromise for all concerned. But he should be able to pull it off. The crucial question now was how Jarvis would react to the deal he was trying to work out. Tirrell had been battling Martel's kind long enough to know how they thought, but the scientist was still in many ways an enigma to him. Too late, now, he wished he'd gone to get Jarvis personally instead of sending Tonio; tired though he was, the exercise might have awakened his brain a bit.

The office door swung open, and he looked up as Jarvis stepped into the room. "You wanted to see me?"

"Yes." Tirrell waved him to the chair Martel had just vacated. "Tonio, I want you to hear this, too," he added as the preteen started to leave. Without comment Tonio moved into the room and closed the door behind him, hovering with his back to it.

"First of all, Doctor," Tirrell began, "I'd like to know exactly what you've told the other police."

Jarvis eyed him for a moment before answering. "I've just said that Omega—or Martel, I guess his real name is—suddenly burst into my cabin, took me prisoner, and blew the place up. I've agreed to give more details when I've pulled myself together."

"In other words, you've been stalling. Good. Did you mention Colin to them at all? Or the fact that Lisa, Tonio, and I were there when Martel grabbed you?"

Jarvis shook his head. "No to both questions. I assumed you would want to talk with me before my story got set in concrete, so I tried to be as vague as possible."

"I see." Tirrell leaned back slightly in his chair. "All right. Let's start by finishing the conversation we were having at your cabin when Martel arrived. As I recall, you were about to try and convince me that Tigrin society needed your discovery to become stable."

Jarvis glanced up at Tonio. "I doubt if I have to spell out the more obvious potential problems to you, Detective. Depriving kids of literacy and book knowledge would hamper any attempted power grab they might try, but the physical strength is certainly on their side. They would succeed... at least temporarily."

"Only if everyone went along," Tonio said, a bit hotly. "A lot of us wouldn't, you know."

"That's one reason a revolt would ultimately fail," Jarvis acknowledged. "But the threat will always be there, sitting in the backs of people's minds, and the response will always be to keep as tight a rein as possible on the kids. That sort of permanent strain isn't good for anyone."

Tirrell thought of the official overreaction to Lisa's attempts to learn how to read. "Possibly," he said. "But that's not sufficient reason to risk another Lost Generation's worth of chaos."

"Isn't it?" Jarvis shrugged. "Then maybe you'd like to consider the trauma of taking five-year-olds from their parents and sticking them in hives among strangers. Or the way the emotional shock of Transition combines with the physical aspects of puberty itself to make teen suicide rates the highest on the planet. Or maybe—" his face seemed to harden—"you don't mind the way those triple-damned fagins siphon some of the brightest kids away from hives and twist their minds to hell and gone. Every one of those problems would disappear if adults as well as kids had teekay."

Tirrell felt his stomach muscles tighten as, knowingly or otherwise, Jarvis hit the detective's own deepest sore spot. "You don't like fagins, I gather?"

For a moment Jarvis stared at him, his eyes curiously flat. "No, I don't. I take it you don't know why exactly Colin was abandoned in Ridge Harbor in the first place."

Tirrell shook his head. "Why don't you tell us?"

"It was because a fagin in your town got the bright idea of starting with brand-new babies instead of snatching kids from homes or hives," the scientist said bitterly. "Miribel was supposed to deliver Colin to him when she left the hospital."

At Tirrell's right, Tonio growled something. "Just like that?" the detective asked. "Just walk out the front door and hand the baby over?"

"Why not?" Jarvis's eyes were blazing, but Tirrell could tell the anger wasn't directed at him. "No one in Barona knew she was even pregnant. The birth would be recorded in Ridge Harbor, and in thirty-two days it would go into the sealed records and no one would ever find out what happened. The fagin would have someone raise the baby, and when his teekay appeared he'd have a working kid who wouldn't be missed by anyone and wouldn't have any records he could be traced by."

"Why didn't you tell the police?" Tonio burst out.

Jarvis looked at the preteen, shook his head. "It would have gotten Miribel in trouble, too. Even if she'd been using me from the start—and I don't believe she was—I still cared a great deal for her. I couldn't turn her in to face criminal charges."

"So what went wrong?" Tirrell asked, though he now thought he knew.

"I did the next best thing: I phoned in an anonymous tip about the fagin," Jarvis said. "The police caught him redhanded, with two of his kids right there with him."

"Nash Gorman," Tirrell nodded. "I've always wondered who phoned us that tip. So when you told Miribel her prospective market had vanished, she just took off and left Colin to fend for himself?"

"It wasn't quite that heartless," Jarvis sighed. "She was afraid for her own safety, too. Gorman had blackmailed her into doing this for him; the details aren't important. I've often wondered what happened to her after she left the hospital. I hope she's still alive... but I don't really think she is."

It was Tirrell who broke the long silence that followed. "So what more would you have to do with Colin?" he asked.

Jarvis frowned. "You mean to complete my experiment? Not much. An injection every two months, dropping off to twice a year when he reaches seven. Keeping records of his B and M profile would be useful, too, though only for future reference. As a matter of fact, I would have returned him to Ridge Harbor within a week or so if all of this hadn't happened."

Tirrell was conscious of Tonio's astonished gaze on him. "All right," he told the scientist. "He's going back to Ridge Harbor a little ahead of schedule, but if you can continue the work without getting caught, you can do so. That's completely unofficial, of course."