Coming of Age (23 page)

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 Day spring 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 'em, 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 unnaturally stiff as she sat crosslegged on Lisa's bed. “She might be able to help you.”

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 sighed loudly. “All right, I'll give her the note. Any righthands out there?”

“I don't see any.” Opening the curtains wider, Lisa slid the window up and glanced back into the darkened room. “Don't forget, you don't know anything. Okay?”

“Yeah.” The shadow that was Sheelah stepped forward and touched Lisa's arm. “Watch yourself, Lisa, and be careful.”

“I will.” Taking a deep breath, Lisa slipped out the window and dropped quickly toward the ground. Keeping low, with an eye out for searching right-hands, she headed south.

D
AYSPRING HIVE WAS A
towering collection of uniformly dark windows as Tirrell pulled the car silently to the curb and gently opened his door. “Don't slam it,” he cautioned Tonio as the righthand slid out his side of the vehicle. “Sounds carry pretty well at night.”

The preteen nodded and swung the door to with a barely audible click. “You want me to wait out here and watch?” he whispered.

Tirrell shook his head. “There's no way you could cover the whole building by yourself. Let's try the battering-ram approach first and see if we can get to her before she knows we're here.”

Still, the detective kept an eye skyward as they headed up the long walkway to the main entrance.

The outer door was unlocked. Opening it and stepping through, Tirrell found himself in a glassed-in vestibule whose inner door turned out to be locked. In the larger entrance hall beyond, a young adult was sitting at a small desk, a solitaire hand laid out in front of her. Looking up at the visitors, she leaned toward a small microphone. “May I help you?” she said pleasantly, her voice coming through an intercom grille in the vestibule ceiling.

Tirrell held his badge up to the glass. “Police,” he said. “I want to see both your Director and your Girls' Senior right away.”

Eyes bulging slightly, the woman nodded and groped at the far side of her desk. With a
snick
the inner door popped open a centimeter or two, and as Tirrell pulled it open, she reached for her phone.

They arrived almost simultaneously from opposite directions a few minutes later—the man in robe and slippers, the woman still dressed. Tirrell wondered why she'd still be up, decided to hold the question for later.

“Detective?” the man asked as he approached, as if there could be any doubt. “I'm Director Allan Gould. What seems to be the problem?”

“I'm Detective First Tirrell,” Tirrell identified himself formally. “One of your kids broke into my office at the city building an hour ago and assaulted a police officer. We're here to pick her up.”

“What?” Gould's jaw sagged.

“Who?” the woman asked.

Tirrell shifted his attention to her. “You're the Girls' Senior?”

“Yes; Gavra Norward. Whom are you accusing?”

“It's hardly a simple accusation—one of the officers who saw her enter the station has already tentatively identified her from her picture. Her name's Lisa Duncan.”

Something flickered over Gavra's face, something that didn't look altogether surprised. “Are you absolutely sure it was Lisa?” she asked, her voice strangely tight.

“That's what we're here to find out,” Tirrell said. “Would you take us to her room, please?”

Gavra held his eyes a fraction of a second, then turned to the young woman at the desk. “Has Lisa come in since you've been here?”

The other was already running a finger down a long list in front of her. “Not since the doors were locked at eight-thirty,” she said, shaking her head.

“You knew she was out?” Tirrell asked, watching Gavra's face closely.

“I knew she'd missed the eight-thirty sign-in,” the Senior replied without hesitation. “She's never missed lights-out before though, so I had no reason to suspect she'd be late this time.”

“Uh-huh.”
Or else had suspicions and carefully avoided any direct knowledge.
“I'd like to check her room for myself, if you don't mind.”

Gavra glanced past him at Tonio, opened her mouth as if to object to his presence on the girls' side, then abruptly turned and headed back the way she'd come without saying anything. Tirrell fell into step beside her, Tonio following close behind.

The twin towers started three floors above street level, rising above the hive's common areas, and Lisa's room was five more flights up the girls' tower itself. Tirrell pushed the pace, with the result that both he and Gavra were breathing a bit heavily by the time they started down the hallway. Tonio, of course, showed no strain at all from the trip.

Gavra led the way to one of the doors about halfway down the left-hand corridor. “This is it,” she said in a soft voice which tried very hard to disguise its tension. “May I knock before you go barging in? Knocking is a hive privacy rule.”

Tirrell hesitated, then nodded. “All right, but don't wait for an answer before opening the door.”

Gavra grimaced, but turned back to the door without comment and rapped gently on the panel. Twisting the knob, she pushed the door open and stepped inside. “Lisa? Sheelah? It's Gavra,” she announced quietly as Tirrell flicked on the light and took a long step past her into the room.

It was, unfortunately, an anticlimax. One of the two beds was clearly empty; in the other a tousle-haired girl, startled awake, was half sitting up with an arm thrown protectively over her eyes. “What—” she gasped.

“It's all right, Sheelah; it's Gavra and a police detective,” the Senior said quickly.

“The police?” Still squinting, the girl lowered her arm and peered in Tirrell's direction. “Why is—oh!” She broke off, and her sheet suddenly jumped to chin level.

Beside him, Tirrell heard a sort of embarrassed gulp from Tonio. “Maybe I should wait in the hall,” the righthand suggested.

Tirrell's eyes had already completed their sweep of the room without finding any place even an undersized preteen like Lisa could be hiding. “All right,” he told Tonio. “But stay close.”

“Right.” The other took a breath and got out fast.

Turning his attention to the girl now sitting straight up in bed, the detective gave her his most reassuring smile. It didn't help; above the sheet her expression remained wary.
And she's wide-awake,
he noted suddenly.
A fast waker? Or wasn't she asleep at all?
“Please don't be alarmed, Sheelah,” he said. “I'd just like to ask you a few questions, if I may. Have you seen your roommate Lisa this evening?”

The girl's expression didn't change. “No,” she said. “She left this morning and I haven't seen her since then.”

“Do you know where she might have gone?”

“No.”

“Did she leave with anyone else?”

“I don't know.”

“I see.” Tirrell glanced at the curtained window. “It's been over an hour now since lights-out. Any chance she could have sneaked in and out during that time?”

“The window's locked. You can check if you want.”

“I'll take your word for it.” Tirrell studied her thoughtfully. “You're certainly taking this calmly, Sheelah. Aren't you even worried about what might have happened to Lisa?”

For the first time Sheelah seemed uncertain. “Lisa can take care of herself,” she muttered, looking at the floor.

“Maybe she can, but maybe not,” Tirrell said. “The fact is, Lisa is in a great deal of trouble—and running is only going to make it worse. You'd be doing her a favor by telling me where she's gone.”