Coming of Age (38 page)

Words that could have hurt … but spoken with a concern that kept them from doing so. “I will,” Lisa smiled back.

Though it might be nice, she thought as she left the office, to know exactly what it was she was keeping quiet about. Perhaps on Saturday she would take the others up on their invitation and fly over to Ridge Harbor for a long talk. And after she got the complete story of what had happened at the refinery, perhaps she would take Tonio up on his offer of a guided tour of the seacoast and ocean.

And after that, there might be time for a quick side trip up to Cavendish … where Daryl was.

“So you're going to let Jarvis keep on with his experiment,” Tonio said as they pulled away from the curb and headed down the street.

“You disapprove?” Tirrell asked.

Tonio shrugged. “I don't like the idea of him putting stuff into Colin without knowing what it'll do.”

“If it hasn't hurt him so far, chances are it's safe enough. And if it's not … well, it's probably too late already. But I think it's a risk worth taking, given how things have turned out.”

Tonio glanced at the detective. “You're really determined to wipe out all the fagins, aren't you?”

Tirrell grimaced. “It's that obvious, huh?”

“You practically lit up when Jarvis suggested his formula would do that.”

Tirrell was silent for a long moment, long enough for Tonio to wonder if he shouldn't have put it quite so strongly. “I've never told you this before,” the detective said at last, “but perhaps you ought to know. I nearly became a fagin's kid myself when I was eight.”

“You?” Tonio stared at him.

“Me,” Tirrell admitted. “Brace and I—Brace was my roommate—we'd already been through all the movies and games Eights were allowed and were looking for something else to do. And when he ran into a smooth-talking fagin …” He shrugged. “The promises sounded awfully convincing, even though I could sense that something was wrong with the whole setup. It took me two days to decide not to join in. But Brace did … and I never tried hard enough to talk him out of it. He deserted the hive and worked as a thief and smuggler until Transition, when the fagin threw him out.”

He paused. Tonio waited, afraid to break the silence.

“There was a big official debate as to what to do with him, and even though he was eventually allowed Basic the whole thing made him pretty bitter. He quit school twice, got into trouble fighting with the other teens, and was eventually ordered out. He drifted through several low-skill jobs, but his record kept tripping him up, and he slipped into various petty criminal activities. Eventually … he became a fagin himself.”

Tonio had sort of guessed where Tirrell's story was leading, but it still sent a shiver up his back. “It doesn't make sense,” he said, shaking his head. “He, of all people, should have understood what he was doing to his kids.”

“It doesn't seem to work that way,” Tirrell said with more than a touch of bitterness. “Along with all the other traumas of Transition, kids like that wind up feeling rejected by both their fagins and by society, and that's a pretty hard load to carry. Most of them hang on and eventually manage to fit in reasonably well, but others spend the rest of their lives trying—at least subconsciously—to get back in their fagin's good graces.”

“By becoming the same kind of people he was?”

“And by proving they're as good at it as he is.” Tirrell sighed. “It's a weird, self-destructive pattern, Tonio, but no less strong for all of that. Martel was a fagin's kid, too, and you saw how calmly he was trying to pass the poison on to someone else.”

“Like Lisa,” Tonio murmured. “It could have been her.”

“And except for the grace of God and circumstance, it could have been
you,
” Tirrell said gently. “You and Lisa both found other interests when the hive's entertainments got dull—her with reading, you by applying to be a righthand. But either of you could just as easily have gone the other way. You see now why I think it's worth the risks to let Jarvis continue his work?”

“Yeah.” Tonio stared out the window for a long time. “I guess maybe it's a good thing then that I wasn't able to get out of that furnace,” he said at last. He wasn't really sure he wanted to say this, but the memory of what he'd been halfway planning to do in that darkened refinery—what he'd thought Tirrell
wanted
him to do there—was proving to be as uncomfortable a burden as a sore tooth. “If I'd had the chance, I might have tried to make sure—”
Jarvis got killed,
his mind prompted. But the three words remained stuck on his tongue.

“It certainly is a good thing,” Tirrell nodded. “You'd have come out smack into that cyanide. I'd say the angel who protects policemen and other idiots was working overtime that night.”

Tonio opened his mouth to explain that that wasn't what he meant at all … and suddenly he realized that Tirrell had understood him perfectly, and that his apparent misinterpretation was his way of saying that everything was all right and that the issue was closed. “Thanks,” he murmured.

“No problem.” Tirrell glanced at him. “By the way, I know how hard this case has been on you. If you want to resign as my righthand, I'll certainly understand.”

“No, I'll finish out my year.” He grinned. “Remember, I went into this for excitement in the first place. But … I'm not sure I'll want to stick with police work after school. There are parts of it I'm not sure I like.”

Tirrell shrugged. “You'll find you have to make deals and compromises in practically any profession you go into. But it's your decision, of course. There are certainly other good fields to go into.”

“Big of you to notice.”

Tirrell chuckled and fell silent, and Tonio settled himself for the long drive ahead, wondering at the uneasiness still nagging at him. Everything seemed to have come out okay … but he still didn't like what was being done to Colin. Even with Tirrell's assurances it didn't seem either safe
or
right to be experimenting with a real live kid. But until he hit Transition and could start learning things on his own, he was just going to be stuck accepting adults' words on such things.

Unless …

A strange thought, at least for him—but Lisa
would
be visiting Ridge Harbor soon. Perhaps, if he could get up the nerve, he would ask her to teach him reading.

It was worth thinking about, anyway.

Timothy Zahn is a
New York Times
bestselling and award-winning science-fiction author of more than forty novels, as well as dozens of novellas and short stories. He is best known for his Star Wars novels, which have been widely credited with rejuvenating the Star Wars book franchise. Zahn is known for his engaging writing style, pithy dialogue, compelling plot lines, intricately detailed alien cultures, inventive alien technology, and the complex morality of his characters.

Born in 1951, in Chicago, Illinois, Zahn holds a bachelor's degree in physics from Michigan State University and a master's degree in physics from the University of Illinois. It was while working toward his PhD in the late 1970s that Zahn began focusing on writing science fiction. He sold his first story in 1978 and, two years later, began to write fulltime.

In 1984, Zahn won a Hugo Award for his short story “Cascade Point.”. That same year he also published
Blackcollar
, the first installment of his Blackcollar series. He launched the Cobra series two years later with
Cobra
(1985), and published the celebrated Thrawn trilogy, which gave the Star Wars narrative new life, throughout the 1990s. His YA Dragonback series, of which
Dragon and Thief
(2003) was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, includes six books published between 2003 and 2008.

Zahn is especially beloved among the Star Wars fan community for his contributions to the Star Wars books. His best-known Star Wars titles, the Thrawn trilogy
,
were voted onto NPR's list of the top 100 science-fiction and fantasy books of all time.

Zahn lives in Oregon with his family.

Zahn's school portrait from 1957, when he was six years old.

A yearbook photo of Zahn playing the cello in his high school orchestra in 1969.

Zahn's high school senior class picture from 1969.

Zahn and his wife, Anna, on their wedding day in August 1979.

Zahn poses with his wife, Anna, and their son Corwin,1983.