Pegasus in Flight (26 page)

Tirla was describing in great detail her favorite gastronomical delight—the one with four kinds of ice cream, four kinds of toppings, four kinds of nuts, and cherries, coconut, and multicolored sprinkles.

“My mother took me to a place like that,” Peter said, “oh, a long time ago now. For my tenth birthday. My sister goes a lot; Mother says that’s why she has spots so often.”

“Spots?”

“Pimples. Zits. Facial eruptions.”

“Oh,” Tirla replied in a tone that expressed unenlightenment. Peter imaged a pimpled face at her. “Oh! That sort.” Surreptitiously she ran her hand over her face.

Peter laughed. “You may never get spots, Tirla,” Peter said encouragingly. “They keep us on a healthy diet anyhow. Not subbie food.”

“What was Florida like?” Tirla asked.

Peter had learned a lot from watching Dave Lehardt answer difficult questions tactfully. So he told her about the flat land and the palm trees, the sand, the good food, the pool, and the sunbeds, and she seemed quite content at his implication that he and Rhyssa had been taking a holiday.

She assumed leadership as soon as they reached the right station and eagerly started running up the steps ahead of him before she remembered his disability. When she stopped, he was right beside her.

“Your vacation did you a lot of good, didn’t it?” she said, and plowed on upward. “See—there’s the Parlor, just inside the mall entrance,” she added, pointing.

Neither youngster noticed that their progress was being closely observed by two men, just descending from an elegant private hopper parked on the mall’s helipad. The shorter man took a small black instrument from his pocket and pointed it at them.

“How exceedingly careless. Neither of them has been stranded! I want them taken! Especially that odious little boy! I want no slipup, no excuses. You won’t have too much trouble with the boy, but his companion mustn’t be allowed to spread an alarm. Do it as fast as you can assemble a crew. Have I made myself plain?”

“Yes, sir.”

Peter was able to shout just once, his cry more indignant than alarmed. Then an ominous silence descended despite Rhyssa’s attempts to reestablish communications. She wasted no more time on the silence but broadcast on the widest band possible.

ALERT, ALL TALENTS, ALL LEO PERSONNEL! Peter Reidinger may have been abducted. Presumably in vicinity of Old-Fashioned Parlor. Tirla was with him.

TIRLA!
Sascha’s blast was nearly as loud as hers.

Complying!
came Boris’s calming bass tone.
All units in the area are to commence search procedures. Fax photos of the children are being dispatched to all vehicles. I’m proceeding immediately to question any possible witnesses. This is a Top Priority.

This is a G and H Priority!
Sascha added with bitter vehemence.
Sirikit, what does Budworth have on the strand scanner?
There was a long and stunned pause.

Oh, my God. I never stranded Tirla. Rhyssa?

Peter neither,
was Rhyssa’s horrified reply.
How could we have been so
stupid?

You weren’t,
Dorotea said in a bracing tone.
Their ID bracelets can be traced far more accurately than a stranded kid.

The exchanges had taken bare seconds while Rhyssa, Sascha, and Dorotea sped toward the Control Room, where the monitoring equipment would, they hoped, be able to give them some indication of where the children were.

Budworth was in front of the appropriate screen, his face twisted by anger and distress. “Bracelets were cut off. Scanner has ’em in a sewer drain in the mall heli-lot.”

“Oh, my God!” Sascha’s exclamation came out in a sob, then he shook himself.
Carmen, get in here. Bertha, Auer, you come, too. Dorotea, any chance that you can reach Tirla?

If you can’t, I’m not likely to.
There was a quality of ineffable sorrow in her response.
She’s keyed to you like no one else.

“There’s nothing, nothing there at all,” Rhyssa murmured, her voice breaking. “I’ve always been able to hear Peter’s mind.”

“Not if he’s been anesthetized, my dear,” Dorotea said. “That’s the only time he couldn’t hear or answer.” Then she spoke to Sirikit on a very tight band.
Phone Dave Lehardt and tell him to get here as fast as he can.

Sirikit, her own eyes bleak, discreetly complied.

“C’mon, Bro, c’mon! How long does it take your squads to get moving!” Sascha demanded, pacing anxiously.

The Talents had to wait another five agonizing minutes before Boris contacted them.

The kids sat by themselves. Tirla’s well known here, and she introduced her friend, Peter, to her usual waitress. She saw them leave the place. She caught a glimpse of them entering a small hopper with the Talent Center emblem. There were four men, but she didn’t see their faces. She didn’t see anything odd, except that the boy walked funny and then seemed to be assisted by one of the men. And no, she didn’t notice the registration. I’ve an APB on small hoppers with Talent emblems in Jerhattan, but it’d be helpful if your scanners picked up their bracelets.

Sascha:
The IDs were cut off. Left in the sewer outside the mall.

Boris:
That would be the first thing. So, can you pick something up yet on the strand scanners?

Rhyssa, heavily:
Neither Peter nor Tirla was stranded.

Boris, exploding:
In the name of all that’s holy, why not? The two most important young Talents? You have everyone running about like lunatics, stranding dumb subbie kids and pampered hive children, and you don’t strand Peter and Tirla?
The silence following his outburst was more eloquent than anything he could have added.

Rhyssa began to weep, and Dorotea tried to comfort her, tactilely and telepathically.

All right, then,
Boris went on in a calmer tone.
We have to assume the abductors are following their latest procedures. That’s the only thing that would account for total telepathic silence. The kids were gassed. They’re going to be stashed someplace and in those neat little cocoons. Sorry, Rhyssa, but I’m too angry to be diplomatic. Sascha, have you called Carmen in? My finders are all on the case. Somehow, we’ll find ’em. Those kids are smart. Once they wake up, they’ll be able to help us find them.

Suz and Cass further dampened the spirits of the Talents by reporting that in excess of thirty children in each Residential had been sold, or just taken. Ranjit, working covertly in Residential W, also confirmed evidence of more activity in the mall markets than could be discreetly ignored. Such scope and audacity was more than LEO or the Center had anticipated. All had happened so smoothly and simultaneously that both the Center and LEO had been caught unawares.

“My sympathies go out to Rhyssa and the other Talents. It’s incredible that two valuable young people like that could also be vulnerable to this despicable group,” the city manager told Boris, who passed her message on to Sascha and Rhyssa. “This has top priority, and all the resources of the city are at your disposal. No effort will be spared. Is there anything I, personally, can do? Offer a reward? Trade immunity for information?”

“Get your department heads thinking,” Boris told City Commissioner Teresa Aiello, “where such a significant number of children could be detained. I’ve got every available person on transport surveillance. They can’t have been moved out of the Jerhattan area, not in a group or singly. I put a hold on all rail freight and every container is being examined. Any cargo of a suspicious size is being opened. They’ve got to be somewhere nearby—for a while.”

“Everyone on this staff will start examining possibilities—unused warehouses, old buildings, underground stores,” Teresa assured Boris grimly.

Boris Roznine did not have quite all his people on transport duty—he had a good third picking up as many ladrones and sassins as his teams found in mall or factory areas. LEO might just luck out and dislodge a clue from an apprehensive subbie.

“Peter is alive, isn’t he?” Budworth asked, too concerned to be tactful.

“He’s alive. It’s not a dead silence,” Rhyssa said, wincing at her choice of adjective, her voice low with tension. “But he’s not conscious.”

“Nothing yet, Carmen?” Sascha asked the finder, whose hands were stroking the lock of Tirla’s hair. She could not meet his eyes as she shook her head slowly.

“Christ on a crutch! How could we be so arrogant as to believe we could protect them with an ID bracelet!” Sascha demanded explosively, stalking around what free floor space there was.
“Why
on
Earth
didn’t we think to strand them?” He pounded one fist into the other hand. “We’ve wall-to-wall Talents,” he said, gesturing almost scornfully at the various teams clustered about monitors or swiftly feeding programs into the mainframe. “Where could they have got to? That many bodies are too hard to hide. The kids have to be fed. They can’t have been whisked off to their—” Sascha could not find the appropriate noun and grimaced. “Wherever. Boris initiated transport surveillance within minutes. Dammit, the subways and cargo routes have been wired since the incident in G.”

Sascha, ease up,
Dorotea told him, her warning a very narrow quiet thought.
Rhyssa’s feeling guilty enough as it is.

Sascha:
And you think I feel none for not stranding Tirla, for encouraging her to go to the bloody mall? To that unmentionable bloody confectionery parlor?
Sascha’s response was loaded with derision.
She’d’ve been bloody safer if I
had
let Boris use her for bait!

Dorotea:
Stop castigating yourself, Sascha. Tirla’s been safely in and out of the mall and the parlor for weeks now.

Rhyssa, brokenly:
Peter’s worked so hard . . . What could have possessed him to take such a risk?

Dorotea:
He is just a boy, for all his power. Don’t worry, we’ll hear. The least whisper, and we’ll hear them.
Dorotea’s mind cast restlessly for a trace of Tirla’s. After nearly five weeks of proximity with the girl, she should be able to spot her consciousness.

MAY ALL YOUR ORIFICES BE CLOGGED WITH CAMEL DUNG, YOUR BELLY ETERNALLY FULL OF VOMIT! MAY YOUR TONGUE ROT AND YOUR TEETH FALL OUT AND YOUR GUMS SWELL WITH BOILS! MAY YOUR LIVER ROT AND YOUR BLADDER DRY UP AND YOUR GLANDS SHRIVEL AND PUTREFY.

“Good God!” Dorotea was jolted to her feet. “Did you all hear that? It was loud enough!”

“Peter doesn’t know that kind of language!” Rhyssa said, with a slight grin.

“Tirla would,” Sascha replied, beaming from ear to ear. “Pungent, isn’t she? Damn, where’s she got to? I can’t hear her anymore.”

“Well, I can, and she’s still in fine form,” Dorotea said. “Neither of you hear her now? She can certainly broadcast when she’s of a mind to.” She held up her hand, listening, every muscle taut.
Dorotea here, Tirla. Can you hear me?
Dorotea’s mental tone was tranquil and reassuring.

Tirla:
Dorotea? Where are
you?

Dorotea:
More to the point, where are you?
“Can you hear her now, Sascha, Rhyssa?” she asked. Two brief headshakes confirmed Dorotea as the primary contact. She felt the light, firm mental touches of Rhyssa and Sascha, listening in.

Tirla, savagely:
You tell me. I can’t see a thing. I can’t feel a thing. I can smell, and the stench is worse than the bottom level of a factory bilge. Couldn’t you guys track me?

No, we couldn’t, Tirla. Your bracelets were discarded right at the mall when you and Peter were taken. Is Peter nearby?
Sascha had motioned Carmen over, but Carmen kept shaking her head at her continued inability to find Tirla.
Can you remember what happened?
Dorotea went on.

Tirla’s disgust was obvious.
I can’t remember anything. Peter and I finished the new spectacular they just added to the menu. He paid for it himself. Said it was his treat this time ’cause he’d just had a vacation. We left the Parlor and were walking toward the subway when something covered my face, and I don’t remember a thing more. Awful stuff. Sweet icky smell. How come I can talk to you all of a sudden?

Sometimes it’s a case of need-to, Tirla,
Dorotea said, putting a smile of approval into her mental tone.

You needed me to?
Tirla asked.
Or I needed you to hear me? Peter? Peter, answer me!
Dorotea caught the conflicting emotions in Tirla’s question, but such competitiveness was not a bad sign.

You and Peter were not the only two taken today. Cass and Suz reported that a number must have been taken from E, as well. A very well-organized affair. That’s why anything you can tell us will help, Tirla. Anything, no matter how trivial.

Peter’s not answering me in here. Maybe he’s just not awake yet. My stomach’s sour. I shouldn’t’ve had that spectacular. Peter? Peeeeter!

Dorotea spoke gently.
Don’t panic, Tirla. Peter will wake up soon enough if he was gassed the same time as you were. We’re very relieved to hear from you, believe me.

Tirla, mildly surprised:
I do believe you. You can’t lie in your mind, can you?

Not to me, you can’t,
Dorotea replied, gesturing imperiously for Rhyssa and Sascha to stop trying to insinuate questions into her head. Tirla’s voice was clear but, after the first burst of psychic outrage, neither as strong nor as loud. She could not risk losing the link.
Now, tell me what you can about your surroundings.

They stink!

We’ve already established that. What of? Besides, I assume, the unpleasant bodily discharges of frightened children. What can you hear?

Tirla, disgusted:
A lot of crying.

Even that tells me something, Tirla. Can you isolate the individual crying enough to estimate how many children are around you?

Dorotea could sense Tirla’s concentration and did not interrupt.

Tirla:
I think there’s a lot of kids. There’s sure a lot of crying and moaning, and someone’s hiccuping. All around me, all sides, above, but none below. Why’d they blindfold us and tie us down like this? Most of these kids wouldn’t even try to escape.