Timothy Zahn - A Coming Of Age

Gavra nodded and closed the book, placing it carefully in front of her. For a moment she stared at it, and then raised her eyes to Lisa's face. "First of all, Lisa, let me say that I'm very impressed by your achievement. There have been other kids and preteens who've tried to learn reading on their own, but as far as I know, no one else has ever made it to this level before."

"Thank you," Lisa managed, her heart pounding in her throat. Other preteens had done it... but she'd never even heard rumors about them. What had happened to them?

What's going to happen to me?

"But I'm afraid you're not going to get to brag to anyone about it," Gavra continued. "From now on you must consider your ability to read a complete and total secret. Total. If we find out you've told anyone at all, you'll face total loss of all your hive points and maybe further punishment as well. Do you understand?"

It took several heartbeats for that to sink in; and when it did, it was like flying into the cool of an unexpected cloudburst on a stifling July day. The relief that went rippling through Lisa's body was as intense as the fear it washed away, and it left her weak and even trembling slightly. "Oh, I—Gavra, I—oh, yes, I understand completely. I won't tell anyone—I promise. I—oh, Gavra, I was so afraid I would be—you know."

The barest hint of a smile flickered over Gavra's face. "I understand. But I'm serious about what'll happen if you tell anyone. Don't forget that."

"I won't. Thank you for—oh!" Halfway to her feet, Lisa abruptly sat down again. "I almost forgot—Daryl! Can you help me find him now?"

Gavra's face had turned to wood again. "I'm sorry, Lisa, but I think you'd better forget about Daryl, permanently."

The tension flooded back into Lisa's body with a suddenness that threatened to bring up her dinner. "What do you mean? What have they done to him?"

"There aren't specific rules against you getting books from a teen; but there are rules against him giving books to you," Gavra said grimly. "Daryl knew the rules and has to accept his proper punishment for breaking them."

"No!" The word burst from Lisa's lips like a small thunderclap as a hundred horrible images crowded into her mind. "No, they can't! It's my fault Daryl did it—I'm the one who made him give me the books. They should punish me, not him!"

Gavra shook her head. "He knew the rules," she repeated. "In this world you have to take the responsibility for your actions—your own actions, no one else's. You may have made the original suggestion, Lisa, but the decision he made was his own."

Lisa's breath felt like fire in her lungs. "What have they done to him?" she whispered. "Please tell me. I was his friend."

The Senior frowned. "Are you thinking...? Oh, good heavens, girl—no, no, he's alive and perfectly well. How could you think otherwise?"

The reassuring words made no impression whatsoever on Lisa's panic. "Where is he? If he's all right, I should be able to see him."

"I'm afraid that can't be allowed. I'm sorry."

"Then what have they done to him?"

"Nothing, Lisa. Really. I promise."

Slowly, Lisa got to her feet, and for the first time in her life said to Gavra Norward, "I don't believe you."

Gavra said nothing; but the quiet pain in her eyes made Lisa feel even worse than she already did. But she forced herself to continue. "I don't know if you're lying to me or if someone else is lying to you first. But they told Daryl that Hari was all right, too, after he tried to kill himself." She moved toward the door.

"Where are you going?" Gavra asked.

"To find Daryl," Lisa said, her vision suddenly blurring. Angrily, she blinked back the tears, the effort making the soreness in her throat worse. "I have to know what this—this punishment of his was."

"Lisa, he's all right. They just don't want you and Daryl to see each other again."

"I'll believe that when I see him." She focused on the doorknob, teeking it around—

"Lisa. Wait."

The preteen hesitated at the command in Gavra's tone, torn between her frightening new spirit of rebellion and her instinctive respect for hive authority. Slowly, she turned back to face the Senior, letting her teekay grip on the knob dissolve. "What?"

"If you go charging off tonight or miss work tomorrow I'll have no choice but to report your actions to the police and... certain others. However"—Gavra's eyes caught Lisa's with unexpected intensity—"as long as you behave reasonably, your weekend time is your own, and I have no official control over your activities. You'll have a better chance if you wait until Saturday to do anything about this. Will you do that?"

Lisa stared at her, indecision churning her stomach. Every muscle in her body was screaming at her to start the search now—the last thing she wanted was to sit around worrying for an extra day and a half. But even with her emotions riding high, the tiny core of common sense within her knew Gavra's suggestion made sense. If... "You're not going to warn them, are you?" she asked flatly.

Gavra shook her head, and Lisa realized it had all come down to a single, very simple, choice: would she or would she not trust the woman standing before her.

It was, strangely enough, a remarkably easy decision to make. For all Gavra's talk of punishment and official duties, Lisa could sense—as she should have known all along—that the Senior was on her side in this mess. "All right," she said at last. "Where would you suggest I start looking?"

"I don't know," Gavra said, her voice tinged with relief. "But you might begin with the intro schools in the nearest towns. All I know is that he's not in Barona anymore."

"All right." Lisa turned and finished teeking open the door. Halfway through the opening, she paused and looked back at Gavra. "Thank you," she said.

"Don't worry about him," the Senior advised her quietly. "Search as long as you like, but don't let panic drive you to do anything foolish. Other people aren't likely to be sympathetic as I am to what you're doing."

Lisa swallowed, thinking about her little invasion of Lee Intro. Does Gavra know about that? she wondered. "I'll be careful," she said. Teeking the door closed behind her, she left the office.

She spent the next two hours in one of the preteen girls' lounges, watching her thoughts spin in their painful circles and feeling her emotions burn down to an exhausted ache. Mercifully, none of her friends came by to talk... or perhaps something in her manner discouraged approach. When the lights-out warning sounded, she went immediately to her floor's bathroom, completing her bedtime preparations quickly enough to be out before the main crush arrived. Back in her room, she gave one-word answers to Sheelah's cheerful queries about her day until the other took the hint and shut up.

For a long time afterward she lay awake in the darkness, listening to Sheelah's steady breathing and watching the faint pattern of light the curtains allowed into the room. Finally, around one-thirty, she fell asleep.

Her dreams were not pleasant ones.

The six o'clock wake-up buzzer literally blasted Lisa out of bed, startling her enough to cause an involuntary half-meter teekay bounce into the air. Settling back to her tangled sheets, she rubbed her eyes and took a deep, ragged breath.

"You okay?" came a cautious voice from the other bed.

Lisa ran a tongue over her lips. Her pounding heart was beginning to recover from the shock now, but the headache throbbing in time with it was showing no signs of going away. Her stomach was oddly tender, and her entire body felt like it had been pulled repeatedly through a wringer. "I'm fine," she told Sheelah tiredly.

The other preteen was out of bed now, eyeing Lisa with a mixture of suspicion and concern. "Fine, huh? You look like something a Seven would haul in out of the rain and ask permission to keep. And you were tossing and moaning half the night. I think you're coming down with something. You want me to go call the nurse?"