Timothy Zahn - A Coming Of Age

"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."

Sheelah's eyes snapped back up to the detective, guilty surprise plastered across her face. "I don't know what you're talking—"

"Sheelah, Tirrell cut her off quietly, gesturing at Lisa's bed. "You don't have to look very closely at that blanket to see that two people have been sitting on it—and I remember enough of hive housekeeping standards to know Lisa wouldn't have left it like that in the morning. You let her in, sometime in the past half-hour or so, you sat on her bed together and talked, and then she took off looking for a place to hide. True?"

Sheelah's gaze was back on the floor, her throat making swallowing motions. In the silence Gavra stepped forward and sat down on the edge of the girl's bed. "Sheelah, is he right?" she asked gently.

The preteen closed her eyes and drew a shuddering breath, but otherwise remained silent. "Look," Tirrell said after a moment, "we know you're trying to protect her, but you're only making things worse for both of you. Aiding a fugitive, especially one who's committed assault, could—"

"Lisa didn't hurt that policeman!" Sheelah flared with a sudden fire that took Tirrell by surprise. "It was that other guy—Weylin something. He did it."

"So Lisa did come here," Gavra said, her voice tightening. "Why didn't you—?"

"Wait a second," Tirrell interrupted. "What makes you think Weylin was involved? He wasn't even in the same room at the time."

Sheelah's expression was pure puzzlement, without a trace of guile in it. "Yes, he was. He took Lisa there to... look at some things."

Tirrell stared at the girl for a long second, his brain adjusting to this unexpected revelation. It could be a lie, of course, Lisa trying to cover up what she had done. But the more he thought about it the more sense it made. Weylin had the necessary skill to use a spy-scope, and faking an attack on himself took nothing but determination and chutzpah. Belatedly, now, Hob Paxton's idle comment several weeks back about how Weylin had nagged him into requesting the liaison job took on a new significance. If Weylin had been spying for Jarvis all this time, then it was no wonder the scientist had outmaneuvered them at every turn—and in that case Lisa might simply have been recruited on some pretext for this specific job. If she had no especial loyalty to Jarvis she would make a good witness against him... if she could be found.

Gavra was speaking again. "What was she supposed to look at, Sheelah?"

The preteen shook her head. "I don't know, exactly. This Omega guy who sent her said it had something to do with a child who'd been kidnapped."

Gavra looked up at Tirrell, startled. But the detective nodded. "No, she's right—I am working on a kidnap case. I think Lisa was after our list of the kidnapper's possible locations. How much she got, I don't know."

"But why would anyone be interested in something like that?" Gavra asked. "It doesn't make any sense."

"It does if the man who sent her is also the kidnapper," Tirrell said bluntly.

Sheelah's eyes widened. "You mean... but Lisa said Omega was a prophet."

"Prophet, my foot," Tirrell growled. "He's a coldblooded kidnapper who thought nothing of snatching a five-year-old boy for—well, never mind." The detective had no intention of going into the whole story. "The point is, he's just using Lisa to find out how close we are to him. Once she's served her purpose, there's no telling what he'll do to make sure she can't tell us anything about his hideout."

This time Gavra's eyes went wide, too. "You mean he might... kill her?"

"He already faces charges of kidnapping and possibly of suborning a police righthand, depending on what we find out about Weylin," Tirrell pointed out. "I'd rather get to Lisa before we find out just how far he's prepared to go."

But Sheelah's face had gone rigid again. "You don't believe me, do you? You still think Lisa hit that policeman, and you're making up this whole thing about Lisa being used just so I'll tell you where she's gone. Well, I won't."

Clamping his teeth together, Tirrell counted to ten, cursing his loose tongue. Of course he wasn't going to pass final judgment on Weylin on Sheelah's unsupported word, but he hadn't intended for the girl to know that. "Sheelah—"