Timothy Zahn - A Coming Of Age

"They're photos of people wanted by the police," the Prophet told her. "Go on."

"Well, I remembered seeing him. He was driving toward Rand one night last June. And he had a little boy with him who he said was his nephew, but I think it must have really been Colin."

"You talked to him? Jarvis, I mean?"

"Yes. I thought he might be having some trouble, driving between cities at night, so I stopped to ask if he was all right."

The Prophet muttered something under his breath and jabbed at the map. "Show me where," he ordered. "The exact spot."

She looked at it in bewilderment. "But... how do I—"

"You've flown over that road lots of times, haven't you? Well, each turn and bend shows up here as a curve in the line. Come on; I need to know."

But I wasn't flying along the road that night. Gritting her teeth, she leaned over the map, trying to think. She'd cut off parts of two curves catching up with the car, had stopped it on a smooth stretch, and had watched the car curve a little to the left as it left. "I think it was maybe about here," she said at last, her finger tracing a two-centimeter section of the line.

The Prophet brushed her hand aside and made a circle there with a pen. "Good. Now, let's see how far that is from Barona...." With a small disk-shaped device he carefully traced along the line back into the shape labeled BARONA. Glancing at the device's side, he scribbled a number by the circle. "Lisa," he said, looking up with a smile, "I am even more certain now that it was the Truth that guided you to me."

"You mean I... did all right?" she asked cautiously.

"You did wonderfully," he nodded, still smiling. "You see, I already know the boy Colin is being held within a hundred kilometers of Barona. You saw him at a point nearly eighty kilometers away, which means you have narrowed tremendously the area we must search. That plus these—" he touched the two spots she'd first given him—"gives me hope that we will soon have Colin freed from his satanic captor; possibly before this day is over. And for allowing the Truth to work through you, your own desire shall surely be granted."

"You'll find Daryl for me." It wasn't until the words were out that Lisa realized she'd made a statement instead of asking a question. In that moment she suddenly understood why Weylin had been able to trust this man so completely. Looking into his eyes, feeling the warmth of his pleasure at her accomplishment, she felt as if she had finally found something she hadn't even known she'd lost. Somehow, it made everything that she'd gone through worthwhile.

The Prophet nodded solemnly. "I give you my word—"

Abruptly, he broke off, his eyes shifting toward the door. Soft voices could be heard coming from outside the room; but even as Lisa strained her ears, the door swung open—

And Weylin Ellery strode into the room.

"Weylin!" Lisa exclaimed with delight. "I was afraid you'd—"

"How'd you get away from Tirrell?" Weylin interrupted her coldly.

"From who? I went out the window—"

"Tirrell called from your hive—said he'd caught you," Weylin bit out. "Wanted me to go back to the city building to identify you."

"And you ran?" the Prophet asked sharply. Lisa glanced back at him, startled by the sudden change in his manner.

"Of course I did," Weylin said, his belligerent tone cooling some under the Prophet's gaze. "I figured she wouldn't know enough to shut up and let me do the talking."

"In other words, Tirrell set up a trap for you and you flew straight into it," the Prophet snapped. "At the very least he knows you've got something to hide over what happened tonight—and at the worst he had you followed and now knows exactly where we are!"

Weylin actually cringed. "No—no, I'm sure I wasn't followed. I got out too fast and made sure no one was behind me." His eyes swiveled to Lisa, turning angry again. "But why would Tirrell have done something like that in the first place?"

"Why indeed?" The Prophet looked at Lisa, too, his earlier warmth gone without a trace. His eyes were cold and hard, his unsmiling face looking like that of another person altogether. "So you came here straight from the city building, did you? Who did you talk to, Lisa, that you conveniently forgot to mention? Was it Tirrell? Someone at your hive?"

"I... didn't—"

"Don't lie to me!" the Prophet thundered abruptly.

"Just my roommate," she blurted, shrinking back into her chair. "Only her—and she promised she wouldn't tell anyone."

"Well, she obviously did tell someone," the Prophet shot back. "What did you tell her?"

"I—I—" Lisa fumbled, her tongue tangled with confusion at the Prophet's abrupt change—

And suddenly her mind flashed back to the other picture on the city building wall, the one that had seemed vaguely familiar. "It was you!" she said without thinking. "But the name was Yerik Martel, not the Proph—

"Weylin, hold her," the Prophet said quietly.

For an instant Lisa sat in stunned silence, the order echoing through her mind as she wondered if she had heard him right. An instant after that she launched herself at the door—but she was barely halfway there when Weylin's teekay plucked her out of the air and slammed her down onto the floor. Fighting blindly against the invisible force, Lisa struggled back into the air, jerking sideways in an attempt to break his hold. But the trick that had worked among Barona's shadowy buildings was ineffective in such close quarters, and his grip on her remained firm. Spurred by panic, she abandoned her attempts to fly and instead scooped up all the books and papers she could from Omega's desk, hurling them at Weylin. But the righthand dodged them without shifting his gaze... and a moment later Lisa was spun around and shoved into one of the room's far corners.

"What's going on?" a new voice—Axel's—snapped from behind her.

"Help Weylin hold her," Omega ordered. "I think she's a police spy."

"No—" Lisa managed to croak before her jaw was abruptly teeked shut.

"Grack!" Axel muttered viciously. "What do we do with her?"

"We first of all don't panic," Omega said coldly. "Hold her arms, legs, and head really still; I'm going to check for hidden mikes."

Lisa tried to protest, but her mouth was still being held closed. Footsteps approached; and then Omega's hands were moving firmly over her body, kneading the material of her clothing and feeling the skin beneath it. She squeezed her eyes shut, every muscle painfully tense... and finally it was over. "She's clean," Omega told the others, relief evident in his tone. "Maybe she wasn't working with Tirrell, after all."

"We going to let her go, then?" Weylin asked.

"Of course not," Axel put in impatiently. "You think she wouldn't go straight to the police now?"

"But we can't keep her here—"

"Peace," Omega interrupted, his voice under control again. "Axel, how many of your people are here tonight?"

"Fifteen or twenty, I think."

"Go and get four of them. No, wait—tell Weylin their names and where they're sleeping and let him bring them."

"All right." Axel rattled off some names and instructions that were incomprehensible to Lisa. "And don't wake up anyone else," he added.

"Right," Weylin said. The teekay grip on Lisa eased some, and there was the sound of a door opening and closing.

"What are we going to do with her?" Axel asked.

"Leave her here, of course," Omega said. From the sounds behind her Lisa guessed he was picking up the books and papers she'd thrown at Weylin earlier. "You don't think we're going to take her with us to look for Jarvis, do you? She'll be suitably restrained, of course."

"You know where Jarvis is?"

"Close enough to make it worth trying. Anyway, we have no choice—Weylin's blown his cover and the police'll undoubtedly be making a push now to find him first. We'll leave here at first light—that should only be a couple of hours away now."