by Timothy Zahn
“Sure, Gavra.” Fortunately, Lisa had long ago hit on a way to keep children occupied for long periods of time. “Jessy, have you ever seen what Barona looks like from the sky?”
Jessy’s eyes lit up. “You mean—flying? But I can’t do that yet.”
“You don’t need to, ’cause I’ll be carrying you. Come on; you’re going to love it.”
And love it she did. From her gasp of wonder at takeoff to their first wet pass through a low-lying cloud, the little girl was entranced, alternately looking around in awed silence and excitedly pointing out brand-new discoveries. For her part, Lisa found herself caught up in the child’s fascination, able to see with some of her same delight things that she had stopped noticing years ago. It was like being a child again herself.
They flew around over Barona for a long time, until the rush of Jessy’s excitement began to wane a bit. Then, dropping to just above the city’s tallest buildings, Lisa unobtrusively began Jessy’s first lessons in aerial navigation. “Okay, now the first thing you’ll need to recognize is the hive—it’s that building there, the one with two towers and the fenced-in area behind it. Over there is the city building—that’s where the mayor works and where the police are; that star near the top always means police. Right below us is the shopping area where you’ll get to go sometimes—not by yourself, but with another preteen. See?—if you fly straight toward the city building from the hive you’ll come right here.”
“Uh-huh.” Jessy squirmed abruptly in Lisa’s arms, a sure sign that she was getting restless. That posed no physical danger, of course; Lisa’s teekay was holding the child as securely as bailing’s talons. But like most Fives, Jessy was bursting with energy, and Lisa preferred that she expend it at ground level. They could drop down to the shopping center, perhaps, and Lisa could show her how to tell what each of the stores sold by the picture in the window. Or else they could walk around the city’s business area and look at the tall buildings, or—
Lisa had a flash of pure genius. “Jessy,” she said, turning smoothly and heading toward a spot north of the city building, “have you ever been to the library?”
Jessy hadn’t; and she was delighted. She had, of course, seen TVs and tape players before—though the headphones connected to the latter seemed new to her—but the flashing lights of the video games were a source of instant fascination. She ran back and forth among the machines, standing on tiptoe to see over players’ shoulders, occasionally trying to touch the images or teek them through the screens, and generally making a minor nuisance of herself. The preteens playing the machines, most of whom had probably fled the game rooms at their hives for the express purpose of getting away from younger kids, were not inclined to be patient, and after a few minutes Lisa corralled her young charge and took her upstairs to the second floor. Much of that level was taken up by nature exhibits, and Jessy wandered among them for nearly twenty minutes, stopping by each exhibit and listening to part of its accompanying information tape before moving on to the next. The exhibits ranged from dioramas of Tigris’s native plants and animals to cages housing small, furry animals, both earthstock and native; and as she watched Jessy’s exploration, Lisa was again reminded of her own girlhood. She could still spend hours here, watching the gerbils and furheads in their cages and imagining what it must be like for them in the wild. Today, though, her mood was more one of impatience than interest as she waited for Jessy’s excitement to wane.
Finally, she couldn’t wait any longer. Soon they would have to head back to the hive. “Jessy, there’s one more place I want to show you,” she said, dropping to one knee beside Jessy and the ant farm she was studying.
“Do I have to?” Jessy asked plaintively, her eyes not leaving the scurrying insects.
“Yes,” Lisa said. “Don’t worry, you’ll be able to come here again. But I want to show you what the library is mostly for.”
Reluctantly, Jessy pried herself away from the display and followed Lisa up one more flight of stairs.
It was like traveling from the hive to the city building in an instant. Suddenly, everything from the heavy wooden chairs and tables to the quiet colors and quieter footsteps labeled the room as adult. Jessy froze just inside the doorway, and even Lisa—who had known what to expect—felt a strange reluctance to go any further. But she was determined, and taking Jessy’s hand she forced herself to walk toward the tall shelves she could see off to the right.
It wasn’t an easy trip. They first had to pass by a tall desk, from behind which an even taller librarian gazed down at them, then they walked through a lounge area where several adults and a couple of teens sat with books. Lisa could almost feel their eyes on the back of her head as she and Jessy passed, and she sighed with relief when they finally reached the shelves and ducked into the space between two of them, out of sight of the adults.
Jessy looked up at the shelves, packed solidly with books from floor to ceiling. “What are those?” she asked, sounding awed.
“They’re books,” Lisa told her, pulling one out at random and carefully opening it. Neat lines of black letters on white paper stared back at her. “You see, when you get to be a teen and go to school, you’ll learn how to read these. You can find out things from them.” Gazing at the page, she looked for the handful of letters she knew. They were there, certainly—but in so many combinations!
“Can I hold it?” Jessy asked, and Lisa felt a teekay tug on the book.
Automatically, she countered with her own teekay. “No, Jessy,” she said, leafing through the pages in hopes of finding pictures that might give her a clue as to what the words might be.
“I want it,” Jessy insisted.
“May I help you?”
Startled, Lisa looked up as the tall woman who’d been behind the front counter came down the aisle toward them. Her lips held a pleasant smile, but there was something in her eyes that reminded Lisa of the storm cloud she’d had to pull a Nine out of a year ago. “N-no, not really, thank you,” she managed. “I was just showing Jessy what books are.”
“I see. Hello, Jessy,” the adult said, and Lisa thought her smile a little more genuine this time. Stooping beside the girl, she deftly plucked the book from Lisa’s hand and held it open in front of her. “See, Jessy, this is writing. When you grow up you’ll learn how to understand what this says.”
Jessy reached for the book, but the librarian held it back. “No, no, you mustn’t touch,” she said firmly. “These are very valuable—some of the last books made from the big spaceship’s records before the machines were destroyed in the Lost Generation. They’re very durable—much more so than the books printed today—but they can be damaged if they’re mishandled. That’s why we don’t allow children or kids to touch them. Do you understand?”
Whether she understood or not, it was clear Jessy wasn’t about to buck such heavy adult pressure. “Uh-huh,” she muttered.
“That’s a good girl. Don’t worry; you’ll be able to look at the books all you want when you grow up.” She shifted her gaze to Lisa. “Was there anything else you wanted?”
“Uh …” Lisa’s tongue locked awkwardly against the automatic no that had tried to come out. “I … is it allowed for preteens to take books out of the library? I’d be very careful with it.”
The smile slipped a bit. “I’m sorry, but we can’t allow that. But if you really want to look at them, you can do so here, out in the reading area.” She gestured in the direction of the lounge chairs they’d passed through on their way in.
“Oh. I—thank you.” Lisa swallowed hard, feeling a shiver run down her back. To actually sit there with all those disapproving adult stares on her …“I guess we’d better be getting back, Jessy,” she said, taking the little girl’s hand and mentally bracing herself to pass among the readers again. “Say thank you to the nice lady.”
“Thank you,” Jessy murmured.
“I think you’ll find the library’s first two floors more interesting to you,” the librarian said as she walked them to the
door. “In the future you’d probably do better to stay down there.”
It wasn’t until they were flying above Barona again that Lisa was finally able to relax. One thing, at least, was clear: she was not going to be able to learn reading in the library. In fact, it was likely to be a long time before she even ventured into the building again.
But she wasn’t yet prepared to give up. There had to be other places she could get books from, places that wouldn’t be so hostile toward her. The librarian had said that books were being made, possibly even in Barona … but Lisa had never seen any store that sold them. She could, of course, search the whole city in her spare time, but even if she found such a place, she probably wouldn’t be allowed to buy a book there. Preteens weren’t given actual bills but could buy things only at certain specially marked stores in town by charging the purchase to their hives. It didn’t seem likely that any bookseller she found would have the blue hive symbol in its window.
What she needed, really, was a person to guide her around the problems she was running into. Someone who would be sympathetic to her ambition, perhaps a teacher from one of Barona’s introductory schools or even the university; someone who could break these unspoken rules—
Or someone who could get around them.
“Hey, we’re going faster!” Jessy said. “Whee!”
“Yes—we have to get back before your parents start to worry about you,” Lisa told her. She didn’t add that she was suddenly in a hurry to get back herself, to start asking some careful questions. Maybe—just maybe—she had the answer.
Chapter 5
“THANK YOU VERY MUCH for your time, Mrs. Livorno,” Tirrell said, making one last note on his pad. “I appreciate your help.”
“My pleasure,” the older lady said, her thin lips pulling together in a frown that silently proclaimed her distaste for the whole business. “I hope you catch this scum, Detective—I wouldn’t want anyone to get the impression this neighborhood is easy pickings.”
“Neither would I,” Tirrell agreed. “Don’t worry, we’ll get him.”
And if we’re lucky, it’ll be before Colin Brimmer reaches puberty, the detective added to himself as he walked down the path and headed for his car. At the moment, though, he wouldn’t have placed any bets on that.
Tonio had been faster with his part of the afternoon’s work, Tirrell saw; the preteen was seated on the curb beside their car, leaning against a red-and-white-checked “stop ahead” post and gazing skyward. At first Tirrell assumed his righthand was simply daydreaming, but a movement in the tree branches above the car caught his eye. It took another dozen steps for him to realize what was happening: Tonio was amusing himself by plucking dead leaves from one of the branches and teeking them over to another limb. “I hope you’re not fastening those permanently somehow,” he commented as he reached the car. “The city’s going to have to cut off that dead branch pretty soon, and I wouldn’t want them to take a healthy one, too.”
“No problem,” Tonio said, his eyes still on his handiwork. “You finished?”
“For the moment, yeah. Let’s get back to the office and see if we can dredge anything out of this mess.”
“Okay.” Tonio stood up, and as he did so there was a sudden rustle overhead and forty or fifty brown leaves drifted down on them. “See?” the preteen said, holding his hands out as if checking for rain. “Instant autumn.”
“Just get in the car,” Tirrell said, shaking his head.
“Anybody recognize Macvey’s drawing?” Tonio asked as Tirrell pulled away from the curb.
“Nope,” Tirrell said. “Not that that’s a terrific surprise, of course. Macvey didn’t have a lot to work with, and drawing a face minus its beard is an iffy proposition at best.”
“Especially when your witness isn’t very observant.”
Tirrell raised an eyebrow. “That comment sounded rather portentious. Is there some juicy bit of evidence you’ve been saving for my birthday or something?”
“No, I just heard it this afternoon. It seems Mr. Oliver had been hanging around that park longer than Lenna Thuma said.”
“How much longer?”
“According to two of the boys Colin played with, they were chatting to the guy as early as the beginning of March. That’s over three months ago.”
“Yes, I can count.” Tirrell gnawed his lower lip. “Did you get any details?”
“Only that he always seemed friendly and they never saw him except on Saturdays. Oh, yes—he also used a bench near the conetrees in the center, not the one Lenna pointed out yesterday. Apart from that—” Tonio shrugged. “Pretty much a blank. None of the children ever saw him anywhere except the park, and they all assumed he knew Colin or his parents from somewhere, which is why they never reported the conversations.”
“Only on Saturdays, eh?” Tirrell said, half to himself. “Interesting.”
“You think Lenna’s on his side?” Tonio asked.
“Whose—Oliver’s? I doubt it. She’s sat with Colin alone on several occasions recently. If the two were in collusion she could have delivered Colin to him at one of those times and not have had to worry about having witnesses around.” Tirrell drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “No, what I was interested in was the Saturdays-only aspect. That may imply he’s an out-of-towner who normally can’t get here during the week.”
Tonio digested that in silence for a block. “But this week he came on a Wednesday and a Friday.”
“He did indeed. What does that suggest to you?”
“Well-l-l. He changed his pattern in case someone was watching for him?”
“Maybe. I’m guessing it’s a bit more significant than that, though. Did you happen to note when Colin’s fifth birthday was?”
“Uh, no.” Out of the corner of his eye Tirrell could see Tonio giving him a puzzled stare. “Is it important?”
“Uh-huh. Colin was going to turn five next Thursday. And since you probably don’t know it, I’ll mention that Ridge Harbor law requires a child to be brought in to one of the city’s hives for teekay testing on the Saturday before his or her fifth birthday, and to be officially admitted the Saturday after that.”
“Oh. So if Oliver had come today, he wouldn’t have found Colin in the park?”
“That’s part of it,” Tirrell nodded. “But think it through a bit more. What was your last week at home like—do you remember?”
“Not really. All I remember is that my parents kept me pretty busy visiting relatives and having parties and outings together.” The preteen slapped his hands together suddenly. “Aha! If Oliver hadn’t grabbed him yesterday he might not have gotten another chance.”
“Right,” Tirrell nodded again. “And now you’re to the crux of my ‘interesting’ a while back. One more question, and you’ll see that maybe our Mr. Oliver’s made a mistake—hopefully, a fatal one. Take your time; I’ll give you till the station to figure it out.”
It was six more blocks to the station. Tirrell drove at a leisurely speed through the moderately heavy Saturday afternoon traffic, Tonio’s silence giving him a chance to map out their next move. An examination of the city’s records, probably, after a stop by Chief Alverez’s office to get the necessary authorization forms.
He pulled the car into the station’s level of the attached parking garage and found an empty slot. Sliding smoothly into it, he set the wheels on lock and turned to Tonio. “Well?”
The preteen was frowning. “There’s something about this I don’t understand,” he said, shaking his head. “How could Oliver know when Colin’s birthday was?”
Tirrell smiled grimly and patted Tonio’s shoulder. “Bull’s-eye,” he said.
The records keeper was a tall old man, well into his sixties, but still vigorous for all that. He seemed less than happy about letting Tirrell into the vault area. “If you’ll just tell me which records you want to see, Detective, I’ll bring them to you at one of the tables,” he said, halting on the threshold of the massive door.
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“If I knew exactly which ones I needed, I’d be happy to do it that way,” Tirrell explained patiently. “But all I know is that we’re starting with the birth records and probably going on from there.”
“What year? I’ll get them for you, and you can tell me then what else you want.”
“Just let us in,” Tirrell sighed, waving his authorization papers gently.
The keeper glanced once at Tonio, as if considering whether or not to forbid the preteen’s participation, but apparently decided further resistance would be a waste of time. Muttering something under his breath, he turned and fiddled with the combination lock. A moment later the door swung open, revealing a large, dim room with thick binders stacked in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Flipping on the overhead lights, the keeper stalked off without a word—probably, Tirrell thought, to watch them on the vault’s interior monitor system. Stepping inside, the detective studied the floor plan taped to the nearest shelf and headed off to the left.
Tonio followed a bit more slowly, looking around in wonderment. “Are all the records for Tigris in here?” he asked.
“Oh, no—not by a long shot,” Tirrell said over his shoulder, his eyes searching the shelf labels. “Not even for the whole continent—you’d have to go to the university archives in Barona for that. No, these cover only Ridge Harbor, and only since the Lost Generation. Before that everything was kept in a kind of machine called a computer. I’ve heard that one of those computers could have stored Ridge Harbor’s whole history in a single one of these books,” He found the proper aisle and ducked into it.
“You’re kidding.”
“Well, that’s what they say.” Tirrell pointed to the top shelf. “That’s the one—third from the left. Teek it down here, would you?”
The heavy book drifted off its shelf and into Tirrell’s waiting hands. Tucking it securely under his arm, the detective led the way to a small table in one of the room’s back corners. “Okay, let’s see,” he muttered as they sat down and opened the binder. “We want June seventeenth … June seventeenth … here it is. Baby boy, adopted by Thom and Elita Brimmer for the city of Ridge Harbor … mother’s name was Miribel Oriana. …Hmm. Says she was twenty-six, unmarried, and originally from Barona. I wonder why she came here to have her baby.”