by Timothy Zahn
Drawing a shuddering breath, Lisa clenched her hands into painfully tight fists. “I’m not going to cry,” she said aloud, mainly to relieve the silence hissing in her ears. Carefully—the rock surrounding her was jagged enough to cut—she felt every centimeter of the cave. She found nothing useful. With the full force of her teekay on it, the slab blocking the entrance would not budge so much as a millimeter, though she tried again and again. Once, she thought she had the answer when she discovered a layer of small stones directly beneath the huge rock. But after a solid half hour of teeking out as many as she could touch, the slab merely settled a few millimeters and, if anything, ended up leaning even more securely over the opening.
Finally, with a weary sigh, she gave up. Sitting down carefully, she closed her eyes, only then realizing how utterly fatigued nineteen hours without sleep had left her. And I trusted him, she thought bitterly, wishing she’d listened to Sheelah’s doubts. He used me, got me in trouble with the police, and might even—
She swallowed. She’d never thought much about death before; certainly never really considered the possibility of dying before she became an adult. Now, it suddenly seemed likely that she would never even see sunlight again. The urge to scream for help bubbled up into her throat, and it was all she could do to choke it back down. Not yet, she told herself firmly. Omega wouldn’t have put you anywhere someone could hear you. Save your strength; someone’s got to come by sooner or later. One of the kids who’s been working here, maybe even the police. She smiled painfully at the thought of how hard she’d been trying to escape from the police a bare four hours earlier.
But one way or another, no one was likely to find her for at least several hours. Stretching out as much as she could in the cramped space, she pillowed her head on her left arm. If anyone came by while she was sleeping, she would just be out of luck. …Groaning with the exertion, she sat up again and, maneuvering cautiously in the dark, wriggled out of her pants and underwear. The pants went back on; the panties she dangled outside her prison, anchoring one end securely to the top of the rock slab. It wasn’t much of a signal, she knew, but it was better than nothing. And with fatigue dragging at her like a down-draft, it was the best she could do.
Stretching out again, she was asleep within half a minute.
“Sorry, Stan,” Tonio said tiredly, drifting onto the bare rock outcrop where the detective was standing. “I can’t find any trace of him anywhere.”
“Damn,” Tirrell muttered, gazing out at the dimly lit mountains, rising like frozen ocean waves around them. To have come so close …
“I can try again, if you want,” the preteen offered. “Unless Jarvis is growing trees on his roof the cabin’s got to be visible from some angle.”
Tirrell shook his head. “Not worth it, especially now that the moon’s gone. But we know he went down somewhere in this valley, and unless he spotted us they’re not likely to move before dawn. Which is—” he consulted his watch—“all of two hours or so away now. Let’s sit tight and get a little sleep, and we can pick up the search in the morning.”
“Well … okay.” Tonio paused. “Maybe I should go and get some help, though. I could probably get to Plat City and back before it gets light. Unless you’re still worried about Jarvis getting tipped off.”
“Actually, at this point I’d love to have some help,” Tirrell admitted. “Unfortunately—no offense—I’m not at all sure you could find this place again if you left now. Maybe when it’s light we can risk that, but not now. Besides which, if you feel like I do, you need sleep more than flying time right now.”
“There’s that,” Tonio sighed. “Okay. Shouldn’t one of us watch in case they try to leave or something?”
“Probably,” Tirrell conceded. “No rest for the righteous, for a change.”
“Come again?”
“Skip it. Move back a ways into that thicket of trees where you won’t be spotted and get some sleep. I’ll wake you in an hour or so.”
Tonio nodded and moved off, and after a moment the sound of rustling leaves was replaced by silence. Moving with the stiffness of overabused muscles, Tirrell carefully seated himself on the ground. Pulling his knees to his chest, he wrapped his arms around them and settled down to watch.
Chapter 22
TIRRELL HAD ALWAYS BEEN a sound sleeper, especially when overtired; but the hand shaking his shoulders was anything but gentle, and within seconds the colorful dream he’d been having faded and was replaced by Tonio’s blurry face. “Wha—?”
“Shh!” the righthand hissed. “You’d better come take a look at this.”
Tirrell nodded and rolled onto his stomach, mindful of the dead leaves beneath him. Pushing himself up on his knees, he noted the starlight had been replaced by the stronger glow of early dawn. The highest peaks around them blazed with sunlight, though the deepest parts of the valley were still dark.
From high overhead came the faint sound of laughing voices.
The last remnant of sleep was gone in an instant. Getting to his feet, Tirrell moved to the edge of their concealing thicket and cautiously looked up. At least a dozen kids were visible, fanning out in twos and threes as they flew across the lightening sky in generally northward directions.
“What the hell?” Tirrell whispered.
“Agreed,” Tonio, at his side, whispered back. “They came from over there.” He pointed, and with perfect timing another trickle of figures rose into the sky from the eastern side of a tall mountain several kilometers due south. Tirrell listened closely as they passed overhead, and while the words were unintelligible, the tone was clearly lighthearted and untroubled—not the sort of tone the detective would normally expect from a kidnapper’s accomplices.
“This makes no sense at all,” Tirrell growled, fatigue putting irritation into his voice. “Have we stumbled onto some hive’s weekend outing or something?”
“Hive outings don’t break up at five in the morning,” Tonio pointed out. “And I haven’t seen any of the adults that should have been with them, either.”
“Right,” Tirrell said, annoyed he hadn’t thought of those points himself. “Well … have you seen anyone who looks like Lisa Duncan?”
“Uh-uh,” the preteen said positively. “I’ve been watching for both her and Weylin and haven’t seen either of them.”
More kids were streaming upward now, and Tirrell looked at each carefully as they flew past. No Lisa or Weylin in this bunch, either. “This has got to be some kind of coincidence, Stan,” Tonio shook his head. “Jarvis can’t be mixed up with this many kids and preteens. Weylin must be somewhere else in the valley.”
“Maybe,” Tirrell said slowly. “On the other hand, he did offer us a group of kids to help search for Jarvis. I think it would be worthwhile to ease over there and see just where it is everyone’s coming from.”
“Okay.” Tonio paused. “Wait a second; here comes another group.”
More figures were indeed rising into the air … but as Tirrell watched them something cold began tracing a path up his spine. This was no loose-knit bunch of kids who had simply happened to leave at the same time. They were staying together, almost flying in formation, without a trace of chatter that Tirrell could hear. Staying just above treetop height, they shot swiftly past, heading northwest.
“Stan!” Tonio whispered. “There’s an adult with them!”
“I saw him,” Tirrell nodded. Buoyed up by two of the kids, his outfit some sort of Woodsman’s garb, the man had looked nothing at all like a prophet; but Tirrell had no doubt he was the Omega in Lisa’s note. And he was most definitely not Matthew Jarvis. “Weylin’s there too.”
“Yeah. But I didn’t see Lisa.”
“Me neither.” Tirrell looked back toward the mountain, the coldness on his backbone seeping into his stomach. “Let’s get down there right away, Tonio. And the hell with secrecy—I’ve got a bad feeling that everyone who was supposed to leave has already done so.”
Tonio understood. “Grack,�
� he said, very softly, as he held out his hand.
A second later they were hurtling southward.
The huge tent set up at the mountain’s base was impossible to miss—and probably the last thing Tirrell would have expected to find. “What is this place?” Tonio whispered as they stood just inside the entrance, looking at the gaudy furnishings.
“The Prophet Omega’s headquarters, I’d imagine,” the detective whispered back, keeping a firm grip on his feelings. Even recognizing that the place had probably been deliberately designed to manipulate emotions, he couldn’t help but feel a touch of awe. To an inexperienced kid, the effect must have been well-nigh overwhelming. No wonder Omega’s suckered in such a large following, he thought grimly. What the hell is he doing with them, though? “Let’s do a fast search,” he said aloud to his righthand. “Don’t disturb anything too noticeably, but check every place a preteen could be locked up.”
The tent, though large, had only a few rooms, and it took them only a handful of minutes to go through it. “Now what?” Tonio asked when they were finished.
“I think,” Tirrell said quietly, “we’d better start looking for a grave.”
Tonio sighed. “You don’t think he would have left her tied up somewhere outside?”
Tirrell shrugged. “Maybe, but tying kids up so that they can’t get free isn’t easy to do. You can’t really gag them, for starters, and he almost certainly would have needed to keep her quiet. I’d bet my pension the kids who left first this morning weren’t involved with Lisa or whatever else Omega’s got cooking.”
“Maybe that’s why Omega’s group left last, so that a couple of them could sit on Lisa and make sure she couldn’t call for help until the others were gone.”
Tirrell thought that over. Probably nothing but wishful thinking. If Lisa wasn’t thoroughly on Omega’s side, keeping her alive was more dangerous than profitable—but on the other hand there was no special reason to burst Tonio’s hopes out of hand. At this point looking for a body, a freshly dug grave, or a prisoner would be essentially equivalent. “You might be right,” he told the preteen. “Okay. We’ll do a fast search, starting at the tent here and moving outward.”
They spent the better part of an hour flying slowly through the trees, and while they located several other places Omega’s kids apparently used in their activities, there was no clue anywhere as to Lisa’s location or fate. For Tirrell, the hardest part of the search was watching Tonio’s almost desperate optimism slowly ground down as their chances of finding her alive diminished. The righthand’s reaction to what Jarvis might be doing with Colin had shown up the soft spot in Tonio’s character, and his concern now for Lisa merely emphasized it. Just one more righthand, Tirrell predicted privately, who’ll leave the force after his year and never come back.
“I guess you were right,” Tonio admitted at last. “We’re not going to find her, are we?”
“I don’t think so,” Tirrell shook his head. “Look, this isn’t getting us anywhere. Why don’t we figure out how to get back here again, and then get over to Plat City and put out an alarm on Omega. We can send a complete shakedown squad back here to … finish things. Okay?”
“Sure.” Tonio nodded tiredly.
“And we’re both in need of food and sleep, anyway.” Shading his eyes, Tirrell peered upward. “Before we go, though, I’d like to take a quick look at that gash up there. It doesn’t look like any kind of natural formation I’ve ever heard of, and if it’s erosion it’s an awfully strange pattern.”
“Why bother with it now?” Tonio grumbled.
“Because it would be nice to know if the shakedown squad should keep on the lookout for a sudden rock slide,” Tirrell explained, holding on tightly to his temper. Matching grouches with Tonio wouldn’t do them any good. “It’ll just take a minute, and then we’ll be off.”
Sighing, Tonio held out his hand.
But the gash turned out to be even more interesting than Tirrell had expected. “Holy hive fruit,” Tonio said as they hovered at its entrance, his depression momentarily superseded by astonishment. “It’s a cave.”
“Sure looks like one,” Tirrell agreed. “And man-made at that—that floor is far too level to have been formed naturally. Let’s go in, take a look around.”
Even with the sun now peeking over the eastern mountains, the angle of the cave was such that the deepest third was still in shadow. Tonio brought them down near the middle of the lighted part, and Tirrell immediately squatted down to examine the floor and the loose stones littering it.
“You suppose Omega’s kids dug this?” Tonio asked, drifting to one side and gingerly touching the wall.
“Somebody’s kids dug it,” the detective said. “There aren’t any marks a digging machine would have left, and even so it would’ve taken kids to get one this high up a mountain.”
“Shh!” Tonio said abruptly. “I heard something!”
Tirrell froze in place, listening. A faint sound—a voice?—came to his ears. Catching Tonio’s eye, he pointed toward the darkened section of the cave. The righthand nodded and flew to a spot on the wall just inside the shadow, where he’d have at least a little cover and yet be ready to help. Flicking on his flashlight, Tirrell started forward, moving carefully on the loose gravel underfoot as he tried to pick out the direction the sound had come from.
He needn’t have bothered. The first pass with the light caught the white panties hanging across the pinkish stone, and seconds later he was close enough to see a narrow horizontal gap two meters above the floor. “Hello?” he called. “Who’s there?”
“Lisa Duncan,” the voice came through the gap. “Who are you?”
“Detective First Tirrell. Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” Seldom before had Tirrell heard such palpable relief in a voice. “But I can’t get out!”
“Relax,” Tonio said from Tirrell’s shoulder. “I’ll give you a hand.”
“Forget it,” Tirrell told him. “That slab must weigh five tons—probably took four or five preteens to put it there.”
“But we can’t just leave her there!”
“We’re not going to.” Tirrell ran his fingers carefully over the jagged rock. “This thing seems to be mostly quartz, and quartz shatters like glass if you hit it hard enough. I want you to scare up a few good-sized chunks to throw at it. Not too big; you’ll want to be able to teek them to a good speed in the distance you’ll have.”
“Right.” Tonio vanished with a whoosh.
“Lisa? Did you hear all that?” the detective called.
“Yes. What can I do to help?”
“Get as far back from the stone as you can and curl up with your back to it. Most of the chunks should bounce back out here, but some might go inward and there’s no point in you getting cut.”
The operation went flawlessly. Standing well back, where he would both be out of the way and able to illuminate the whole target range with his flashlight, Tirrell watched as Tonio blasted the door of Lisa’s prison with a succession of melon-sized pieces of quartz. The righthand’s heart was clearly in his work, and it took only a few blows before a dozen hairline cracks could be seen radiating from the impact point. The next three blows gouged out progressively larger showers of the glassy shards; and with the fourth, the top third of the stone abruptly broke off and crashed resoundingly to the floor.
The trapped girl was through the opening in an instant, landing in front of Tirrell with a shuddering sigh. “Thank you,” she said, shifting her gaze to include Tonio as the righthand flew over. Taking another deep breath, she looked back at Tirrell. “I’m under arrest, aren’t I?” she asked.
“For the moment, let’s just say you shouldn’t try to leave us,” the detective said, running his eyes over her in search of injuries. “Are you all right?’
She nodded. “They didn’t hurt me, unless you count scaring me to death in that hole. But I don’t know what he had planned for when he got back.”
Tirre
ll’s shoulder blades tightened up. There’d been at least fifteen kids flying off with Omega earlier—more than enough to make mincemeat of two pre-teens and an adult. “Any idea when that’ll be? Where were they going?”
“They were going to the Barona-Rand road to look for that kidnapped boy, Colin Brimmer.” She dropped her eyes. “I’m sorry; if I’d known what kind of person he was, I wouldn’t have helped him.”
“But what does this Omega want with Colin?” Tonio asked, sounding puzzled.
“I don’t know anymore,” Lisa said. “He’s lied about so much I don’t know what’s true anymore. His name’s not even Omega; I saw a picture of him with the name Yerik Martel at the—”
“Yerik Martel?” Tirrell snapped.
The girl flinched. “Y-yes. I think it was him—”
“Damn, damn, damn,” the detective whispered, staring through the back of the cave. Suddenly all the—odd pieces of the puzzle that had never quite fit were falling into place … and the emerging picture wasn’t a pretty one.
Lisa was still watching him apprehensively when he brought his eyes back to focus. “Relax,” he told her, managing a smile. “I’m not mad at you. I was just startled to find out Martel was involved here.” He looked at his righthand. “Does that answer your question, Tonio?”
The other was frowning. “Martel’s that fagin who got away from you once, isn’t he? He must be awfully hard-up if he’s going to all this trouble for one kid?’
“I doubt if he gives half a bill for Colin,” the detective said shortly. “For the time being he’s switched specialties. Weylin’s told him our theory of what Jarvis is really doing out there, and that’s what he’s after.”
“Oh, grack. Tonio’s mouth was a tight line. “That’s just terrific. Well, at least he doesn’t know any better where to start looking than we do. I guess that’s something.”