"Okay." Tirrell made a note on his pad. "Now tell me about today."

"He was here when we got here, sitting on his usual bench. He said hello and said he'd brought a small gift for each of the children—they were little model airplanes. They'd been flying them for a half hour when Colin's hit the ground too hard and broke. Mr. Oliver—that's the man—tried to fix it, but he couldn't. He said he would have to go to his apartment, where his glue and vise were, and asked Colin if he wanted to come watch. Colin seemed eager, and—well, he seemed to know him—"

"Yes, you told me already," Tirrell said, striving to keep his voice even. He couldn't really blame the teen; she'd probably never had more than a half hour of instruction on the art of child-sitting in her life. Besides, she clearly still had the reflexes of the hive structure she'd so recently left, reflexes geared to obedience toward authoritative adults. "So they left. It then took you a whole hour to become suspicious?"

She nodded, a single forlorn jerk of the head. "I'm sorry," she said miserably.

Glancing around, Tirrell caught the eye of a policeman and beckoned to him. "I'm going to ask you to go down to the station with this officer," he told the teen, "and describe this Mr. Oliver for one of our artists. Okay?"

"Sure." She sniffed once more and left with the policeman, her shoulders curled with dejection. A motion off to his left caught Tirrell's eye, and he turned as Tonio landed a few meters away.

"Couple of messages for you, Stan," the preteen said. "First: the address is a phony. No one there's ever heard of this Oliver guy or anyone with his description."

"Big surprise," Tirrell growled. "You're going to like this guy, Tonio—he's got your warped sense of humor."

"What do you mean?"

"The term 'fagin' originally came from a pre-Expansion Earth book, whose title happens to be Oliver Twist. What's the other message?"

"Colin's parents are here."

Tirrell glanced once at the men working on the bench. "Good. Let's go talk to them."

The detective had never met the Brimmers, but their reputation was well-known in official Ridge Harbor circles. Both in their early forties, they had been foster parents to six children over the past eighteen years, providing the close family background that seemed to best minimize the later transitional shocks to hive, school, and adulthood. Their record had been one of the best in the city... until now.

They were standing together near the row of police cars, obviously upset but under much better control than the teen sitter had been. The man took a step forward as Tirrell and Tonio walked up to them. "Are you the officer in charge here, sir?" he asked.

Tirrell nodded. "Detective First Tirrell; this is Tonio Genesee, my righthand. You are Thom and Elita Brimmer, of course. First of all, do you know anyone named Oliver, or anyone who has gray hair, a beard, and wears glasses?"

Both shook their heads. "We've had a few minutes to think about it—the policeman who drove us here gave us Lenna's description," Elita said. "We're quite sure we don't know anyone like that. But I wonder whether or not the hair and beard are a disguise. In that case he probably could be almost anyone."

"Good point." Tirrell had come to that obvious conclusion long ago. "Next: is there any reason to suspect Colin may have been kidnapped for purposes of ransom? Or that someone might want him in order to force you to do anything?

Again, two solid negatives. Tirrell hadn't expected anything else, but the questions had to be asked. "All right. Then I'd like to go to your house with you and look over both Colin's things and any photos you have of him, especially recent ones taken outside. After that I want you to tell me everything you can about Colin, your friends and acquaintances, your daily schedule—everything that could conceivably give us a clue."

"We're at your complete disposal, Detective," Brimmer said. "We want this man caught as badly as you do."

I doubt that very much, Tirrell thought blackly as he led the way to his car. The Brimmers had most likely never seen what could happen to a child who was brought up by a fagin. Tirrell had.

It wasn't something he was anxious to see again.

Outside the lounge windows the last traces of sunset had finally faded from the sky, and the crescent shape of Tigris's larger moon was occasionally visible through the swaying woodland treetops. Sighing, Lisa straightened up in her chair and looked around her. The lounge was relatively empty; most of the other preteens were probably either outside or else downstairs in the entertainment rooms, enjoying the extra freedom Friday evenings brought. Of the few other girls present, most were sitting alone, either dozing or just enjoying the silence. In one corner five others had teeked their chairs into a circle and were carrying on a muted conversation. Lisa found herself staring at the group, searching their faces for some trace of the depression she herself was feeling.

But if the imminent loss of their teekay was bothering any of them, they hid it well. Laughing and smiling, they seemed as happy and unconcerned as Eights. Idiots, she thought peevishly and was instantly sorry. It was she, after all, who was behaving like a kid. Closing her eyes, she sighed and willed the world to go away.

A creaking of wood some time later made her open her eyes again. The group in the corner was breaking up. Watching incuriously, she noticed a sort of hand signal pass furtively among the girls as they threaded their way through the circle of chairs and disappeared out the door. Looking after them, Lisa felt older than ever. Secret clubs were always cropping up in the hive, usually among new preteens. Her own brief stint with such a club had been four years ago, just after her tenth birthday and the move upstairs to her present room. Then, she'd been more than a little scared at the new responsibilities her age was about to bring her... but on the other hand, the coming Transition had seemed as distant and academic as the end of the universe.

To grow is to change. Gavra Norward's oft-repeated line ran through Lisa's mind, but it wasn't especially comforting. I don't want to change, she thought angrily. I like being who I am; I like the power and—

She blinked as the thought caught her squarely across the face. The power. Not just the teekay, she realized with sudden clarity, but also the authority and status that went with it. Preteens were the top of the heap—more important even than many adults, she'd often thought. And as for herself... well, Gavra had said it just that morning. There's no one else I'd trust with a flock of Sevens. Lisa was one of the best, and she knew it... and she was about to lose it all and become an anonymous student.

Abruptly, she couldn't bear to sit still anymore. Getting to her feet, she looked around the lounge. A few others were still there, but they were all girls she knew only casually. No one she would be comfortable talking to... and, actually, she didn't really feel like talking, anyway. Stepping to the room's French doors, she opened them and walked out onto the balcony.

For a wonder, the wide ledge was deserted. Leaning on the railing, Lisa gazed down into the hive's landscaped courtyard, picking out figures moving around in the dim light. Above, the night was coming on rapidly, with only a small patch of blue still showing through the trees where the sun had gone down. Here and there she could see the distant specks of other kids flying about, a few off by themselves but most in groups of three or more. A faint giggle reached her along the breeze, adding that much more to her sense of frustration and loneliness. In the west the smaller of Tigris's moons, Sumer, was rising higher, and she had a sudden urge to go and chase it. Glancing around quickly, she stepped back to the building's wall and teeked herself straight up. Technically, flying off of balconies was forbidden, but preteens were generally allowed to get away with it as long as they made sure younger kids didn't see them. A hundred meters above the hive she leveled off and headed west.