For all intents and purposes, the decision to proceed was now irrevocable.

There was no wake-up buzzer on Saturdays, but the excitement of the previous night carried over into the morning, nudging Lisa out of bed well before her usual weekend rising time of seven o'clock. Dressing quickly, she headed downstairs to the dining room. Despite the hour, a reasonable number of others were already there, most of them the younger boys and girls who always woke up with the sun no matter what the calendar said. Taking her tray to her table, she was mildly annoyed to find a yellow triangle waiting there for her.

Someone had probably seen that illegal balcony takeoff, she decided, and had complained loudly enough for Gavra to feel she had to take action. From Lisa's point of view the fingering couldn't have come at a worse time—along with a minor loss of points, the usual punishment for such infractions usually included one or more weekends confined to the hive. If Gavra hit her with that one, she would have to postpone her trip to the library until after work on Nultday at the earliest. Hurrying through her breakfast, she went to the Senior's office, bracing herself for the worst.

And was pleasantly surprised. "Ah; Lisa," Gavra smiled as the preteen knocked tentatively at the open door. "Come in—you're up earlier than I'd expected. I wondered if you'd help me welcome a new child this morning. She's coming in with her parents about eight."

Relief washed through Lisa. It was still over half an hour before eight, and it could easily cost the rest of the morning to check a newcomer into the hive, especially if she was as scared as children often were about leaving their parents. But when she compared the task to the fate she'd been contemplating, Lisa couldn't help but feel she'd been let off easily. "Sure, I'd be happy to. Main entrance?"

"Yes," Gavra nodded. "Thanks very much—and sorry about the short notice."

Half an hour wasn't really long enough to do anything worthwhile, but the hive game rooms were always a good place to kill a little time, so Lisa wandered down to see what was going on there. She arrived to find a scene of barely controlled pandemonium, with a group of Sevens having taken over the center of the main gym room for an exuberant game of spinwheel, while some Fives and Sixes cheered from the sidelines and tried to imitate the intricate motions with their own toys. The two preteens in charge—Tens, by their obvious inexperience—seemed to have conceded the center to the Sevens and were instead concentrating on making sure the younger kids didn't get run down or otherwise hurt. They looked so helpless—and so relieved that assistance had arrived—that Lisa changed her original plans and spent the entire half hour helping to calm the boisterous Sevens and restore order. Overseeing Saturday morning happy hole is not one of the things I'm going to miss about the hive, she thought wryly as she hurried through the halls toward the front entrance. She hoped the new girl's family was late; she'd cut her time a little too closely.

They weren't late, as it happened, but since Gavra was still welcoming them as Lisa arrived, they apparently hadn't been too far ahead of her. "Ah, here she is," Gavra said as Lisa tried to trot up with dignity. "This is Lisa Duncan, one of our preteens. Lisa, this is Jessy Larz and her parents."

"Pleased to meet you," Lisa nodded to the adults as she dropped into a crouch to put herself at the child's eye level. "Hi, Jessy. How are you?"

The little girl didn't answer. Tightening her grip on her mother's hand, she regarded Lisa with wide, unblinking eyes. "My name's Lisa," the preteen went on cheerfully, ignoring the other's silence. "Is Jessy short for Jessica?"

"Can you say yes, Jessy?" her mother murmured.

"Uh-huh," Jessy said reluctantly.

"That's a nice name," Lisa said, smiling her best. "And you're a very pretty girl; did you know that?"

"Uh-huh," she said, sounding more confident this time.

The adults chuckled, and Lisa sensed a slight lowering of the child's barriers. Gavra apparently saw it, too, and moved quickly to take advantage of the thaw. "Why don't we all go to the testing room now?" she suggested. "After that we'll show you some of the facilities Dayspring has to offer."

"Oh, that'll be fun!" Lisa exclaimed to Jessy. "We've got a lot of neat toys and games here to play with." She stood up and offered her hand to the child. With only a brief hesitation she took it; and although she also kept a firm grip on her mother's hand during the short walk, Lisa decided to consider it a victory.

When they reached the testing room, however, all remaining resistance crumbled. For a moment Jessy stared in amazement at the array of toys set out there; then, with a sort of happy bleat, she ran forward.

"Jessy—" her mother began warningly.

"It's all right," Gavra interrupted her. "The toys are there for her to play with. If you'll both just step over here to the desk, there are some forms we have to fill out."

The adults disappeared into a corner together as Lisa went over to where Jessy was shaking a clear plastic ball full of colorful butterflies, each of which rang like a small bell when it moved. Lisa showed her how she could use her budding teekay ability to move them individually inside their ball and make a tune. From her delighted reaction it was clear Jessy had never thought about teeking through solid objects before, and she instantly went on a grand tour of the testing room trying out her new trick on everything imaginable. It only worked when she could see through the outer object to the one she wanted to move, of course, but there were enough toys like that scattered around to keep her from becoming discouraged. By the time Gavra was ready to begin the tests, Jessy was chattering away nonstop.

The standard series of teekay tests, designed to look as much like play as possible, did nothing to bruise Jessy's new cheerfulness. Afterward, Gavra led them all on the promised tour of the game and play rooms, the dining room, and a section of the younger girls' living quarters. The adults seemed impressed; Jessy's father, particularly, kept pointing out things the hives of his own youth hadn't had.

Finally, back in the testing room, Gavra invited questions. "Would it be possible for us to stay here for a few days, until Jessy gets accustomed to the place?" Mrs. Larz asked, almost timidly. "I understand that that's allowed."

"Well, yes," Gavra said, and Lisa prepared herself for a long lecture. One of the few official rules Gavra was absolutely dead set against was "the lingering, painful good-bye," as she often called it. "However, there are some aspects of that which I'd like to discuss with you," she continued. "Lisa, would you mind showing Jessy around for a while longer?"

"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."