He checked his incoming mail in case there was anything important awaiting his attention, although he had set alarms to sound if Madoc or Eveline Hywood had called. The only name that caused him to pause as he scanned the list was Lenny Garon. He almost took a look at that message, just in case Madoc had decided to send some item of information by a roundabout route for security reasons, but it seemed more sensible to go directly to the source if it were feasible.

Unfortunately, Madoc seemed to be lying low. Tamlin’s personal number should have reached his beltpack, but it didn’t; the call was rerouted to Madoc’s apartment, where Diana Caisson fielded the call. She didn’t take it in the VE that Damon had designed, though; she must have had the machine set up so that any call would automatically be switched to the caller’s VE. The booth had set the image of Damon’s head and shoulders against a simple block pattern—one of the most primitive still in use in the USNA.

“Going back to the basics, Damon?” Diana asked, although she must have had a readout to inform her that he was calling from a public phone in Kaunakakai. After she’d finished the contrived sneer she looked him defiantly in the eye, as if to say that it was about time he made a start on his apologies.

“Never mind the smart remarks, Diana,” Damon said. “I need to get hold of Madoc as soon as possible.”

“He’s out,” she said sourly. Her face blurred slightly as she moved back from her own unit’s camera, reflexively trying to cover her realization that he hadn’t called to talk to her.

“I know that. I also know that he doesn’t want to be located, even by me—but I need to get a message to him with the least possible delay. Will you do that for me, please?”

Damon could see that Diana was tempted to tell him where to put his message, but she thought better of it.

“What message?” she asked curiously.

“Can you tell him that in view of recent developments I really need that package we discussed. He’ll understand what I mean and why. I’ve authorized him to draw more cash on the card I gave him, so that he can pull out all the stops. I’ll be flying back tonight or early tomorrow, and I need to know what he’s dug up as soon as I land. If he can meet me at the airport that would be good, but not if it takes him away from significant investigations. Have you got all that?”

“Of course I’ve got it,” she snapped back. “Do you think I’m stupid or something? What’s all this shit about recent developmentsand the package we discussed?Why are you trying to hide things from me?We had a row, that’s all!”

Damon had to suppress an impulse to react in kind, but he knew that matching wrath with wrath would only escalate the conversation into a shouting match. Instead, he found the most soothing tone he could and said: “I’m sorry, Di—I’m a bit wound up. I’m not trying to keep secrets from you, but this isa public booth. Just ask Madoc to do what he can, and tell him he has extra resources if he needs them to speed things along. I really need you to do this for me, Diana. In a couple of days, if you want to, we can talk—but right now Silas Arnett is in bad trouble, and I have to do everything I possibly can to help find him. Bear with me, please. I have to go now.”

“I know what’s going on,” she said quickly. She didn’t want him to cut the connection.

“That’s okay, Di,” he said reassuringly. “It’s no big secret—but it’s not something I want broadcast, certainly not in the direction of the news tapes. If you’re keeping up with the news, you’ll realize why I’m in a hurry.”

Her perplexed expression told him that she hadn’t been monitoring the Web for new information regarding Silas Arnett, although Madoc must have been alerted to the new Operator 101 package at least as quickly as Karol Kachellek’s assistants. Perhaps Madoc had deliberately killed the alarms in the apartment because Diana was there—although it was careless of him, if so, to have allowed his calls to be automatically diverted from his beltpack to his home phone.

“Why didn’t you tell me that your father was Conrad Helier?” Diana demanded, still trying to stop him from breaking the connection.

“I was trying to forget it,” Damon told her tersely. “It wasn’t relevant.”

“It seems to be relevant now,” she said.

“It’s Silas Arnett’s kidnapping that’s relevant to me,” he retorted. “I’ve got to go, Di. I have to talk to my foster father—my otherfoster father. I’ll call again, when I can. We willtalk, if that’s what you want.”

“I might not be here,” she informed him without much conviction. “I have better things to do than provide Madoc’s answering service.”

“Good-bye, Di,” Damon said—and cut the connection before she could string the exchange out any further.

He reached out to the door of the booth, but then thought better of it. He called up the message that Lenny Garon had left for him. It was a simple request for him to call. Still figuring that it might be Madoc’s way of steering information around Diana’s inquisitive presence in his apartment, Damon made the call.

Lenny answered his own phone, but his machine was also rigged to use the caller’s VE—presumably because the boy didn’t like to advertize the fact that he didn’t have a customized VE of his own. The block-patterned VE didn’t bother him at all, though—when his image formed, his eyes were still fixed on the virtual readout telling him where the call was coming from.

“Damon!” he said, as if Damon were someone he’d known all his life. “What are you doing in Kaunakakai?” He stumbled over the pronunciation of the last word, but that was probably because he was excited rather than because he didn’t have a clue where Kaunakakai might be.

“Personal business,” Damon said. “Why did you want me to call, Lenny?”

“Yeah. Personal business. Sure . . . yeah, about that.”

“About what?”

“About personal business. Madoc came to see me in hospital today—I got carved up a bit in the fight . . . internal damage. Nothing serious, but . . . well, anyhow, Madoc mentioned you were worried about a snatch—your foster father.”

“Did Madoc give you a message?” Damon put in impatiently.

“No, of course not,” the boy said. “He didn’t want to talk about it at all—but that woman with him wouldn’t let up. He wasn’t talking about you, Damon, honestly—he just let slip that your foster parents were biotech people. When I got back here a little while ago, it wasn’t difficult to put snatch and biotech together and come up with Silas Arnett’s name. I’m not trying to interfere or anything . . . it’s just that being a fan and all . . . I had no idea that I’d find anything I knew something about . . . but when I did I thought you’d want to know. It may be nothing. Probably is.”

“What are you talking about, Lenny?” Damon said as patiently and as politely as he could.

“Cathy Praill,” the boy replied, coming abruptly to the point.

It took Damon a second or two to remember that Catherine Praill was the young woman who’d been with Silas when he was abducted.

“What about her?” he asked.

“Well, like I say, nothing really. It’s just that I know her. Sort of.”

“How?”

“Silly, really. It’s just that we’re the same age—both seventeen, although I guess she’s nearer eighteen than I am, probably past her birthday by now. Kids the same age, even approximately, are pretty thin on the ground. Foster parents tend to shop around their acquaintances making contacts, so that the kids can get together occasionally. You know the sort of thing—a couple of hundred adults getting together for a big party so that a dozen kids can socialize with their peers.”

Damon did know, but only vaguely. It wasn’t the sort of thing his own foster parents had ever gone in for. They’d never worried about his social isolation and lack of peer-group interaction because they thought of him as one of a kind. In their eyes—even Mary’s eyes and Silas’s eyes—Heliers had no peers. Most groups of foster parents these days, at least in California, were ten or twelve strong, and they usually did their parenting strictly by the book. They took care to ensure that their children had other children to interact and bond with. It was possible that Lenny Garon had at some stage in his brief life made contact with every other person of his own age within a hundred miles.