Flinx studied the tracking screen and the single moving dot that drifted northwestward across the transparency. A series of concentric gauging rings filled the circular screen. The dot that represented their quarry had already reached the outermost ring.
"They'll move off the screen in a little while," he murmured to Lauren.
"Don't worry. I'm sure they're convinced by now that they've lost us."
"They're zigzagging all over the screen," he noted.
"Taking no chances. Doesn't do any good if you're showing up on a tracker. But you're right. We'd better get moving."
She slid into the pilot's chair and thumbed controls. The whine of the skimmer's engine drowned out the tracker's gentle hum as the craft rose several meters. Lauren held it there as she ran a final instrument check, then pivoted the vehicle on an invisible axis and drove it from the hangar. A nudge of the altitude switch sent them ten, twenty, thirty meters into the air above the lodge. A touch on the accelerator and they were rushing toward the beach.
Despite the warmth of the cabin heater, Flinx still felt cold as he gazed single-mindedly at the screen.
"I told you not to worry," Lauren said with a glance at his expression as they crossed the shoreline. "We'll catch them."
"It's not that." Flinx peered out through the transparent cabin cover. "I was thinking about what might catch us."
"I've yet to see the penestral that can pick out and catch an airborne target moving at our speed thirty meters up. An oboweir might do it, but there aren't any oboweirs in Lake Patra. Leastwise, none that I've ever heard tell of."
Nevertheless, Flinx's attention and thoughts remained evenly divided between the horizon ahead and the potentially lethal waters below.
"I understand you've had some trouble here."
Sal relaxed in the chair in the dining room and sipped at a hot cup of toma as he regarded his visitors. They had arrived in their own mudder, which immediately stamped them as independent as well as wealthy. If he played this right, he might convince them to spend a few days at the lodge. They had several expensive suites vacant, and if he could place this pair in one, it certainly wouldn't do his record any harm. Usually, he could place an offworlder by accent, but not these two. Their words were clear but their phonemes amorphous. It puzzled him.
Routine had returned as soon as Lauren and her charity case had departed. No one had called from down south, not the district manager, not anyone. He was feeling very content. Unless, of course, the company had decided to send its own investigators instead of simply calling in a checkup. That thought made him frown at the woman.
"Say, are you two Company?"
"No," the woman's companion replied, smiling pleasantly. "Goodness no, nothing like that. We just like a little excitement, that's all. If something unusual's going on in the area, it kind of tickles our curiosity, if you know what I mean."
"You had a man killed here, didn't you?" the woman asked.
"Well, yes, it did get pretty lively here for a day." No accounting for taste, Sal mused. "Someone was killed during a fight. A nonguest," he hastened to add. "Right in here. Quite a melee."
"Can you describe any of those involved?" she asked him.
"Not really. I'm not even positive which guests were involved and which day visitors. I didn't witness the argument myself, you see, and by the time I arrived, most of the participants had left."
The woman accepted this admission with a disappointed nod. "Was there a young man involved? Say, of about sixteen?"
"Yes, him I did see. Bright-red hair?"
"That's the one," she admitted.
"Say, is he dangerous or anything?" The assistant manager leaned forward in his chair, suddenly concerned.
"Why do you want to know?" the man asked.
"Well, my superior here, the regular manager--Lauren Walder. She went off with him."
"Went off with him?" The pleasant expression that had dominated the woman's face quickly vanished, to be replaced by something much harder.
"Yes. Three, maybe four days ago now. I'm still not completely sure why. She only told me that the young man had a problem and she was going to try to help him out."
"Which way did their mudder go?" the man asked.
"North, across Lake Patra," Sal informed them.
"They're not in a mudder, though. She took the lodge skimmer."
"A skimmer!" The woman threw up her hands in frustration and sat down heavily in a chair opposite the assistant. "We're losing ground," she told her companion, "instead of gaining on him. If he catches up with them before we do, we could lose him _and_ the . . ." Her companion cut the air with the edge of his hand, and her words trailed away to an indecipherable mumble. The gesture had been quick and partly concealed, but Sal had noticed it nonetheless.
"Now you've really got me worried," he told the pair. "If Lauren's in some kind of trouble--"
"She could be," the man admitted, pleased that the assistant had changed the subject.
Sal thought a moment. "Would she be in danger from these people who had the fight here, or from the redhead?"
"Conceivably from both." The man was only half lying. "You'd better tell us everything you know."
"I already have," Sal replied.
"You said they went north, across the lake. Can't you be any more specific than that?"
Sal looked helpless. "Lauren wouldn't be any more specific than that."
"They might not continue heading north."
"No, they might not. Do you have a tracker for following other craft?" Sal asked.
The man shook his head. "We didn't think we'd need one. The last we knew, the young man we'd like to talk With was traveling on stupava-back."
"I think he arrived here in a mudder."
The woman looked surprised and grinned ruefully at her companion. "No wonder we fell behind. Resourceful, isn't he?"
"Too resourceful for my liking," the man murmured, "and maybe for his own good if he backs those you know-whos into a corner."
The women sighed, then rose from her chair. "Well, we've wasted enough time here. We'll just have to return to Pranbeth for a skimmer and tracking unit. Unless you think we should try to catch up to them in the mudder." The man let out a short, humorless laugh, then turnedback to the assistant manager. "Thanks, son. You've been helpful."
"I wish I could be more so," Sal told him anxiously. "If anything were to happen to Lauren--you'll see that nothing happens to her, won't you?"
"I promise you we'll do our best," the woman assured him. "We don't want to see innocent bystanders hurt. We don't even want to see noninnocents hurt." She favored him with a maternal smile, which for some reason did nothing to make the nervous assistant feel any better about the situation.
Chapter Eleven
The tracker hummed quietly, the single glowing dot showing clearly on its screen as the skimmer rushed north-ward. It was clipping the tops of the tallest trees, more than eighty meters above the bogs and muck that passed for the ground. They had crossed Lake Patra, then an intervening neck of dry land, then the much larger lake known as Tigranocerta and were once more cruising over the forest. A cold rain was falling, spattering off the skimmer's acrylic canopy to form a constantly changing wet topography that obscured much of the view outside. The skimmer's instruments kept its speed responsive, maintaining a predetermined distance between it and its quarry to the north.
Awfully quiet, Lauren Walder thought. He's awfully quiet, and maybe something else.
"No, I'm not too young," he said into the silence that filled the cabin, his tone softly defensive.
Lauren's eyebrows lifted. "You can read minds?"
He responded with a shy smile. "No, not that." Fingers stroked the head of the minidrag sleeping on his shoulder. "I just feel things at times. Not thoughts, nothing that
elaborate. Just the way people are feeling." He glanced up at her. "From the way I thought you were feeling just now, I thought you were going to say something along that
line."
"Well, you were right," she confessed, wondering what to make of the rest of his declaration.
"I'm not, you know."
"How old are you?" she asked.
"Sixteen. As best I know. I can't be certain."
Sixteen going on sixty, she thought sadly. During her rare visits to Drallar, she had seen his type before. Child of circumstance, raised in the streets and instructed by wrong example and accident, though he seemed to have tamed out better than his brethren. His face held the knowledge withheld from his more fortunate contemporaries, but it didn't seem to have made him vicious or bitter.
Still she felt there was something else at work here.
"How old do you think I am?" she asked idly.
Flinx pursed his lips as he stared at her. "Twenty- three," he told her without hesitating.
She laughed softly and clapped both hands together in delight. "So that's what I'm helping, a sixteen-year-old vengeful diplomat!" Her laughter faded. The smile remained. "Tell me about yourself, Flinx."
It was a question that no stranger in Drallar would ever be so brazen as to ask. But this was not Drallar, he re- minded himself. Besides, he owed this woman.
So he told her as much as he knew. When he finished his narrative, she continued to stare solemnly at him, nod- ding her head as if his words had done no more than con- firm suspicions already held. She spared a glance to make sure the tracker was still functioning efficiently, then looked back at him. "You haven't exactly had a comfort- able childhood, have you?"
"I wouldn't know," he replied, "because I only have hearsay to compare it with."
"Take my word for it, you haven't. You've also man- aged to get along with the majority of humanity even though they don't seem to want to have anything to do with you. Whereas I've had to avoid the majority of people who seem to want to have a lot to do with me." Impulsively, she leaned over out of the pilot's chair and kissed him. At the last instant, he flinched, nervous at such. unaccustomed proximity to another human being-especially an attractive member of the opposite sex-and the kiss, which was meant for his cheek, landed instead on his lips.
That made her pull back fast. The smile stayed on her face, and she only blinked once in surprise. It had been an accident, after all. "Take my word for something else, Flinx. If you live long enough, life gets better."
"Is that one of the Church's homilies?" He wondered if she wore some caustic substance to protect her lips from burning, because his own were on fire.
"No," she said. "That's a Lauren Walder homily."
"Glad to hear it. I've never had much use for the Church."
"Nor have I. Nor have most people. That's why it's been so successful, I expect." She turned her gaze to the tracker. "They're starting to slow down. We'll do the same."
"Do you think they've seen us?" Suddenly, he didn't really care what the people in the skimmer ahead of them decided to do. The fire spread from his lips to his mouth, ran down his throat, and dispersed across his whole body. It was a sweet, thick fire.
"I doubt it," she replied. "I'll bet they're close to their destination." Her hands manipulated controls.
"How far ahead of us are they?" He walked forward to peer over her shoulder at the screen. He could have stood to her left, but he was suddenly conscious of the warmth of her, the perfume of her hair. He was very careful not to touch her.
She performed some quick calculations, using the tracker's predictor. "Day or so. We don't want to run up their tail. There's nothing up in this part of the country. Odd place to stop, but then this whole business is odd, from what you've told me. Why bring your mother up here?"
He had no answer for her.
They dropped until the skimmer was rising and falling inconcert with the treetops. So intent were they on the actions of the dot performing on the tracking Screen that neither of them noticed that not only had the rain stopped but the cloud cover had cracked. Overhead, one of the wings of Moth, the interrupted ring which encircled the planet, shimmered golden against the ceiling of night.
"What makes you so sure they're stopping here instead of just slowing down for a while?" he asked Lauren.
"Because a skimmer operates on a stored charge, just like a mudder. Remember, they had to come from here down to Patra. Our own charge is running low, and we're not on the return leg of a round trip. I don't know what model they're flying, but I saw how big it was. It can't possibly retain enough energy to take them much farther than we've gone the past several days. They at least have to be stopping somewhere to recharge, which is good."
"Why is that?" Flinx asked.
"Because we're going to have to recharge, also." She pointed to a readout. "We've used more than half our own power. If we can't recharge somewhere around here, we're going to have some hiking to do on our way out."
Flinx regarded her with new respect, if that was possible; his opinion of her had already reached dizzying heights. "Why didn't you tell me when we reached the turnaround point?"
She shrugged slightly. "Why? We've gone to a lot of trouble to come as far as we have. You might have argued with me about turning back."
"No," Flinx said quietly, "I wouldn't have done that"
"I didn't think so. You're almost as determined to see this through as I am, and at least as crazy."
She stared up at him, and he stared back. Nothing more needed to be said.
"I vote no."
Nyassa-lee was firm in her disagreement. She sat on one side of the table and gazed expectantly at her colleagues. Brora was thoughtfully inspecting the fingernails of his left hand, while Haithnesstoyed with her eyelashes.
"Really," the tall black woman murmured to her compatriot, "to show such reluctance at this stage is most discouraging, Nyassa-lee." Her fingers left her eyes. "We may never have the chance to manipulate another subject as promising as this Twelve. Time and events conspire against us. You know that as well as I."
"I know." The shorter woman leaned forward in the chair and gazed between her legs at the floor. Cracks showed between the panels; the building had been assembled in haste. "I'm just not convinced it's worth the risk."
"What risk?" Haithness demanded to know. "We've still seen nothing like a demonstration of threatening power. Quite the contrary. I'd say. Certainly the subject had the opportunity to display any such abilities. It's evident he does not possess them, or he would doubtless have employed them against us. Instead, what did we see? Knife." - She made it sound disgusting as well as primitive.
"She's right, you know." Brora rarely spoke, preferring to let the two senior scientists do most of the arguing. He stepped in only when he was completely confident of his opinion.
"We don't want another repeat of the girl," Nyassa-lee said. "The society couldn't stand another failure like that."
"Which is precisely why we must pursue this last opportunity to its conclusion," Haithness persisted.
"We don't know that it represents our last opportunity."
"Oh, come on, Nyassa-lee." Haithness pushed back her chair and stood; she began pacing nervously back and forth. Bebind her, lights shone cold green and blue from the consoles hastily assembled. "Even if there are other subjects of equal potential out there, we've no guarantee that any of us will be around much longer to follow up on them."
"I can't argue with that," Nyassa-lee admitted. "Nor can I argue this Number Twelve's statistical promise. It's just those statistics which frighten me."
"Frighten you?" Haithness stopped pacing and looked over at her companion of many hard years. The tall woman was surprised. She had seen Nyassa-lee wield a gun with the cold-blooded efficiency of a qwarm. Fear seemed foreign to her. "But why? He's done nothing to justify such fear."
"Oh, no?" Nyassa-lee ticked off her points on the fingers of one hand. "One, his statistical potential is alarming. Two, he's sixteen, on the verge of full maturity. Three, he could cross into that at any time."
"The girl," Brora pointed out, "was considerably younger." br />
"Agreed," said Nyassa-lee, "but her abilities were precocious. Her advantage was surprise. This Number Twelve is developing slowly but with greater potential. He may be the kind who responds to pressure by reaching deeper into himself."
"Maybe," Brora said thoughtfully, "but we have no proof of it, nor does his profile predict anything of the sort."
"Then how do you square that," she responded, "with the fact that he has by himself-"
"He's not by himself," Brora interrupted her. "That woman from the lodge was helping him out on the lake." "Was helping him. She didn't help him get to that point.
He followed us all the way to that lake on his own, with- out any kind of external assistance. To me that indicates the accelerated development of a Talent we'd better be- ware of."
"All the more reason," Haithness said angrily, slapping the table with one palm, "why we must push ahead with our plan!"
"I don't know," Nyassa-lee murmured, unconvinced.
"Do you not agree," Haithness countered, forcing her- self to restrain her temper, "that if the operation is a success we stand a good chance of accomplishing our goal as regards outside manipulation of the subject?"
"Possibly," Nyassa-lee conceded.
"Why just 'possibly'? Do you doubt the emotional bond?"
"That's not what concerns me. Suppose, just suppose, that because his potential is still undeveloped, he has no conscious control of it?"
"What are you saying?" Brora asked.
She leaned intently over the table. "With the girl Mahnahmi we knew where we stood, once she'd revealed herself. Unfortunately, that knowledge came as a surprise
to us, and too late to counteract. We've no idea where we stand vis-a-vis this subject's Talents. Suppose that, despite the emotional bond, pressure and fear conspire to release his potential regardless of his surface feelings? Statistically, the subject is a walking bomb that may not be capable or mature enough to control itself. That's what worries me, Haithness. The emotional bond may be sufficient to control his conscious self. The unpredictable part of him may react violently in spite of it."