Martel smiled briefly. "All right. So what are you offering in exchange?"
Tirrell took a deep breath. "In exchange for your absolute silence regarding everything you know of Jarvis's work, the attempted murder charges against myself, Tonio, Lisa, and Colin will be set aside. In addition, fagin charges stemming from your free gold mine work will be dropped completely, as will various infractions concerning the whole refining and distribution process, though we'll probably hit your confederates with those whenever we catch up with them."
"Interesting," Martel murmured. "What exactly is this 'set aside' business?"
"It means that those charges will still be on the record but that you won't be tried on them."
"That sounds distinctly dangerous. I want them dropped outright instead."
Tirrell shook his head. "No. I need to have something that'll insure your half of the bargain is kept. As long as those charges are merely set aside, I can instigate trial proceedings at any time within the next twelve years. Dropped charges are gone forever."
Martel toyed with the book he still held. "What makes you think you can keep that sort of bargain?" he asked at last. "You don't handle the prosecution directly."
"No... but I believe I can control the willingness of the involved parties to testify. That brings up one other matter; you'll also have to accept the blame for Colin Brimmer's kidnapping. We can work out some story about you having left him with one of your accomplices out in the woods and Jarvis accidentally finding him, which is how Jarvis wound up in your hands. That charge will also be set aside, needless to say."
Martel smiled thinly. "In order to whitewash Jarvis?"
"And in exchange for his cooperation in setting aside the attempted murder charges," Tirrell shrugged. "Do we have a deal?"
The other hesitated. "Some of my kids know I didn't take Colin."
"As long as the fagin charges are dropped, they won't be called on to testify. Besides, most of them never had any real proof other than your own statement, and we all know what a good liar you are. As to the others—well, I can take statements from them and alter them if necessary, but I gather Axel really didn't tell them all that much. He probably would have made you a fitting successor if he'd lived."
A strange sort of shadow crossed Martel's face. "Perhaps, he said. For a moment he hesitated, lips pressed tightly together, and then carefully returned the book to its place on the shelf. "Very well, Detective, I accept—on the condition that you tell me what exactly it is that Dr. Jarvis has discovered."
"Possibly a method to allow kids to keep teekay after puberty," Tirrell said. There was little to be gained by refusing the request; Martel had probably already guessed, anyway. "We won't know, of course, until Colin grows up. Possibly not even then." Standing up, he stepped to the office door and opened it. "Tonio?"
"Right here."
"Escort Martel back to his cell, if you would, and then see if Dr. Jarvis can come up here for a few minutes."
Martel stood up. "Good-bye, Detective. I'll see you in court."
Tirrell nodded silently and waited until they had left. Then, sinking back into his chair, he propped his elbows up on the desk and rubbed his eyes vigorously. It wouldn't be nearly as easy as he'd made it sound, of course—he would have to talk fast and loud to convince the various court officials that setting aside one set of charges in exchange for a flat-out guilty plea on the other set was a fair compromise for all concerned. But he should be able to pull it off. The crucial question now was how Jarvis would react to the deal he was trying to work out. Tirrell had been battling Martel's kind long enough to know how they thought, but the scientist was still in many ways an enigma to him. Too late, now, he wished he'd gone to get Jarvis personally instead of sending Tonio; tired though he was, the exercise might have awakened his brain a bit.
The office door swung open, and he looked up as Jarvis stepped into the room. "You wanted to see me?"
"Yes." Tirrell waved him to the chair Martel had just vacated. "Tonio, I want you to hear this, too," he added as the preteen started to leave. Without comment Tonio moved into the room and closed the door behind him, hovering with his back to it.
"First of all, Doctor," Tirrell began, "I'd like to know exactly what you've told the other police."
Jarvis eyed him for a moment before answering. "I've just said that Omega—or Martel, I guess his real name is—suddenly burst into my cabin, took me prisoner, and blew the place up. I've agreed to give more details when I've pulled myself together."
"In other words, you've been stalling. Good. Did you mention Colin to them at all? Or the fact that Lisa, Tonio, and I were there when Martel grabbed you?"
Jarvis shook his head. "No to both questions. I assumed you would want to talk with me before my story got set in concrete, so I tried to be as vague as possible."
"I see." Tirrell leaned back slightly in his chair. "All right. Let's start by finishing the conversation we were having at your cabin when Martel arrived. As I recall, you were about to try and convince me that Tigrin society needed your discovery to become stable."
Jarvis glanced up at Tonio. "I doubt if I have to spell out the more obvious potential problems to you, Detective. Depriving kids of literacy and book knowledge would hamper any attempted power grab they might try, but the physical strength is certainly on their side. They would succeed... at least temporarily."
"Only if everyone went along," Tonio said, a bit hotly. "A lot of us wouldn't, you know."
"That's one reason a revolt would ultimately fail," Jarvis acknowledged. "But the threat will always be there, sitting in the backs of people's minds, and the response will always be to keep as tight a rein as possible on the kids. That sort of permanent strain isn't good for anyone."
Tirrell thought of the official overreaction to Lisa's attempts to learn how to read. "Possibly," he said. "But that's not sufficient reason to risk another Lost Generation's worth of chaos."
"Isn't it?" Jarvis shrugged. "Then maybe you'd like to consider the trauma of taking five-year-olds from their parents and sticking them in hives among strangers. Or the way the emotional shock of Transition combines with the physical aspects of puberty itself to make teen suicide rates the highest on the planet. Or maybe—" his face seemed to harden—"you don't mind the way those triple-damned fagins siphon some of the brightest kids away from hives and twist their minds to hell and gone. Every one of those problems would disappear if adults as well as kids had teekay."
Tirrell felt his stomach muscles tighten as, knowingly or otherwise, Jarvis hit the detective's own deepest sore spot. "You don't like fagins, I gather?"
For a moment Jarvis stared at him, his eyes curiously flat. "No, I don't. I take it you don't know why exactly Colin was abandoned in Ridge Harbor in the first place."
Tirrell shook his head. "Why don't you tell us?"
"It was because a fagin in your town got the bright idea of starting with brand-new babies instead of snatching kids from homes or hives," the scientist said bitterly. "Miribel was supposed to deliver Colin to him when she left the hospital."
At Tirrell's right, Tonio growled something. "Just like that?" the detective asked. "Just walk out the front door and hand the baby over?"
"Why not?" Jarvis's eyes were blazing, but Tirrell could tell the anger wasn't directed at him. "No one in Barona knew she was even pregnant. The birth would be recorded in Ridge Harbor, and in thirty-two days it would go into the sealed records and no one would ever find out what happened. The fagin would have someone raise the baby, and when his teekay appeared he'd have a working kid who wouldn't be missed by anyone and wouldn't have any records he could be traced by."
"Why didn't you tell the police?" Tonio burst out.