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told her roommate, "but this is something I have to work out for myself."
Sheelah's expression said she was unconvinced, but she nodded anyway. "Okay,
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it's up to you. But
I'm available anytime you change your mind. And I still think you should go
see the nurse."
"Right after breakfast," Lisa promised.
Surprisingly enough at least to Lisa she was feeling much better by the time
breakfast was over.
The food had helped both her headache and tender stomach, and the normal
morning activities had eased the worst of the kinks out of her muscles. The
hive nurse, as expected, found no evidence of any sickness, and a few minutes
later she was flying with her work crew toward their current construction
site.
Unfortunately, as her physical condition improved, she found her mind
concentrating more and more on Daryl and the awesome task confronting her.
Tigris was a horribly big world for them to hide a single teen in, and the
more she considered that fact, the more hopeless it all seemed.
I'm going to find him, she'd declared confidently to Gavra. Was the Senior
even now chuckling at such foolishness? Her cheeks burned at the thought.
"Hey! Wait up!" a faint voice came through the roar of wind in her ears.
Startled, Lisa turned around to find her five girls lagging nearly ten meters
behind her. Slowing down, she let them catch up.
"What's the hurry?" Beryl asked with the righteous indignation only a Nine
could muster. "You trying for Miss Speed Demon of Three-oh-eight or
something?"
"Sorry," Lisa mumbled. "I guess I wasn't paying attention."
"Good way to fly into a building," Beryl said, only partly mollified.
Gritting her teeth, Lisa flew on in silence, furious at herself for getting so
wrapped up in her problems. It would be better once they got to work, she
promised herself; as soon as she had something else demanding her attention,
she would be able to push Daryl back into a corner of her mind for the rest of
the day. At least she hoped she would be able to.
But it turned out not to be that easy. Standing on one of the bare
fourteenth-floor girders of the new building as she directed her girls in
lifting and placing new girders in position, she had a great deal of time
where all she had to do was watch... and try as she might, she was unable to
keep her mind on what was happening. Still, that was more annoying than
dangerous. Her crew had been doing building work together for nearly five
months now, and she could trust them to know what they were doing.
An hour later, that casual assumption was shattered.
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A Coming of Age
It happened without the slightest warning, at least without any that
penetrated Lisa's preoccupation.
One moment the heavy girder was resting in midair between two uprights, Neoma
and Rena hovering near its center as welders at each end blew clouds of sparks
into the light breeze and the next moment there was a yelp of pain as the
heavy steel beam wrenched itself free and plummeted toward the ground.
Her mind busy with other things, it cost Lisa a fraction of a second to switch
gears... and in that blank moment she did precisely the worst thing she could
possibly have done. Instead of staying where she was and trying to teek from a
solid footing, she jumped off and angled away from the building in an attempt
to get a better view of the falling girder amid the array of steelwork below.
It wasn't until she tried to teek the girder to a halt that she awoke to her
blunder.
The girder was very near the weight limit of her teekay strength, and with its
head start it had built up a great deal of speed. With her entire teekay
focused on the girder, she might have been able to stop it; but while she was
also holding up her own forty kilograms, there wasn't a chance in the world of
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her doing so.
She tried anyway, though, her mind working with abnormal speed as she tried
frantically to figure out what to do.
Rotation's easier than lifting, she thought, remembering the power station
flywheels, and put part of her effort into turning the beam to the vertical.
Should I let myself fall for a ways and try to at least soften its landing?
But that would be a minor help at best, because no matter how fast it was
going when it hit it would crush whatever was underneath it. Catching her
lower lip between her teeth, Lisa bit down hard as she threw everything she
had into the battle.
Where the grack are the others?
she wondered desperately, afraid to shift even a fraction of her attention
away from the girder. Some of them would be busy with their own loads, but
surely Neoma and Rena hadn't both
been incapacitated by whatever had happened up there... had they?
Oh, no please no!
And then, barely fifteen meters above the ground, the girder's downward rush
abruptly slowed.
Within ten meters it had halted completely. Hardly daring to breathe, Lisa
teeked it carefully to the side, moving it toward the spot where the rest of
the girders were stacked. Only when it was safely down on its side did she
look over to see Rena and Neoma the latter clutching her hand gazing intently
down from their perch. Heaving a shuddering sigh of relief, she shifted her
eyes to the ground where the girder would have landed. The half-dozen mugs
lying by an overturned bench and the six men drifting cautiously back to
retrieve them gave silent testimony to the tragedy that had almost happened.
And Lisa began to shake.
The doctor the foreman had summoned laid one final strip of tape in place and
cocked her head slightly as she inspected her handiwork. "Okay, Neoma, that
should do it," she said, nodding. "You'll need to have the Dayspring nurse
change that dressing tonight after she puts more salve on the burn." Pulling a
pen and small pad from her bag, she scribbled briefly on it. Lisa, looking
surreptitiously over her shoulder, found the marks totally incomprehensible.
"I want you to give this
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A Coming of Age to the nurse or your Senior as soon as you get back home," the
doctor continued, folding the sheet and handing it to the preteen. "It tells
the kind of salve I used, and also the kind of pain pill I gave you."
"Okay." Neoma took the paper with her unbandaged hand and carefully put it in
her pocket. Already her face was taking on an almost dreamy expression. "Can I
go now?"
"Yes, but not by yourself. That medicine is very strong, and you shouldn't try
to fly or do much teeking while you're taking it."
Neoma nodded, accepting that with unusual calmness. Glancing around the silent
group of girls standing at Neoma's shoulder, Lisa gestured to Amadis. "Fly her
home, will you, Amadis? Make sure she gets to Gavra and then come back here."
"Okay." Amadis stepped forward and took Neoma's arm. The doctor nodded, and
together the two preteens headed into the sky.
"Well, if that's all, I'll be going," the doctor said, snapping shut her bag.
"Thanks for coming by," the foreman said, offering her his hand. "Just send
the bill to the company;
we'll work out any payment problems directly with Dayspring."
The doctor nodded and headed toward the site exit. Sensing perhaps that the
excitement was over, the group of onlooking men also drifted away to return to
their jobs, leaving the kids and the foreman alone.
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"What did you mean by payment problems, Mr. Vassily?" Lisa asked him, a little
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