"Timothy Zahn - A Coming of Age" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zahn Timothy)

A Coming of Age



The keeper glanced once at Tonio, as if considering whether or not to forbid the preteen's
participation, but apparently decided further resistance would be a waste of time. Muttering
something under his breath, he turned and fiddled with the combination lock. A moment later the
door swung open, revealing a large, dim room with thick binders stacked in floor-to-ceiling
bookshelves. Flipping on the overhead lights, the keeper stalked off without a wordтАФprobably,
Tirrell thought, to watch them on the vault's interior monitor system. Stepping inside, the detective
studied the floor plan taped to the nearest shelf and headed off to the left.

Tonio followed a bit more slowly, looking around in wonderment. "Are ail the records for Tigris in
here?" he asked.

"Oh, noтАФnot by a long shot," Tirrell said over his shoulder, his eyes searching the shelf labels. "Not
even for the whole continentтАФyou'd have to go to the university archives in Barona for that. No,
these cover only Ridge Harbor, and only since the Lost Generation. Before that everything was kept
in a kind of machine called a computer. I've heard that one of those computers could have stored
Ridge Harbor's whole history in a single one of these books." He found the proper aisle and ducked
into it.

"You're kidding."

"Well, that's what they say." Tirrell pointed to the top shelf. "That's the oneтАФthird from the left.
Teek it down here, would you?"

The heavy book drifted off its shelf and into Tirrell's waiting hands. Tucking it securely under his
arm, the detective led the way to a small table in one of the room's back corners. "Okay, let's see," he
muttered as they sat down and opened the binder. "We want June seventeenth... June seventeenth...
here it is. Baby boy, adopted by Thom and Elita Brimmer for the city of Ridge Harbor... mother's
name was Miribel Oriana.... Hmm. Says she was twenty-six, unmarried, and originally from Barona.
I wonder why she came here to have her baby."

"Didn't want any of her friends to know about it?" Tonio suggested.

"Maybe. I would have thought Barona was more liberal about such things, though." He read further.
"Strange. I'd assumed Colin was adopted because his parents died soon after he was born, but I guess
notтАФhis mother simply walked out the day afterward and disappeared."

"Sounds like a real winner," Tonio said, a touch of disgust creeping into his voice.

"Yeah. Seems odd, though," Tirrell said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "If her partner cut out on her
when he found out she was pregnant and she didn't want to raise the baby alone, why didn't she
simply arrange beforehand for the baby to be adopted? It would have saved everyone a lot of trouble
and given her a little money during the pregnancy, besides."

"Maybe her partner was married and she didn't want to have to name him."