After walking for 3 straight hours she finally found Bolvangar. The alethiometer had been right, there was melancholy everywhere. Sara ran to the farthest side of the building and looked inside. She was starring straight into the mess hall. Roger and Lyra were at the other end talking. But what about? And what was so sad about this place? Sara tapped the window a couple times until she got the nearest girls attention. The girl ran over and opened the window. "Hi! I'm Annie! What's up and why are you outside?" The girl asked. Sara guessed the girl was no older then 6. Her daemon was a sparrow. "I have a couple of questions but first, I'm Sara and I'm friends with the two kids at the end of this hall, there daemons are a dog and a polecat. I need you to get there attention and bring them over hear but do it quietly. What do they do here anyways? Sara asked. Annie shuttered. "Some kids go for some tests and never come back. My friend was taken last week and I haven't seen her since. Some kids say they kill them, and some say they torture you until you tell them what they want to know about Dust. Yeah that's right, Dust." Annie said and skipped merrily over to Lyra and Roger. They both looked over to the window and smiled wide. Lyra came running over with Pan leaping up and landing on Pete who was inside in the shape of a polecat. "I knew you would come! Get us out of here! Mrs. Coulter is..." But Lyra was cut off by the sound of a zeppelin. Sara's heart began to race. Mrs. Coulter was standing at the front door of the facility and was starring straight where Sara was.
Sara dived into a snow mound and disappeared. Pete was a snow leopard and blended in. Apparently, Mrs. Coulter lost interest and walked on. Sara popped her head out of the snow and returned to the window to talk to her friends. "Never mind about the whole Mrs. Coulter thing, but anyways, I need you too help us discover what they are doing here. Crawl in through this window and run down the hall to the 5th door on the right and go through the ceiling tile, wait there until I come and we'll go and search. There up to something and were going to find out!" Lyra finished. She retreated back into the room, shutting the window only a little so that Sara could open it up enough to crawl through. Sara thought it was a bad idea but she didn't question it.
Once Sara was in the ceiling, she sat there and waited patiently. A little while later, Lyra ran into the room with her furs on. "I've spread the word that we are escaping, I'm going to set the fire alarm off and we are all going to run outside and away." Lyra explained. Pan was playing with Pete, both of them were in there mice form. Sara and Lyra crawled through the ceiling with Pete and Pan sniffing the air constantly. Once they were sure they were above the conference room, Sara opened the ceiling only a crack so they could hear what was happening. Mrs. Coulter was there with some other men. They were talking about an alarm going off. Lyra started to explain how she let the daemons out. "But who was in charge of supervising that section?" Mrs. Coulter said in a musical voice.
"A research student called Manny," said one of the men. "But there are automatic mechanisms to prevent this sort of thing from happening..."
"They didn't work" she said.
"With respect, they did, Mrs. Coulter. Manny assures us that he locked all the cages when he left the building at eleven o'clock today. The outer door of course would not have been open in any case, because he entered and left the inner door, as he normally did. There's a code that has to be entered in the ordinator controlling the locks, and there's a record in it's memory of his doing so. Unless that's done, an alarm goes off."
"But the alarm didn't go off," she said.
"It did. Unfortunately, it rang when everyone was outside, taking part in the fire drill."
"But when you went back inside..."
"Unfortunately, both alarms are on the same circuit; that's a design fault that will have to be rectified. What it meant was that the fire alarm was turned off after the practice, the laboratory alarm was turned off as well. Even then it would still have been picked up, because of the normal checks that would have taken place after every disruption of routine; but by that time, Mrs. Coulter, you had arrived unexpectedly, and if you recall, you asked specifically to meet the laboratory staff there and then, in your room. Consequently, no one returned to the laboratory until some time later."
"I see," Mrs. Coulter said coldly. "In that case, the daemons must have been released during the fire drill itself. And that widens the list of suspects to include every adult in the station. Had you considered that?"
"Had you considered that it might have been done by a child?" said someone else. She fell silent, and the second man went on:
"Every adult had a task to do, and every task would have taken their full attention, and every task was done. There is no possibility that any of the staff here could have opened the door. None. So either someone came from outside altogether with the intention of doing that, or one of the children managed to find his or her way there, open the door and the cages, and return to the front of the main building."
Sara began to grow bored of there conversation and nestled down next to Pete, who was now in his ermine form, and began to ask him what Pan had said Lyra had done while she was gone. Pan told them they found an ice bear, Iorek Byrnison, and saw a witch. The witch had been from Lake Enera and was a queen. This made Sara feel good that they had befriended a witch. She looked over at Lyra who was breaking out in a cold sweat. Sara began to listen in again on the conversation. "And the new instrument?" said Mrs. Coulter.
"Yes, it was a curious discovery by Lord Asriel himself that gave us the key to the new method. He discovered that an alloy manganese and titanium has the property of insulating body from daemon. By the way, what is happening with Lord Asriel?"
"Perhaps you haven't heard," said Mrs. Coulter. "Lord Asriel is under suspended sentence to death. One of the conditions of his exile in Svalbard was that he give up his philosophical work entirely. Unfortunately, he managed to obtain books and materials, and he's pushed his heretical investigations to the point where it's positively dangerous to let him live. At any rate, it seems that the Vatican Council has begun to debate the question of the sentence to death, and the probability is that it'll be carried out. But your new instrument, Doctor. How does it work?" Sara didn't want to hear anymore and began to think of Jordan College. Her home, now so far away. And Roger, she longed to play with him. Lyra, Billy, Roger, and her plus there daemons. You couldn't have seen a more gleeful bunch of friends. But of course Pan had told them that they found Billy without his daemon and how he had died away shortly after. It pained her to think of it. Pete was screaming in her ear Keep listening to what there saying! It could be very important! If you hear every other word you won't know what's going on! Sara looked down at Pete and nodded slightly. She began once more to listen in. "I should like to see it," Mrs. Coulter said. "Soon, I hope. But I'm tired now. I think I'll go to bed. I want to see all the children tomorrow. We shall find out who opened that door!" There was the sound of chairs being pushed back and the door slamming shut but there was the sound of chairs being sat in again. "What do you think Lord Asriel up to?"
"I think he's got an entirely different idea of the nature of Dust. That's the point. It's profoundly heretical, you see, and the Consistorial Court of Discipline can't allow any other interpretation than the authorized one. And besides, he wants to experiment..."
"To experiment? With Dust?"
Hush! Not so loud..."
"Do you think she'll make an unfavorable report?"
"No, no. I think you dealt with her very well."
"Her attitude worries me..."
"Not philosophical, you mean?"
"Exactly. A personal interest. I don't like to use the word, bit it's almost ghoulish."
"That's a bit strong."
"But don't you remember the first experiments, when she was so keen to see them ripped apart..." Sara couldn't help but think of Billy. She could almost picture his face and a soft little sob, loud enough for them to hear, came from Sara and Lyra as they thought of it. "What was that?" one of the men said.
"It came from the ceiling!" Just at that moment Lyra scrambled behind Sara in a frenzy. The ceiling board in front of Sara pushed open and the face of a man was looking straight at Sara. He hadn't noticed Lyra and Pan. The man thrust his hand forward and grabbed Sara. "It's a child!" He shouted. Sara shouted in rage. He was so strong! Sara pulled away with all her might but couldn't pull free. She kicked and punched at him but he wouldn't budge. He pulled Sara's upper body out of the ceiling. She was now hanging by her knees. "Lyra! Help pull me up!" Sara shouted. Lyra grabbed Sara's free arm and pulled and tugged. But Sara instantly grew limp. She looked over at one f the men. They were holding Pete! The man finally got Sara out of the ceiling, pulling Lyra with her. Them man grabbed Lyra by the ear while the other carried Sara. They brought them into a room. It had a mesh cage and a bunch of buildings. Sara was too weak so they put Lyra in. She kicked and screamed while Pan was put in the other side. They were going to separate them! Sara became alert to the problem and sprang at the cage at once. The man who had taken Pete grabbed Sara by the hood, almost choking her, and put her on the bench. The man practically sat on Sara to keep her down. There was a hum and a blue line traveled down the cage. "You ain't never going to keep us apart!! NEVA NEVA NEVA! LET ME OUT OF THIS GOD DAMN CONTRAPTION! Me and Pan will neva be separated! Neva..." Lyra said in a shaky sob. It was almost done but Mrs. Coulter came bursting into the room. Her look was terrified! She pulled the cage open and Lyra and Pan tumbled out. The man holding Sara was shocked so she took the chance to get away. Sara punched the man in the face got up and ran out the door. She ran down narrow hallways until she found the front door and leaped outside. Pete was in her pocket and crept out and up into Sara's face. They snuggled each other and got up.
