Harper wasn't letting on to Tyr but he was getting discouraged. They had been to how many drifts and still no sign of Beka. This wasn't good.
Tyr glanced over at Harper. The boy had a sad look on his face. Of course, if he caught Tyr
watching he would have immediately changed his expression. Tyr had seen him do it enough times in the course of their search. "The deadline is fast approaching Harper." Tyr was trying to speak as gently as he could.
"Don't say that! We will find her. And if not, then we'll get an extension, that's all.
We have to find her no matter what." There was a note of despair in his voice.
"No, child we can't. I must be getting back to my family and you need to get back as well."
"Tyr--."
"No. You must listen to me. I agreed to come on this foolish quest of yours, even though the odds were remote at ever finding her. You yourself know how good she is at hiding when she wants to. And apparently she does want to. We haven't found her. Face it. She doesn't want us to. These galaxies are too big. Now, we will continue to search but, when the deadline arrives we will go back.
Understood?"
"Yeah." There was a pouty tone to Harper's voice that belied the pain that he was in.
And he turned away and let his tears fall freely. Tyr of course, could tell that he was crying but, this time he left him alone. There was nothing he could say, anyway, that would make Harper feel any better. The situation was what it was.
