The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman

hadn’t finished. The needle twitched again, and she read:
Do not lie to the Scholar.
    She folded the velvet around the alethiometer and thrust it into the rucksack out of sight. Then she stood and looked around for the building where her Scholar would be found, and set off toward it, feeling awkward and defiant.
    Will found the library easily enough, where the reference librarian was perfectly prepared to believe that he was doing some research for a school geography project and helped him find the bound copies of
The Times
index for the year of his birth, which was when his father had disappeared. Will sat down to look through them. Sure enough, there were several references to John Parry, in connection with an archaeological expedition.
    Each month, he found, was on a separate roll of microfilm. He threaded each in turn into the projector, scrolled through to find the stories, and read them with fierce attention. The first story told of the departure of an expedition to the north of Alaska. The expedition was sponsored by the Institute of Archaeology at Oxford University, and it was going to survey an area in which they hoped to find evidence of early human settlements. It was accompanied by John Parry, late of the Royal Marines, a professional explorer.
    The second story was dated six weeks later. It said briefly that the expedition had reached the North American Arctic Survey Station at Noatak in Alaska.
    The third was dated two months after that. It said that there had been no reply to signals from the Survey Station, and that John Parry and his companions were presumed missing.
    There was a brief series of articles following that one, describing the parties that had set out fruitlessly to look for them, the search flights over the Bering Sea, the reaction of the Institute of Archaeology, interviews with relatives . . . . 
    His heart thudded, because there was a picture of his own mother. Holding a baby. Him.
    The reporter had written a standard tearful-wife-waiting-in-anguish-for-news story, which Will found disappointingly short of actual facts. There was a brief paragraph saying that John Parry had had a successful career in the Royal Marines and had left to specialize in organizing geographical and scientific expeditions, and that was all.
    There was no other mention in the index, and Will got up from the microfilm reader baffled. There must be some more information somewhere else; but where could he go next? And if he took too long searching for it, he’d be traced . . . . 
    He handed back the rolls of microfilm and asked the librarian, “Do you know the address of the Institute of Archaeology, please?”
    “I could find out . . . . What school are you from?”
    “St. Peter’s,” said Will.
    “That’s not in Oxford, is it?”
    “No, it’s in Hampshire. My class is doing a sort of residential field trip. Kind of environmental study research skills.”
    “Oh, I see. What was it you wanted? . . . Archaeology? . . . Here we are.”
    Will copied down the address and phone number, and since it was safe to admit he didn’t know Oxford, asked where to find it. It wasn’t far away. He thanked the librarian and set off.
    Inside the building Lyra found a wide desk at the foot of the stairs, with a porter behind it.
    “Where are you going?” he said.
    This was like home again. She felt Pan, in her pocket, enjoying it.
    “I got a message for someone on the second floor,” she said.
    “Who?”
    “Dr. Lister,” she said.
    “Dr. Lister’s on the third floor. If you’ve got something for him, you can leave it here and I’ll let him know.”
    “Yeah, but this is something he needs right now. He just sent for it. It’s not a
thing
actually, it’s something I need to tell him.”
    He looked at her carefully, but he was no match for the bland and vacuous docility Lyra could command when she wanted to; and finally he nodded and went back to his newspaper.
    The alethiometer didn’t tell