Fitch was in his own morning rounds and Orsini was on duty during his rec-period, both, you could figure, because they were searching allthe bunks and all the stuff, what belonged to mainday as well as what belonged to alterday.
The search had started near the vid, four junior officers she'd never laid eyes on, but that could include a whole lot of the bridge crew, even those that were alterday. Bunks got turned up, the storages underneath inspected, everything got a general lookover, but it went pretty fast.
Hell of a time to start looking for drugs, Park was right. No sense to start searching now for what they could have brought aboard. Probably some damn thing had gone missing, maybe they'd lost a bottle or two out of the officers' mess, maybe the captain had lost his watch or something. Probably wasa stolen-goods check, if they werefinally headed into port, to make sure something didn't get carried offship and bartered for booze. That was probably what was going on.
But it sure as hell made you start tallying up what you had brought aboard and re-checking the regs in your mind to see if you had anything you weren't supposed to.
No prohibition on anything she had, she was sure of that: she'd read that list realcareful. And they were already past NG's bunk, thank God, with no problems evident.
The search got to them, they stood quietly, all six of them, while the mofs turned up McKenzie's bunk and then Park's and Figi's, and the guys' across the aisle, and worked all the way down to the bulkhead.
Up to the loft then.
Nothing I got's illegal. Please God.
She sipped her own beer, feeling odd about it, telling herself this ship was hell and away looser about a whole lot of things. But you couldn't help worrying—particularly when you knew you had enemies, and particularly when you'd had the message delivered that same day that some sum-bitch with bridge-level connections was out to get even.
" Yeager," the intercom called out. " Come to your bunk area."
Oh, shit!
She took, a deep breath and started to excuse herself past, felt somebody pat her back, another take her arm.
One was Musa, the one who held her arm was NG. She looked at him and gave a shrug. "Probably the viewer," she said: at the moment she hoped to hell it was.
He let her go, she went and climbed the ladder, and somebody else was coming up after her, which she had a very clear idea was the two watch-officers. She didn't look over her shoulder, she walked on to where the four inspectors had gathered—where her bunk was standing on its side and they had the underneath storage open to view.
Their sniffer-box was going crazy, the red light was flashing, and a plastic packet of capsules was lying on top of her stuff, right there in front of God and everybody.
"This your bunk?" one asked.
"Yessir," she said. "But I didn't put that there."
About the time Orsini and Fitch showed up and the inspection crew said how they'd found it—of course—in her stowage, and she said, when Orsini asked her whether she had a prescription, "Nossir, but that's not mine."
"Whose is it?"
"Lindy Hughes', sir. He said he had something for my headache, said he'd leave it at my bunk."
"You consider going to the pharmacy, Yeager?"
"Didn't know it was prescription, sir, must've got it this morning, he had an accident, you know, figure he didn't think it was strong enough to worry over."
Orsini took the packet in his fingers. "Remains to be seen if this is prescription."
"Yessir."
"Find out where Hughes's been," Fitch said.
Wasn'ta presence-sniffer they had, then, just a basic job, no way to track where anybody was—more the pity.
"I'd like to point out, sir, if I was running contraband, I'd do it in a better container."
"You want me to note that down, Yeager?"
"Yessir. I know the ways stuff gets past. And how it doesn't. Plain plastic bag isn't going to get past anybody."
"You want to tell us anything else?" Orsini asked.
"Don't mind to take a test, sir. Nothing in my system except the last trank dose."
Fitch picked up the viewer and shoved a fiche in. He was quiet a moment. Looking.
Then Fitch turned the viewer off and gave her a cold, measuring stare.
"Think you'd better come to Administrative, Yeager."
"Yessir," she said, and went where Fitch and Orsini indicated, back down the aisle, down the ladder, a couple of steps ahead of them.
There was a gossipy murmuring in the crew. It got quieter in her immediate vicinity.
She saw NG close up, saw him with a panicked look on his face—not waiting where he was supposed to be, not him, not Musa either, who had a firm grip on his arm. What NG
might do scared her, so she just gave him a straight I-don't-know-you stare and kept walking to the door, calmly as she could, because Fitch was there, Fitch was likely to pick up on any communication she made with anybody and write thatinto his report.
They got through to the door, they walked out into rec and general com started calling Lindy Hughes to report to Orsini's office.
That gave her a little satisfaction, at least. If she was going down, if this was going to start with little questions and get to the ones she didn't want asked—then it didn't matter as much who had done it as she just wanted to take a few shots that counted, and take out the ones that did matter.
They had her stop by infirmary and do the tests: she was real glad about that—
"Nothing but the last trank-down in my system," she told the med. "That's all you're going to find."
"Hope so," Fletcher said.
She was confident about that. She wasn't, about the interview in the office.
Except Bernstein showed up as they were going in, said, "What in hell, Yeager?" And she said, "Wish I knew, sir,"—figuring that saying more than that right then, just outside Orsini's office, while Orsini was opening the door to let her in, was going to annoy him seriously.
Civ procedures. Civ mofs ran all over each other's prerogatives, and talked to each other in ways that made her nervous, but having Bernstein waiting out there was a comfort, even if she figured it could set Orsini off.
So she walked in, stood quietly at informal rest while Orsini came in and sat down at his desk. He pushed a button on the console.
"We're recording."
"Yessir."
"You maintain the pills belong to Hughes."
"I've got every reason to think so, sir."
"Why?"
"Man promised me."
"After his accident with the door."
"Shower head, sir."
" Don'tbe flip with me."
"Yessir."
"Friend of yours?"
"Nossir, not much. But if he tells me he's going to do something, I won't doubt him."
Orsini made a note on his TranSlate, looked up under his eyebrows. "You're a smartass, Yeager."
"Sorry, sir."
"You likeHughes? Got anything personal with him?"
"If he set me up I got something personal with him, yessir, but I haven't had that proved yet."
"You insist he promised you pills for a headache."
"I stick by what I said, sir."
"You come onto this ship, you pick fights, you create dissension in my watch, Yeager, you just make trouble all up and down the line, don't you?"
"Nossir. No fighting, sir."
"Lindy Hughes just slipped."
"I was all over soap, sir. Probably he was joking around, I take it that way, sir."
Another quiet note onto the TranSlate. A shift of black eyes upward again. "God, I hate smartasses."