"You're in mighty good shape for a man that age. Especially given the kind of life you lead."
"Life like this keeps a man healthy," Foxleigh countered. "You soft city folk ought to try it sometime."
He lifted his eyebrows at Griffs. "Especially you."
Griffs bristled, but another gesture from Smith kept him quiet. "I'm sure it does," Smith said. "But it doesn't keep you that healthy." His eyes hardened. "You've been getting Idunine, haven't you?"
That was, of course, the obvious first assumption for them to make. Trouble was, it had the potential to get all of Shelter Valley into nearly as much trouble as the truth would. "What if I have?" Foxleigh growled. "Is that a crime?"
Smith shrugged. "Depends on how you've been getting it."
Foxleigh lowered his eyes. "Don't want to get anyone in trouble," he muttered.
"You won't," Smith assured him.
Foxleigh knew how much that promise was worth. But he had little choice in the matter. "It was the doc in town," he admitted. "Doc Adamson. He gave me a little once when my leg was acting up so badly I couldn't walk."
"When was that?"
"Ten years ago," Foxleigh said grudgingly. "Maybe twelve."
"Did it work?"
"Good enough," Foxleigh said, watching the other's face out of the corner of his down-turned eyes. So far he seemed to be buying it. "I still have some trouble, especially in the cold. But at least I can get by."
"So what other illegal drugs does Doc Adamson have?" Griffs asked.
"Who says Idunine is illegal?" Foxleigh demanded, glaring up at him. "Used to be you could get it all the time before the war."
"Before the war," Griffs repeated tersely. "This is after the war, and Idunine is strongly regulated.
Somehow, I don't see a backwoods witch doctor having legal access to it."
"Maybe he had some left over from before," Foxleigh said, looking accusingly at Smith. "You said he wouldn't get in trouble."
"If he was just using up an old supply, he won't," Smith assured him. "But if he's black-marketing it ...
well, we'll see."
Foxleigh grimaced. That was, in fact, the story he and Adamson had worked out all those years ago in case someone started asking these very questions. He just hoped the doc hadn't forgotten the details. "So is that it?" he muttered.
"Just about," Smith said. "You said you did some hunting. That mean you have a gun?"
"No, I brain the deer with rocks," Foxleigh bit out sarcastically. "Of course I have a gun. It's over there beside the bed."
"Guns are regulated, too, of course," Smith pointed out as Griffs strode over for a look.
"Yeah, why am I not surprised?" Foxleigh said with a sniff, watching Griffs closely as he took the old scattergun off the rack. "Careful with it—careful."
"He is," Smith said soothingly. "Well?"
"It's within the limits," Griffs said, a note of disappointment in his voice. Clearly, he'd been hoping he could find an excuse to confiscate it. Setting it back into its rack, he pulled up the thin mattress and looked beneath it. "Any other weapons?"
"Just the knife, and it's mostly for eating with," Foxleigh said. "What are you doing?"
"I'm looking around," Griffs said, dropping the mattress and running his hands through the books and other odds and ends in the crate that served as a nightstand. "That all right with you?"
"Not really, no," Foxleigh said, looking back at Smith. "If he wrecks anything, it's coming out of his hide."
"He'll be careful," Smith said, his voice suddenly a little too casual. "You have any visitors up here recently?"
Foxleigh felt his stomach tighten. "Not unless the doc's visit way back when counts as recently," he said.
"Why?"
"The thermal reading we took from the town a little while ago seemed too high for one man," Smith said. "You have anything you'd like to tell us?"
"Aside from go to hell?" Foxleigh countered. "This is the cabin. You see anyone else here?"
"Don't get smart," Griffs warned as he sifted gingerly through the wood bin. "If you're covering for someone, you're going to be in serious trouble."
Foxleigh snorted. "I stopped covering for anyone forty years ago," he said. "You were probably just reading my stove—you can see for yourself it's still hot. That, or your equipment's no damn good."
"We'll have it checked out," Smith said. "Griffs?"
"Seems clean," Griffs said, standing in the middle of the room for one final look. His eyes lingered a moment on the sink and toilet area, and Foxleigh held his breath. But the young Security man turned away without comment and nodded to his partner. "Let's get out of this pig hole."
"Good-bye, Mr. Toby," Smith said, giving Foxleigh an almost friendly smile as they left.
Foxleigh watched through the window as the two men picked their way down the path back toward town, his stomach settling into a hard knot. Smith's smile had been almost friendly, all right. But Foxleigh wasn't fooled, any more than Smith had been fooled by his hot-stove story. A good IR sensor could tell the difference between a stove and a human body, and even if the analyzers on their Birren-7 patrol boat weren't good enough to sort that out the ones in Athena certainly were.
And if he'd been reading Smith's face right, running the track through those analyzers was the first thing he would do when he got back to base.
Half an hour later, he heard the Birren-7 lift back into the sky ... and with that, the clock was now counting down. Still, he couldn't simply haul the two blackcollars back up. Not yet. Smith might have been suspicious enough to leave an observer or two behind.
Maybe there was a way to find out about that. Reaching to the top of the window, he pulled down the red shade. Then, crossing over to his larder, he started putting together a traveling pack.
Adamson must have been watching for the signal. Barely fifteen minutes later, the medic strode through the door. "What happened?" he asked.
"About what you'd expect," Foxleigh said, sinking down on the end of the bed and gesturing his visitor to the chair. "They came in, looked around, and made veiled threats against whoever'd given me my Idunine. I told them you'd used old stock."
"Yes, they asked me about that, too," Adamson said. "But they seemed satisfied with my answers. What did you say about the IR readings?"
"You knew about that?"
"I heard them discussing it," Adamson said. "That was just before they asked me who lived up here."
"I tried to blame the stove," Foxleigh said, grimacing. "But I don't think they bought it."
"I don't think so, either," Adamson agreed with a sigh. "Cracked ribs or not, Jensen and Flynn are both going with me tomorrow."
"They're going sometime in the next hour, you mean," Foxleigh said with a snort. "That's more the round-trip time to Boulder."
"Relax," Adamson said, holding out a hand. "They already have their hands full checking on the other pylons."
Foxleigh frowned. "The pylons? That's all they were here for?"
"That's it," Adamson said. "And they're hurrying like crazy to get back to base before full night.
Apparently, they're expecting trouble in Athena."
Foxleigh took a deep breath. So he had a little more time. Good. "Any idea what kind of trouble?"
Adamson shrugged. "They weren't talking about it, but my guess is blackcollar trouble." He lifted his eyebrows. "Now for the big question: What are you planning to do with all this?"
Foxleigh's first impulse was to lie. But Adamson deserved better. "I'm going into the base," he told the other. "Jensen knows the way—he was in once before."