Madison delivered the first report, of which JR caught the salient details. Alan delivered the second one. Frances had shown up in James Robert’s wake, to hear the general reports, and JR listened on the edges, aware of Bucklin having moved up near him.
“Well,” the Old Man said with a wry expression that framed official reaction, “we have a need to get through this port and get our job done. We are going to get turned around and get out of here in record time. All senior crew to round the clock hull watch, all able-bodied to transfer of cargo, senior staff to what I hope will be short meetings. I don’t anticipate station will object to our proposals at all, but the local merchant trade is likely to. And I’d rather have had Boreale here with us. But we don’t have that. What does the schematic show us? Who’s in port?”
“That’s three interstellars, sir,” Alan said, “end report.”
That was incredibly thin traffic.
“We mustered better than that at our last conference with Mallory,” the Old Man said with a shake of his head. “Jamie. Who are they? Mariner origin or Esperance?”
“Velaria left Mariner for Voyager a week ago, sir, Constance and Lucky Lindy were before that. Nothing but ourselves, Boreale, and Champlain the last five days. No ships from Esperance in port.”
“Counting that a week’s rated a long stay here, it’s a reasonable expectation, three ships. Voyager’s apt to berth about five ships on any given twenty-four hours, rarely ten. We’re the fourth. Boreale and Champlain would have made it almost to traffic congestion, for this port.”
“Yes, sir,” JR said. He’d been ready. It was a struggle, on a two-jump, to have mental recall on everything you’d been supposed to track. It was a job skill. A vital one, and he hadn’t failed it.
“Four empty cans,” the Old Man said, “food grade and clean, ride in the hold. The job will be to test and transfer whatever we pick up on the local market to assure ourselves a clean cargo, one can to the other. Senior crew will not have forgotten this drill, our compliments to the junior crew, who will carry out a great deal of the transfer. We will secure lodgings for all crew near the ship, and crew will not separate from assigned groups, no matter what the excuse. We will make an additional issue of clothing, purchased at the station. We will forego ship’s rules on patches and tags. Wes, you’ll treat the details in a general announcement. The station could use the trade, and we won’t have access to the laundry. Junior-juniors will stay particularly close, within safe perimeters, and only senior staff will deal with food procurement, clothing issue, all other activities where something from the outside comes aboard this ship, including personal baggage, which will be extremely limited. Security Red applies. Cargo will, however, be inert.”
It was the old New Rules. Nothing came aboard without being scanned through, logged, accounted for, and the crew member in question absolutely able to vouch for its integrity. Security Red usually applied when they were hauling touchy cargo… explosives, not uncommonly in the past. This time it wasn’t the cargo’s volatility that prompted the precautions against sabotage. It was Voyager’s.
The Old Man walked about then, taking a short tour past the number one stations, the general boards, spoke a word with the Armscomper, who’d only begun to shut down the hot switches, and with Tech 1, who’d handled the tracking on the emissions signatures.
Habitually the Old Man also said a word to the observing staff, as they called it: the senior-juniors, and JR waited, standing.
“I had a memo from Legal before jump,” the Old Man said in a lowered voice. “I’d like to see you in my office. Now.”
“Yes, sir.” It was not a topic he wanted to deal with on the bridge. It wasn’t a topic he wanted to deal with. And had to.
The Old Man left the bridge. JR looked at Bucklin, who cast him a look of sympathy, and went to report a situation he’d hoped, pre-jump, to have solved.
“The situation on A deck,” the Old Man said with no preamble, as JR stood in front of that desk in the Old Man’s office, the one with the bookcases, the mementoes of old, wooden ships. Past the Old Man’s iron control, JR had no difficulty detecting distress: personal, distracting distress, which the senior captain could well do without when he faced life and death decisions, peace and war decisions.
“Not the captain’s immediate concern, sir. I hope to have a solution.”
“We’ve never had to use the word ‘theft.’ ”
“I’m well aware, sir. I don’t know what to say. I don’t have an answer.” At that moment a message began on the intercom, a general advisement to the ship that Boreale and Champlain had slipped through Voyager system and that they were proceeding to dock and refuel.
“Security Red will apply here,” the intercom said, Alan’s voice, “and we will be shifting cargo. The fact that Boreale has gone on in close pursuit of Champlain remains a matter of concern, but it is not, at the moment, our concern…”
James Robert’s finger came down on the console button and the announcement fell silent in the small office.
“I think we know those details.”
“Yessir,” JR said.
“A spirit stick as I understand it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Smuggled aboard.”
“Technically, yes, sir.” It wasn’t the illegality of it that he felt at question, but the very question how anything of that unusual a nature had gotten past his observation. “Legally in his possession.”
Sometimes in the tests the Old Man set him he had to risk being wrong. “Sir, I haven’t considered what the case is. Evidence points to someone taking it, I’ve requested its return, and no one’s come forward.”
“And there’s been a fight.”
“Yes, sir. There was a fight.” Sometimes, too, the challenge was to hang on to a problem and keep it off B deck. And conversely to know when to send it upstairs. “I’d like to continue to handle this one, sir, on my own resources.”
There was a long, a very long silence. If there was a space under the carpet he’d have considered it. As it was he had to stand there, the subject of the senior captain’s very critical scrutiny at a time when a very tired, very worn-looking senior captain took spare moments out of his personal rest time, not his duty schedule.
“I take it the investigation is not at a standstill.”
“No, sir. Ship movement took precedence, but this can’t end with an acceptance of this situation. That won’t solve it.”
The captain nodded slowly, in concurrence with that assessment, JR thought.
They risked losing Fletcher. That was one thing. They risked setting a precedent, a mode of dealing with each other that might destroy them.
“Ship’s honor,” JR said faintly, in the Old Man’s continued silence. “I know, sir.”
“Ship’s honor,” the Old Man said. “It’s the means by which we dare ask those other ships, Jamie, to put aside self-interest. In the last analysis, it’s the highest card we have. Think about it. Do we wish to give that up?”
“No, sir.” It was hard to make a sound at all. Hard to breathe, until the Old Man dismissed him to the relative safety of the corridor.
Five minutes later he gave Bucklin and Lyra orders.
In fifteen minutes, every unassigned junior including Fletcher was on intercom-delivered notice that the Old Man had inquired about the object; and juniors were spreading out through the ship this time on independent, not team, search.