And now Union was escorting an Alliance ship?
He’d thought he understood the universe, or all of it he needed to know. And things weren’t what he thought.
“ Clear to move ,” the intercom said. “ Twenty minutes to get your baggage and ten to take hold, cousins. Move, move, move .”
The front row filed out to the corridor and the next row was hot on their heels, everybody moving with dispatch when it was their turn.
Cargo spat out baggage at high speed and fair efficiency. He’d bought a silly cartoon trinket to hang from the tag, a distinction easier to spot, he’d learned, than the stenciled name; and Jeremy had urged him to buy it. Other people had colored cords, plastic planets, tassels… Jeremy’s was a metal enameled tag that said Mars, and a cartoon character of no higher taste than his. Jeremy’s duffle was already in the stack, but his wasn’t.
Jeremy carted his off. Fletcher saw his own come down the chute and grabbed it, double-checking the tag to be sure.
“Fletcher,” JR said, turning up beside him, and instinct had him braced for unpleasantness as he straightened and looked JR in the eyes.
“Good job,” JR said. “I can’t say all of it, even yet, but we’ve had a situation working at this port… same that put that ship out ahead of us, and it wasn’t a place to let our junior-juniors in on the matter, or to let them wander the dockside on their own. Toby and Wayne kind of kept an eye in your direction, you may have observed at first, but you didn’t need help, so they just pretty well left things to you and after that we got swept into running security for the captains’ business and didn’t check back, in the absence of distress signals. But we didn’t feel we had to. So we do appreciate it, and I’m speaking for all of us.”
He wasn’t used to well-dones. He didn’t have a repertoire of suitable polite remarks. His face went hot and he hoped it didn’t show.
“Thanks,” he said. If he was one of the Willetts or the Velasquezes he’d have learned how to shed compliments like water. But he wasn’t. And stood there holding a duffle with a plastic, large-eyed cartoon wolf for an identifying tag. The one JR had against his leg sported a classy Sol One enamelled tag, which he’d undoubtedly bought above Earth itself.
“We got out all right,” JR said, “and regarding what the captain was talking about to you before we made dock… and the reason we’re running with an escort right now… I’m warning you in advance we’re not going to get much of a liberty at Voyager. We can’t guarantee their cargo handling and we’re going to have to search every can. This is not going to be a fun operation. But we have to do it. We have to look as if we trust Voyager without actually trusting Voyager. Again, that’s for you to know. The junior-juniors aren’t to know the details.”
“And I am ?” He couldn’t help it. He didn’t see himself in the line of confidences.
JR looked him straight in the face. “You need to know. You’re watching the potential hostages. And you need to know.”
“You don’t know me . Where do you think I’m so damn trustworthy?”
JR outright grinned. “Because you’d warn me like that.”
He’d never been outflanked like that. He shut his mouth. Had to be amused.
“ Takehold in ten minutes ,” the intercom advised them, and JR picked up his baggage.
“Got to walk my quarter,” JR said. And set off. “Don’t forget your drug pickup!” JR called back.
He would have forgotten. Remembered it by tomorrow, but he would have forgotten. Fletcher took his duffle, slung it over his shoulder and walked in JR’s direction far enough to reach the medical station and the drug packets set out in bundles.
Take 6 , the direction said, a note taped to the side of the bin on the counter, and the bin was three-quarters empty. He came up as JR was initialing the list as having picked up his. JR took his six, and Fletcher signed in after and filled his side pocket with the requisite small packets, asking himself, as his source of information walked away, what circumstance could demand six doses.
Precaution on the precaution, he said to himself, and, drugs safely in pocket, and feeling proof against the unknown hazards of yet another voyage, he toted his duffle back the other direction, past the laundry and past a sign that instructed crew not to leave laundry bundles if the chute was full.
Piled up on the floor inside, he well guessed, glad it wasn’t his job this turn. Galley was a far better duty.
He walked on to A26, to his cabin, anticipating familiar surroundings—and almost reached to his pocket for a key as he reached the door, after a week in the Pioneer. He reached instead to open the door.
Beds were stripped, sheets strewn underfoot. Drawers and lockers were open, clothes thrown about. Jeremy, inside with his arms full of rumpled clothes, stared at him with outright fear.
“What in hell is this?” he asked.
“I’m picking it up,” Jeremy said.
“I know you’re picking it up. Who did it? Is this some damn joke?”
“It’s your first liberty.”
“And they do this ?”
“I’m picking it up!”
“The hell!” His mind flashed to the bar, to Chad sitting there with all the others. Butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths. He stood there in the middle of the wreckage of a cabin they’d left in good order, feeling a sickly familiarity in the scenario. No bloody wonder they’d been smiling at him.
He saw articles of underwear strewn clear to the bathroom, his study tapes and what had been clean, folded clothes lying on a bare mattress. The drawer where he kept his valuables was partially open, the tapes were out—the drawer showed empty to the bottom, the drawer where he’d had Satin’s stick; and he bumped Jeremy aside, dropping to his knees to feel to the back of the storage.
Nothing. He got up and looked around him, rescued his tapes and the rumpled clothes to the drawer and lifted the mattress, flinging it back against the lockers to look under it.
“I’ll check the shower,” Jeremy said, and went and looked and came back with more of his clothes.
No stick.
“Shit!” Fletcher said through his teeth. He looked in lockers, he swept up clothes, he rummaged Jeremy’s drawers.
Nothing. He slammed his hand against the wall, hit the mattress in a fit of temper and slammed a locker so hard the door banged back and forth. A plastic cup fell out and he caught it and slammed it into the wall. It narrowly missed Jeremy, who stood, white-faced, wedged into a corner.
Fletcher stood there panting, out of things to throw, out of coherent thought until Jeremy scuttled out of his corner and grabbed up clothes.
He grabbed the clothes from Jeremy, grabbed Jeremy one-handed and held him against the wall. “Who did this?”
“I don’t know!” Jeremy said. “I don’t know, they do this sometimes, they did it to me. First time you go on liberty—”
“ Fletcher and Jeremy ,” the intercom said “ Report status .”
“We hit the wall,” Jeremy reminded him breathlessly. “They want to know if we’re all right. Next cabin reported a noise.”
“You talk to them.”He wasn’t in a mood to communicate.
He let Jeremy go and Jeremy ran and, fast talking, assured whoever it was they were all right, everything was fine.
It took some argument. “ One minute to take hold ,” another voice on the intercom said then. “ Find your places .”