"Alex!" she said with exasperation. "You hadn't changed the screen in half an hour; you probably hadn't really looked at it in all that time. Alex, you haven't eaten anything in over six hours, you haven't slept in twenty, and you haven't bathed or changed your clothes in forty-eight!"
He rubbed his eyes and peered up at the blank screen. "I'm fine," he protested feebly.
"You're not," she countered. "You can hardly hold your head up. Look at your hand shake! Coffee is no substitute for sleep!"
He clenched his fist to stop the trembling of his hand. "I'm fine," he repeated, stubbornly.
She made a rude noise and flashed her screens at him, so that he winced. "There, see? You can't even control your reactions. If you don't eat, you'll get sick, if you don't sleep, you'll miss something vital, and if you don't bathe and change your clothes I'm turning you over to Decontam."
"All right, love, all right," he sighed, reaching over and patting her column. "Heat me up something; I'll be in the galley shortly."
"How shortly?" she asked sharply.
"As long as it takes for a shower and fresh clothes." He pried himself up out of his chair and stumbled for his room. A moment later, she heard the shower running and when she surreptitiously checked, she discovered that as she had suspected, he was running it on cold.
Trying to wake up, hmm? Not when I want you to relax. She overrode the controls, not bringing it all the way up to blood-heat, but enough that he wasn't standing in something one degree above sleet. It must have worked; when he stumbled out into the galley, freshly clothed, he was yawning.
She fed him food laden with tryptophane; he was too tired to notice. And even though he punched for it, he got no coffee, only relaxing herbal teas.
He patted her auxiliary console, this time as if he were patting someone's hand to get her attention. He'd been doing that a lot, lately, that and touching her column like the arm of an old and dear friend. "Tia, love, don't you realize we're almost through with this? Two cones to go, three if you count the one I'm working on now."
"Which I can finish," she said firmly. "I don't need to eat, and I only need three hours of DeepSleep in twenty-four. Yes, I knew. But you aren't going to get teams out there any faster by killing yourself, and if you work yourself until you're exhausted, you are going to miss what might be the important clue."
"But," he protested, and was stopped by a yawn.
"No objections," she replied. "I can withhold the data, and I will. No more data for another eight hours. Consider the boards locked, brawn. I'm overriding you, and if I have to, I'll get Medical to second me."
He was too tired to be angry, too tired even to object.
In the past several days he had averaged about four hours in each sleep period, with nervous energy waking him long before he should have reawakened. But the strain was taking its toll. She had the feeling he was going to get that eight solid hours this time, whether or not he intended to.
"You aren't going to accomplish anything half-conscious," she reminded him. "You know what they say in the Academy; do it right, or don't do it."
"I give up." He threw his hands up in the air and shook his head. "You're too much for me, lover."
And with that, he wandered back into his cabin and fell onto his bunk, still fully clothed. He was asleep the moment he was prone.
She did something she had never done before; she continued to watch him through her eye in his cabin, brooding over him, trying to understand what had been happening over the past several days.
She had forgotten that she was encased in a column, not once, but for hours at a time. They had talked and acted like, like ordinary people, not like brain and brawn. Somehow, during that time, the unspoken, unconscious barriers between them had disappeared.
And he had called her 'love' or 'lover' no less than three times in the past ten minutes. He'd been calling her by that particular pet name quite a bit.
He had been patting her console or column quite a bit, these past few days, as if he were touching someone's hand to gain attention, soothe, or emphasize a point.
She didn't think he realized that he was doing either of those things. It seemed very absentminded, and very natural. So she wasn't certain what to make or think of it all. It could simply be healthy affection; some people used pet names very casually. Up until now, Alex hadn't, but perhaps until now he hadn't felt comfortable enough with her to do so. How long had they known each other anyway? Certainly not more than a few months, even though it felt like a lifetime.
No, she told herself firmly. It doesn't mean a thing. He's just finally gotten to know me well enough to bring all his barriers down.
But the sooner they completed their searches and got out into space again, the sooner things would go back to normal.
Let's see if I can't do two of those three cones before he wakes up.
Predictably, the port that the mysterious tramp freighter had filed as its next port of call did not have any record of it showing up. Tia hadn't really expected it to; these tramps were subject to extreme changes of flight plan, and if it had been a smuggler, it certainly wouldn't log where it expected to go next.
She just hoped that it had failed to show up because the captain had lied, and not because they were drifting out in space somewhere. She let Alex do all the talking; he was developing a remarkable facility for playing a part and very cleverly managed to tell the absolute truth while conveying an impression that was entirely different from the whole truth.
In this case, he left the station manager with the impression that he was an agent for a collection agency, one that meant to collect the entire ship, once he caught up with it.
Alex shut down the com to the station manager, and turned his chair to face her screen and the plots of available destinations.
"How do you do that?" she asked, finally. "How do you make them think something entirely different from the real truth?"
He laughed, while she pulled up the local map and projected it as a holographic image. "I've been in theater groups for as long as I can remember, once I got into school. My other hobby, the one I never took too seriously, even though they said I was pretty good. I just try to imagine myself as the person I want to be, and figure out what of the truth fits that image."
"Well," she said, as they studied the ship's possible destinations, "if I were a smuggler, where would I go?"
"Lermontov Station, Presley Station, Korngold Station, Tung Station," he said, ticking them off on his fingers. "They might turn up elsewhere, but the rest all have Intel people on them; we'll know if they hit there."
"Provided whoever Intel has posted there is worth his paycheck. Why Presley Station?" she asked. "That's just an asteroid-mining company headquarters."
"High Family in residence," he replied, leaning back in his chair, and lacing his fingers behind his head. "Money for valuable artifacts. Miners with money, and not all of them are rock-rats."
"I thought miners were all, well, fairly crude," she replied.
He shook his head. "Miners are people, and there are all kinds out there. There are plenty of miners looking to make a stake, and some of them outfit their little tugs in ways that make a High Family yacht look plain. They have money for pretties, and they don't much care where the pretty came from. And one more thing; the Presley Lee y Black consortium will buy ore hauls from anyone, including tramp prospectors, so we have a chance that someone may actually stumble on the trove itself. We can post a reward notice there, and it'll be seen."