“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.

Give the culprit the opportunity to find the object, in whatever way he or she wished. It wouldn’t end it, but it would enable him to put the focus on the interpersonal problem and discover what they were actually dealing with: a theft, or the ruse, or the destruction of something irreplaceable.

Fletcher, however, was with the junior-juniors, all three, when he came on them going through A deck’s vacant cabins a search that, in the example he saw, had boxes of whiskey moved, storages opened, bunks swung to look underneath, all with amazing dispatch.

“Fletcher,” JR said, and drew Fletcher outside the door to 40A. “The Old Man expresses extreme concern. It’s not a property issue. I don’t consider it one. He doesn’t. If you want to file a complaint with him, that door will be open. I’m asking you, personally, give me time to unravel this.”

Fletcher had been moving boxes. His breaths came deep. “I didn’t intend to get involved,” Fletcher said, and gave a move of the eyes toward the flurry of activity inside. “They wanted to.”

If it had been any other circumstance, he would have been dismayed at the thought of the inexpert junior-juniors disarranging cargo. Thumps continuing to come from inside the disused cabin. “I’m impressed with their enthusiasm,” he said.

And in the uneasy silence that followed between them: “Fletcher, we’re approaching a very dangerous dock. I hope we can resolve things prior to docking. If not, I’m asking you, as I’ll ask Chad, to refrain from confrontations. Very serious negotiations are riding on it. Alliance-Union negotiations. They could be adversely affected if two of our crew engage on dockside.” There was a moment more of silence, and diminishing hope of Fletcher’s understanding. “I’m asking your cooperation for a handful of days. We’re going to be working hard, tempers are going to be short. You’re assigned to watch the junior-juniors, the same as before, but I can take you off that if you feel you’d be better separated from other personnel. You and the junior-juniors can sit in a sleepover together and watch vids, if that’s your choice, and you won’t have to work.”