Finity's End - a Union-Alliance Novel (43 page)

No missing artifact turned up in his cabin. JR went down to A deck, to his own quarters, hoping and fearing… and fears scored. Hope got nothing. The missing item wasn't on his bed, not on the sink.

He began to get angry, and to ask himself who in his command would be afraid to come to him.
Scared
had to describe the perpetrator by now.

Except if someone from outside the ship
had
gotten past all their security… and in that case why target Fletcher's room? The lifts all required a key when the ring was locked down, a key that had to be gotten from the duty officer, so the bridge couldn't be reached. The operations center would be a target, but that had been manned around the clock, and nothing else was missing in the whole ship.

He began to entertain again the notion that Fletcher might be a very good actor, even that his exemplary behavior during the liberty was a set-up. There was no one in the crew he wanted to suspect. That did leave Fletcher, maneuvering everything, first to show the item to Jeremy and then to arrange to have it missing and himself the wronged party.

Why? was the next question. Some notion of giving the ship hell?

Some ploy to get himself shipped back to Pell with apologies? It was the first thing Fletcher had asked for.

Some bogused-up stick out of materials Fletcher could have gotten onplanet very easily, carvings Fletcher could have done, the whole thing his ticket to Pell if he could con a gullible junior-junior into serving as witness and setting the whole crew at odds with each other.

He sat alone in A deck rec and enjoyed a cup of coffee that didn't entail going down to the mess hall where Fletcher was working, because the thoughts that were beginning to replay in his brain kept pointing to Fletcher as the origin of the problem.

His pocket-com had, however, messages. A lot of messages. From Toby:

I didn't hear anything about it. It seems to me the junior-juniors might be playing a prank, and it got out of hand.

From Ashley:
I didn't hear anything. I assure you I would tell you if I had
.

Nike came quietly up to him, and settled into the seat opposite his at the table.

"I don't know who particularly had it in for Fletcher, but if you could kind of tell us what's missing maybe we could look for it, in case, you know, somebody's kind of scared to come forward?"

"In the whole ship? We're not talking about something the size of a shipping cannister."

"So what is it?" Nike said. "If it was in Fletcher's cabin it was smaller than a shipping can. But how big could it be? Like a piece of jewelry?"

"Bigger." He was down to games with people who'd be his life and death reliance when they replaced senior crew. "Tomorrow," he said, hoping that the long hours of mainnight would weigh on someone's conscience. "Tomorrow I might be more specific."

Nike was the sort who'd badger after an answer. But she didn't. She got up quietly and left. He saw her at the edge of the area talking to Bucklin, and saw Bucklin shake his head

Bucklin came to him after that, sat down in the seat Nike had vacated and leaned crossed arms on the table.

"This," Bucklin said, "is poisonous. Jamie, let me tell them at least what we're trying to find."

"I'm not
sure
what we're trying to find. I'm not sure I trust Fletcher."

"You think he's putting one over on us? Why?"

"To get back to Pell! I don't know."

"Possible," Bucklin said. "But it's also possible Vince—or Linda—"

"Or Sue. Or Connor, or
Chad
. Maybe we should just post armed guard. You and I stand in the corridor and shoot the first one that stirs toward another cabin."

Bucklin's shoulders slumped. "I'd rather think it was Fletcher."

"So would I. That's why I distrust my own wishes. Either he's the best liar in lightyears about or he's suffered an extreme injustice, and I don't know which. I don't know whether he's laughing at us or whether someone in this crew has completely lost his senses."

"I think we ought to pull a search."

"For an object you could fit in a duffle and over an entire ship that's been opened up to crew at dock."

"If someone hid it during dock you can eliminate half the ring."

"But not the entire damn hold."

"Possible. But you'd have to suit to go in the hold. In the ring skin you don't have to. If Fletcher hid it, it'd be in places Fletcher knows, right near the galley. If somebody else did it, that still means they'd play hob getting to half the ring during dock, and they'd probably not want to stay long or climb high to do it. I say we search the parts of the ring skin that are convenient during dock, and search in the storage lockers and the office near the galley stores first of all. That's where Fletcher was hazed. That could be the place somebody might put it."

It made sense. "But we've got
Champlain
out there."

"I'd say if we're going to find that thing we look
now
, while we're still in Mariner space. If we wait till the deep dark, damn sure it's going to be more dangerous to go larking about in the ring. But if we don't do something to find it, we've got to live with that, too.—And maybe—maybe somehow it'll materialize so we
can
find it. It's a lot easier for it to turn up out there, you know, just kind of—by happenstance."

"What's the matter with walking in and laying it on my bunk?"

"Your bunk is in your cabin, and your door is visible up and down the corridor where we have cameras."

"What do they think? I'd say go in and do it anonymously and then sit on the bridge and use the cameras?"

"I think everybody thinks this is a real serious issue that reflects pretty badly on whoever did it, and maybe right now somebody is real scared that he's completely lost your trust. I think whoever did it had rather die than have it known."

He looked up at Bucklin. "You don't know who that someone is, do you?"

Bucklin's face registered—something. "Listen to us," Bucklin said. "
Listen
to us talking to each other."

"Hell," JR said. Bucklin was his right arm, his friend, his closer-than-brother. And he'd just asked if Bucklin was hiding something from him.

"We've got to do something," Bucklin said. "Yeah, we've got serious trouble out in front of us. But we've got guns for that, and we've got a warship riding beside us, protecting us. We've got defenses against the outside. This is right at our heart"

"Go search where you think we ought to search." He'd told Bucklin what the object was. It was time to relinquish that card regarding the rest of the crew. "Send the crew by twos to do it."

"Including Fletcher?"

He drew a slow breath. "Everybody. Pair Jeremy with Linda for that duty.
I'll
go with Fletcher, if nothing turns up right off."

"Do the seniors know what's going on?"

"I don't think so. Alan does. I told him. But this is a nasty, distracting business. Bridge crew doesn't need to know, if we can clean it up. Let's just keep this quiet. We're locked down during alterday. There's
just
this next watch to look."

"When did you hear that?"

"That's the word that just came. We're going to do a hard burn during mainnight, third watch. Straight into jump." A thought occurred to him. "If it
was
in the ring skin and somebody didn't secure it before we spun up, hell, no telling where it could get to."

"Damn. That is a thought. Not to mention where it could get to during the burn. If somebody did hide it for a joke, and it slid under something, or into something, they might not be
able
to find it."

"Wood and feathers. Low mass. God knows where it could get to." It was frustrating, not even to know whether Fletcher could have chucked it down the waste disposal.
Surely
nobody on
Finity
had grown up without knowing about the hisa.
Surely
nobody on
Finity
could go into a cabin on a prank and taken something made of wood and real feathers, in ignorance the thing was valuable.
Surely
no one would destroy a thing like that. Take somebody's entire stock of underwear and dispose of them in some unusual place, yes, in a minute. But not real wood. Everybody aboard had
seen
wood,—hadn't they? Nobody was stupid enough to mistake its value. Nobody aboard disrespected the hisa, the only other intelligent life they'd found in the universe. That was just unthinkable, that someone in the Family would have that attitude.

Bucklin nodded and got up. "I'll get started on it."

Word came to the galley: they were going
up
before main-dawn. Jeremy fairly bounced with the news, and shoved a set of pans into the cupboard and latched it tight, nerves, Fletcher thought, feeling his own nerves jangled, but no part of Jeremy's fierce anticipation.

"What's going on?" he asked Jeff the cook—unwilling, at least uneasy, in appearing to be more ignorant than the juniors he'd had put in his charge.

"That ship," Jeff said. "I imagine."

Fletcher didn't know what to imagine, and found himself peevish and short-fused. Stations behaved themselves and stayed on schedule, and so did station-dwellers. He habitually felt a tightness in the gut when even ordinary, minor things swerved slightly off from an anticipated schedule, perhaps the fact that so many truly sinister events in his life had begun that way. He was leaving Mariner, going even farther from Pell. He had an enemy who wanted to spite him, he'd tried to duck out of association with the family, and the
juniors
had conspired to hold on to him.

He didn't say a word to Jeff. He just quietly left the galley and took a walk, as circular a proposition as on a station, a long stroll past the machine shop, the air quality station, lifesupport, all the gut and operations areas of the ship, where things were quieter and the feeling of urgency settled. Read-outs were on the corridor walls here. The noise of the machine shop working made him wonder what in all reason someone could be doing on the edge of destruction. It made him wonder so much he put his head in to look. And it was Tom T. using a drill press on a small metal plate.

"So what's that?" he asked.

"Shower door latch."

"Oh," he said. It looked like one when he recalled their door. It was the socket of the door. He was almost moved to ask why Tom would be fixing a shower door if they were all going to be blown to hell and gone. But he just stood and watched. He'd never been in a machine shop. There was a certain comfort in knowing someone's leaky shower was going to get replaced.

"Did you make that?"

Tom pushed up his safety goggles and wiped his nose. Tom had gray hair, large, strong-veined, competent hands. "We make about everything. Hell to get parts for old items, and most of this ship is old."

"I guess it is." A ship that traveled from port to port wasn't going to find brands the same, that was certain. "Interesting place."

"Ever done shop work?"

"No, sir."

Tom grinned. "You want to take a turn at it sometime, you come on in. The youngers of this generation are all hellbent on pushing buttons for a living."

"I might." He figured he'd better get back to the galley before Jeff was hellbent on finding out where he'd gone or what he was up to. I'll give it a try. I'd better get back."

"Any time," Tom said. "Extra hands are always welcome."

He'd wanted to ask—Have you heard about us going to do a burn tonight? but he didn't end up asking. People just did their jobs. Jeremy was wired. Linda and Vince were jumpy. Tom fixed a shower door and Jeff was making lasagna.

He supposed it made a brittle kind of sense to do that. He, the stationer, he decided to take the long way back to the galley, and to go all the way around the ring.

Cabins, mostly, in the next two sections. After that, doors with numbers, and designations like Fire System and two more just with yellow caution tags and Key Only. And more cabins, everything looking so much like everything else he began to be uneasy.

But after that he saw the medical station, and the main downside corridor, and he felt reassured. He knew where he was now, beyond a doubt, and he walked on toward the familiar venue of the laundry. It was a farther walk than he'd thought, and he was moving briskly, thinking he really should have gone back the way he'd come.

Running steps came from behind him, all out running. "Fletcher!"

Jeremy's voice. Jeff must have gotten worried and sent Jeremy the whole walk around, after him.

He stopped, as Jeremy came panting up from off the curvature. "Where are you going?" Jeremy gasped.

"In a circle," he said.

"Damn," Jeremy said. "You could've said."

"Sorry," he said, and clapped Jeremy on the shoulder as they walked, together, on what was now the shortest way to reach the galley.

"You mad, or something?"

"No," he said, but ahead of them, the crew manning the laundry had come out to stare at who had been running and making a commotion.

Chad
. Connor. And Sue.

"What in hell's going on?" Connor said. "You running races out here?"

"We're doing what we damn well please," Fletcher said, feeling the anger rise up in him, telling himself get a grip on it.

"Hey,"
Chad
said as he passed, "we're looking for that stick thing."

He whirled around and hit
Chad
, hard, and didn't find two words in a string to describe what he thought about
Chad
, the missing stick, and
Chad
's sympathy all in one breath;
Chad
slammed into the wall and came back off it aimed at him, and he drove his fist into
Chad
's rock-hard gut.

He heard people yelling, he felt people grabbing his shirt, pulling at his arms, and meanwhile he and
Chad
went at it, hitting the walls, staggering back and forth when
Chad
got a punch through and he shot one back with no science to it, just flat-out bent on hammering
Chad
into the deck.

"Hey, hey,
hey!
" someone shouted close to his ear, and he paid no attention. It was every damned sniping attack he'd ever suffered, and he hit and took hits until he began to red-out and run out of wind, and to lean into the blows as the opposition was leaning into him. Another flurry and they were both out of breath. He took a clumsy roundhouse at
Chad
and glanced off, and
Chad
took one at him and he took one at
Chad
. People were all around them, and when
Chad
swung at him and halfway connected, somebody got
Chad
and another got him and pulled them apart.

"I didn't steal your damn stick!"
Chad
yelled at him, spitting blood.

"I said shut up!" JR yelled. It occurred to Fletcher that JR had been yelling at him, and JR had hold of him; Bucklin had
Chad
.

"He started it!" Sue said.

"I'm not damn well interested! Fletcher, straighten the hell up!"

Fletcher wiped his mouth and stretched an arm to recover his shirt onto his shoulder. The hand came away bloody. His right eye was hazed and he couldn't tell whether it was sweat or blood running into it.
Chad
was bloody. There were spatters on the walls.

"Fletcher!" Jeremy said "Fletcher, don't fight anymore."

"All I said was…"
Chad
began.

"Shut
up
!" JR said, and jerked Fletcher back out of reach. "Madelaine wants to see you."

"I'm not interested."

"You get the hell up there before
she
comes down here. Now!"

"I'll clean up, first."

"Just go on topside. Right now."

"Yessir," he said, because he still believed JR, out of a handful of people he would listen to, and because he hadn't any other clear direction while the universe was still far and hazed. He blotted at the eye with the back of his hand, sniffed what tasted like blood down his throat, and shot a burning look at
Chad
before he walked on toward the lift.

Light, quick steps ran behind him, and he spun around.

"Jeremy," JR said in a forbidding tone, and Fletcher looked at Jeremy through his anger as if he saw an utter stranger—a scared and junior one, one he had no motive to harm, but not one he wanted to touch him at the moment.

Not when he was like this and wanting nothing more than to finish what he'd started.

But the fire was out of the encounter at the moment, and the lift car came to the button and he got in and rode it up to B deck. A startled senior stared at him as he wiped his nose to keep the blood off the carpet and walked into Legal.

Blue, at the desk inside, gave him a startled look, too.

"You want a tissue?" Blue asked pragmatically, and offered one.

"Thanks," he said, and as pragmatically took it and blotted his nose before he went into Madelaine's office.

Madelaine just stared at him. Shocked.

He stared back, still mad, but not mad enough to drip on his grandmother's carpet. He fell into a chair and made careful use of the tissue.

"Have another," Madelaine said, offering one. "JR?"

"
Chad
." His nose bubbled. "We were discussing my missing property."

"The spirit stick. I heard about it. I'm very sorry."

"Not your fault."

"I was dismayed. It's not like this crew."

"I'm not a good influence." He had to blot again. But the flow was less. "I made my try at joining in. It's no good. I don't belong here."

"We don't know the whole story."

He didn't fly off. He took a careful, deep breath. "I do."

"What happened, then?"

"What, specifically, happened?
Chad
's pissed that I exist."

"Did he say that?" Madelaine asked.

"I don't think he's real damn happy at the moment!" He laughed, a bitter, painful laughter. "It's the same damn thing. You think all everybody on this ship is glad I'm here? Not half. Not half. I told JR I want to go back to Pell."

"But?"

"I didn't say but."

"I heard but. You told JR you wanted to go back to Pell, but…"

He let go a soft, bubbling breath. And blotted a flow down his upper lip. And shook his head, because he thought about Jeremy and his throat acquired an unexpected and painful knot.

The silence went on a moment.

"A but, nonetheless," Madelaine said "There are people on this ship disposed to love you, Fletcher."

"Yeah, sure." She was trying to corner him with the love nonsense. He'd heard it before.

"Is that so common?"

"Not so damn common," he said harshly. "I've heard it.
This is your new brother, Fletcher. You'll be great friends. This is your room, Fletcher, we fixed it just for you. We're sorry, Fletcher, but this just isn't working out…
"

He ran out of breath. And composure. And found it again, not quite looking at Madelaine.

"Great intentions. But I'm getting to be a real connoisseur of families. I've had a lot of them."

"We still haven't gotten to the but.—You wanted to go back to Pell, but—"

"I've forgotten."

"Do you want to go back to Pell?"

He didn't find a ready answer. "I don't know what I want. At this point, I don't know."

"All right," she said, and got up. He took it for a dismissal, and he rose.

Madelaine came and put her hand on his arm; and then put her arms around him, and gave him a gentle hug. And sighed and bit her lip when she stood back and looked at him.

"Tell Charlie put a stitch in that or I'll be down there."

"It doesn't matter."

"Listen to your grandmother. James Robert wanted to talk with you about the stick… I said let things ride a little, let the juniors try to work it out. We have concerns outside our hull right now, and the captains
can't
divert themselves to settle a quarrel. Operations crew can't. So they leave it to us. And you to me, as the person responsible. Promise me. Peace and quiet. We'll work it out."

"I'll try," he said.

"Fletcher. We're going up, third watch. Don't
take
anger into jump. Let it go, this side. Let go of it."

Spooky advisement. He didn't take it as a platitude.

"All right," he said. And took his leave, and went out and down the lift again, headed for sickbay, where he wasn't surprised to find JR, and
Chad
.

"Wait your turn," Charlie said.

"Yessir," he said, and set his jaw and gave
Chad
only an intermittent angry glance.

It wasn't patched. Charlie did take the stitch, and it hurt. Charlie said he had to cauterize the bloody nose because it was dangerous to take that condition into jump, and that was even less pleasant. JR simply stood by, watching matters, and when Charlie was done, relieved him to go off-duty and to his quarters the way he'd sent
Chad
.

"And stay there," JR said shortly. "I don't care who's to blame, both of you stay in quarters until after jump. That ship in front of us is going up, this ship is engaged, and we can't afford distractions. I don't think
Chad
did it. Do you hear me?"