Part 12 (1/2)

But if there was one thing certain about the Icarus, it was that nothing here ever approached what one might consider normal circ.u.mstances. And at this point, the latest express delivery of abnormal circ.u.mstances seemed to be whatever the nameless oddity was that existed around, under, or inside my bunk.

Plasmic still in hand, I eased carefully onto my stomach on the deck again and just as carefully wiggled my way under the bunk. It was a tight squeeze-a three-tier bunk hasn't got a lot of s.p.a.ce underneath it-but I was able to get my head and most of my upper body under without triggering any bouts of latent claustrophobia. I wished I'd thought to snag the flashlight from my jacket, but enough of the cabin's overhead light was diffusing in to give me a fairly reasonable view.

The problem was, as I'd already noted, there was nothing there to see. I was surrounded by a bare metal deck, a bare metal wall, and a wire-mesh-and- mattress bunk of the type that had been around for centuries for the simple reason that no one yet had come up with a better compromise between marginal comfort and minimal manufacturing cost.

I wiggled my way back out, got to my feet, and spent a few more minutes going over the entire room millimeter by millimeter. Like the area under the bunk, there wasn't anything to see.

Nothing obvious, at least. But I knew Ixil, and if he said his outriders had found something odd, then they'd found something odd; and suddenly I decided I didn't much care for the silence and solitude of my cabin. Replacing my plasmic in its holster, I pulled my jacket on over it and left.

I didn't expect there to be much happening aboard the Icarus at that hour, and as I climbed the aft ladder to the mid deck I discovered I was right. Tera was on bridge-monitor duty-with, typically for her, the door closed-Chort and Ixil were back in the engine room, and Everett, Nicabar, and Shawn were presumably in their cabins on the upper deck. I thought I might find someone in the dayroom, either eating or watching a vid, but the place was as deserted as the corridor outside it. Either everyone had felt more in need of sleep than food, or else the camaraderie temperature reading aboard the Icarus was still hovering down around the liquid-nitrogen mark. Somewhere in the same vicinity, I decided sourly, as my progress at figuring out what was going on.

Just aft of the dayroom was the sick bay. On impulse, wondering perhaps if Everett might still be up, I touched the release pad and opened the door.

There was indeed someone there, dimly visible in the low night-light setting.

But it wasn't Everett. ”h.e.l.lo?” Shawn called, lifting his head from the examination table to peer across the room at me. ”Who is it?”

”McKell,” I told him, turning up the light a bit and letting the door slide shut behind me. ”Sorry to disturb you-I was looking for Everett.”

”He's on the bridge,” Shawn said, nodding toward the intercom beside thetable.

”Said it was his turn to earn his keep around here and told Tera to go to bed.

You can call him if you want.”

”No, that's all right,” I said, suppressing a flicker of annoyance. Strictly speaking, Tera should have cleared any such s.h.i.+ft changes with me, but she and Everett had probably thought I was trying to catch up on my own sleep and hadn't wanted to disturb me. And the s.h.i.+p's medic was supposed to be available for swing s.h.i.+fts if any of the regular crewers were unable to cover theirs. ”How come you're still here?” I asked, crossing the room toward him.

He smiled wanly. ”Everett thought it would be best if I stayed put for a while.”

”Ah,” I said intelligently, belatedly spotting the answer to my question. With the dim light and the way the folds in his clothing lay, I hadn't seen until now the straps pinning his arms and legs gently but firmly to the table. ”Well...”

My discomfort must have been obvious. ”Don't worry,” he hastened to a.s.sure me.

”Actually, the straps were my suggestion. It's safer for everyone this way. In case the stuff he gave me wears off too quickly. I guess you didn't know.”

”No, I didn't,” I admitted, feeling annoyed with myself. With the unexpected entry of the Patth into this game dominating my thoughts, I'd totally forgotten about Shawn's performance at the airlock. ”I guess I just a.s.sumed Everett had given you a sedative and sent you off to bed in your own cabin.”

”Yes, well, sedatives don't work all that well with my condition,” Shawn said.

”Unfortunately.”

”You did say he'd given you something, though, right?” I asked, swinging out

one.

of the swivel stools and sitting down beside him. Now, close up, I could see that beneath the restraints his arms and legs were trembling.

”Something more potent at quieting nerves,” he told me. ”I'm not sure exactly what it was.”

”And why do your nerves need quieting?” I asked.

A quick series of emotions chased themselves across his face. I held his gaze, letting him come to the decision at his own speed. Eventually, he did.

”Because of a small problem I've got,” he said with an almost-sigh. ”Sort of qualifies as a drug dependency.”

”Which one?” I asked, mentally running through the various drug symptoms I knew and trying without success to match them to Shawn's behavior patterns. Ixil had suggested earlier that the kid's emotional swings might be drug-related, but as far as I knew he hadn't been able to nail down a specific type, either.

And Shawn's answer did indeed come as a complete surprise. ”Borandis,” he said.

”Also sometimes called jackalspit. I doubt you've ever heard of it.”

”Actually, I think I have,” I said carefully, the hairs rising unpleasantly on the back of my neck even as I tried to put some innocent uncertainty into my voice. I knew about borandis, all right. Knew it and its various charming cousins all too well. ”It's one of those semilegit drugs, as I recall.

Seriously controlled but not flat-out prohibited.”

”Oh, it's flat-out prohibited most places,” he said, frowning slightly as he studied me. Maybe my uncertainty act hadn't been enough; maybe he didn't thinka simple cargo hauler should even be aware of such sinful things, let alone know any of the details. ”But in most human areas it's available by prescription.

If you have one of the relevant diseases, that is.”

”And?” I invited.

His lips tightened briefly. ”I've got the disease. Just not the prescription.”

”And why don't you have the prescription?”

He smiled tightly. ”Because I had the misfortune to pick up the disease in a slightly illegal way. I-well, some friends and I went on a little private trip to Ephis a few years ago.”

”Really,” I said. That word wasn't the first thing that popped into my mind; the phrase criminal stupidity held that honor. ”That one I've definitely heard of.

Interdicted world, right?”

His smile went from tight to bitter. ”That's the place,” he said. ”And I can tell you right now that not a single thing you've heard about that h.e.l.lhole is hyperbole.” His mouth twitched. ”But of course, sophisticated college kids like us were too smart to be taken in by infantile governmental scare tactics. And we naturally didn't believe bureaucrats had any right to tell us where we could or couldn't go-”

He broke off, a violent s.h.i.+ver running through him once before his body settled back down to its low-level trembling. ”It's called Cole's disease,” he said, his voice sounding suddenly very tired. ”It's not much fun.”

”I don't know many diseases that are,” I said. ”Are the rules for interdicted planets really that strict? That you can't even get a prescription for your medicine, I mean?”

He snorted softly, and for a moment a flicker of the old Shawn pierced the fatigue and trembling, the arrogant kid who knew it all and looked down with contempt on mere mortals like me who weren't smart or educated or enlightened enough. ”Strict enough that even admitting I'd been to Ephis would earn me an automatic ten-year prison sentence,” he bit out. ”I don't think a guaranteed supply of borandis is quite worth that, do you?”

”I guess not,” I said, making sure to sound properly chastened. People like Shawn, I knew, could often be persuaded to offer up deep, dark secrets for no better reason than to prove they had them. ”So how do you get by?”

He shrugged, a somewhat abbreviated gesture given the strictures of the restraints. ”There are always dealers around-you just have to know how to find them. Most of the time it's not too hard. Or too expensive.”

”And what happens if you don't get it?” I asked. Drugs I knew, interdicted worlds I knew; but exotic diseases weren't part of my standard repertoire.

”It's a degenerative neurological disease,” he said, his lip twitching slightly.