He set down the soft drink he had carried up from level 1. He looked at his watch. 1845h.
He picked up the phone and went through hospital downside to call customs.
“This is Lt. Benjamin Pollard. I was just there. My baggage isn’t here. Is it still being delivered?”
“Who did you talk to?”
He sat down on the bed. He pulled a vending machine sandwich from his pocket, laid it on the table by the soft drink, and pulled out the customs claim ticket. “The claim number is 9798.”
A pause. “It’s been delivered, sir.”
“You didn’t deliver it to HOS-28.”
“That’s what’s on the ticket, sir.”
“That’s not what’s in HOS-28, soldier. I want to know where my baggage is right now.”
‘ ‘That’s alt the record I have, sir. You could check with Lost Baggage at 0700.”
“This shift doesn’t find baggage, is that it? It just loses it?”
A moment of silence. “I’ll make a note of it, sir.”
“Thank you.”
He punched out. He did not break the phone. He took a sip of his soft drink and unwrapped the sandwich.
No official assignment, no cafeteria open at this hour, no card with food privileges. He had fifty on him. Period. And Mr. Lieutenant j-g Jurgen Graff and his unnamed captain hadn’t seen to that detail.
God, he didn’t like the feeling he had. Bet that Graff had contacted Maj. Weiter? Hell if. Bet that the UDC knew where he was right now?
He looked at the phone and thought how he could call the UDC CO here. He could do that. He could break this wide open and maybe be a hero to the UDC—or get caught in the middle of something, behind a security screen that didn’t have Stockholm anywhere inside it. A screen confined to this place. Right now he could plead total ignorance. Right now he had a transfer order signed by Keu and a Security stamp on it and he could plead he had regarded the order exactly the way it said in the Interservice Protocols. And he could do what they wanted and get out of here.
Dammit, he didn’t know why Dekker was crazy. Anybody who wanted to fly little ships and get shot at was crazy. If even the simulator could half kill a guy—
He could have said get Dekker off the drugs. He could have said don’t sedate him—but Dekker knew too much about him, damn him, Dekker knew enough to babble things that could end up on his record, if Dekker got to talking to the psych; and if Dekker had told certain things to Graff, God—Graff could have been sifting everything he had said against information he had no idea Graff had, and weighing it for truth. Graff could have had technical backup doing it, big-time, interactive logic stuff you had no good chance to evade without a clearer head and a calmer pulse rate than he had had in that interview—
God only, what Dekker had involved himself in. Or why someone might have wanted Dekker dead.
Or what might happen if he picked up that phone right now and tried to get through to the UDC office—via hospital communications.
He didn’t know enough about how the lines were drawn here. He didn’t want to know enough. Do what Graff wanted and be on that shuttle on the 22nd, that was all. Any way he could. And if the UDC did land on him—spill everything immediately. Total innocence. No, sir, they showed me orders, they said it was cleared—
Somebody subbed a pilot on a test run? And somebody put Dekker into a simulator drugged out of his mind?
Bloody hell.
He pulled out the envelope, from inside his jacket. Opened it and pulled out cards and pictures, a couple of licenses and old IDs.
Flight certification. Picture of Dekker and three other people. Group shot. All in Fleet uniform. Woman and two guys besides Dekker. All smiling. Arms over each other’s shoulders.
Old vid advert for a truly skuz sex item. God. We all have our secrets, Dek-lad,…
Picture of Sol Station. Picture of a couple of people outside a trans station. Picture of Mars Base from orbit. If there’d been any of Cory Salazar, Dekker had lost those, a long time ago.