The only one not poring over the larder was Dannerman. He was gazing at Dopey. “What’s the matter, Dan?” Pat asked, but he didn’t answer her. He said to the alien:
“You heard what we said about the larder on Starlab. You can hear everything we say in here, can’t you?”
The creature inclined its mournful head, the equivalent, Pat thought, of a nod. “Of course. That is my assignment. I am tasked to monitor you. Also to provide you with everything you need so the observation can continue as long as possible.”
Pat looked up from the canned ham in her hand. “You aren’t doing a very good job of that. Why don’t you give us back our clothes?”
“To provide you with what you need” Dopey said firmly.
“Well, we need clothes. Tell him, Dan,” she said, but Dannerman was looking thoughtfully at the alien. It was Rosaleen who picked up on the question.
“Clothing is a definite need for us,” she declared. “We are not animals. We will be definitely harmed by prolonged exposure. Also there are items that we carried in our clothing which are essential to our survival-medications, for instance.”
Dopey hesitated, then did a curious thing. He jammed his little paws deep into the copper-colored muff; his eyes closed, he seemed to be listening to voices unheard by the others. Then his eyes opened and he declared, “The clothing will be brought.”
“That’s more like it,” Jimmy Lin said, his mouth full of something he had seized from the food supplies. “How about answering some questions for us, too? Where are we?”
“You are in this pen. You do not require more information than that.”
“Well, then,” Martin Delasquez tried, “at least tell us what you’re monitoring? What do you want us to do?”
“Simply to continue as you are,” Dopey said, as though that should have been obvious. Then, as the walls opened and three burdened Docs came back in, he added sharply, “Do not touch your clothing yet!” It was not really a necessary order. They couldn’t have, anyway; the three Docs had formed in a line between the captives and the pile of clothing. Dopey paid them no further attention, but began carefully examining each garment. As he finished with one he tossed it past the Docs to be claimed-a brassiere for Rosaleen Artzybachova, a single sock, a pair of men’s under shorts claimed by Dannerman. The underwear came first, because, Pat thought, it was the easiest to check out. As Dopey came to the outer garments he was more thorough, investigating pockets, running his long, tapering fingers over seams to see if anything was concealed inside them. He was looking for weapons, it seemed. He found them, too: two guns and a bomb-bugger in Dannerman’s effects, a gun and a knife in Martin’s, more guns from the others, even two little switchblade knives from the garments of Rosaleen Artzybachova. “Christ,” Pat said. “We were all ready to fight a war!”
“I simply took routine precautions,” Jimmy Lin said defensively, watching as Dopey pulled a sixty-shot sidearm out of his jacket.
Rosaleen spoke up, to the Dopey: “That’s just a pen! Please let me have it.”
The Dopey didn’t respond, except to turn the pen over a few times, then take it apart. Evidently he decided it would not make a good stabbing weapon; he tossed it over and turned to everyone’s shoes. That took longer. He ran his fingers inside each shoe, apparently measuring to see if there was enough thickness anywhere to conceal a weapon. On one of Jimmy’s shoes he hit pay dirt: the heel unscrewed, and inside it was a coil of razor wire.
“Hell,” Jimmy said, and resignedly went back to getting dressed. They were all doing it, now. It was surprising, Pat thought, how much more formidable Martin Delasquez looked once he had his military camouflage jacket on again, gold braid with its embroidered general’s stars. For Pat herself getting dressed again after so long bare was less pleasant than she had imagined. The waistband of the slacks was uncomfortably tight; the pantyhose unpleasingly constricting; and her feet seemed to have swelled, because it was an effort to get them into the shoes.
The three Docs abruptly turned as one and left, carrying the confiscated weaponry; and it was only then that Pat realized that while they were dressing Dopey had slipped through the wall and was gone.
“Damn it,” Dannerman said. “I was hoping we could ask him some more questions.”
“Which he probably wouldn’t have answered anyway,” Pat said. “So let’s eat!”
The canned ham had been cold and greasy, the pita bread Pat ate with it dry and leathery, but her belly was full. Eating made a difference. Being clothed made a difference, too; Pat couldn’t help feeling that things were taking a turn for the better. Maybe only a very small improvement, with a very long way still to go, but everybody seemed cheerier. Martin in uniform stood taller than before, and what they had received was not merely food and clothing. Dopey had returned all their pouches and belly bags. Pat was pleased to get her watch back and her rings, less pleased to have the packet of tampons that she always carried in case of emergency; it reminded her that her period would be coming along sometime soon, and that one pair of tampons would not be adequate to her needs.
Rosaleen held aloft a small bottle. “My painkillers,” she said exultantly.
“Were you in pain?” Pat asked wonderingly.
“Dear girl, at my age one is always in pain; exercise helps a little, but these are better-though they do not solve the real problem. May we not discuss it, please? I have a suggestion.”
There was something in Rosaleen’s tone that made Pat anxious to hear more, but she didn’t press the point. “Yes?”
“Let us make an inventory of all our possessions. Dan, since you still have your screen, perhaps you can keep the tally.”
Her tone made Pat curious. “Dopey didn’t return yours?”
Rosaleen pursed her lips. “He probably thought it contained a weapon.”
Delasquez laughed. “And, of course, it did. What, simply a sharp little blade, for emergencies? He took mine too, for the same reason.”
“And left us no weapons at all,” Jimmy Lin said. Something in his tone made Pat give him a closer look. But when she started to ask him, Dannerman cut in.
“Hold it,” he commanded. “Of course none of us have any weapons-but if we did”-he glanced meaningfully at the wall-“we had probably better not mention them out loud. Let’s get on with the inventory, shall we?”
It didn’t take long. There was Rosaleen’s multicolor pen (but nothing to write on with it but some coarse wrapping paper from the food larder) and a reading glass; a collection of key cards and IDs from all of them; a nail clipper; two pocket combs; some loose coins-very few, because hardly anyone carried cash. That was it. Most of them had left their more interesting gadgets in the lockers at the Cape. “No weapons there, anyway,” Jimmy said ruefully. “I guess if we put all our coins and stuff in a sock we could make a cosh.” Dannerman gave him a warning look, prompting him to add quickly, “Although there’s not enough mass there to do any real harm to anybody anyway.”
Pat could restrain her curiosity no longer. “Rosie? What’s this ‘real problem’ you’re talking about?”
Rosaleen shrugged. “I don’t suppose there’s any need to keep it secret; it is simply that there is nothing that can be done about it. Painkillers are not the only medication I need. I have a good many other troublesome conditions. They are well controlled by implants, but the implants need to be refreshed from time to time-beta blockers, polyestrogens, most of all the implant that helps to ward off Alzheimer’s. I don’t suppose any of you have anything like that on you?”
General shaking of heads. Jimmy Lin, his mouth full of rice, offered, “I have allergy medicine. I don’t suppose that would help?”
Rosaleen shook her head, unsurprised. “Not at all. I doubt you’ll need it, either; there may be allergens around here, but not the ones you’ve needed it for. So,” she added, “I have some weeks at least, conceivably even some months, before the implants wear off, then- Well, let’s look on the bright side. By then we may all be dead anyway.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Pat
What Pat Adcock discovered-what millions of jailed men and women had discovered before her-was that prison reduced life to fundamentals. There were no decisions to make or crises to meet; the high spot of the day was eating.
Their larder was a mixed bag. The fruit juices were good, once you mixed them with water-she could have wished for an ice cube or two, but they were certainly drinkable without. There was even real wine. It wasn’t very good wine, but it came in little plastic cups, which could be rinsed out and used for other things. No beer, though, which annoyed Jimmy Lin, and the coffee was a disappointment. Not only was it at the same temperature as everything else they had, but it was the European kind of coffee, heavy on chicory and made from beans burned black. Only Martin and Rosaleen seemed to enjoy drinking it.