Craythorne paused. O’Mara remained silent. “Don’t worry, Lieutenant,” the major went on. “The help in question is Earth-human, a retired Monitor Corps officer who volunteered himself for the position. He’s totally unlike you because he’s old, frail, and gentle, I’m told, except during philosophical arguments. He’ll be arriving two weeks from now.”
“I’ll be looking forward to meeting him then,” said O’Mara with an obvious lack of enthusiasm.
Craythorne shook his head. “You won’t be meeting him then, because, Lieutenant, you won’t be here.”
O’Mara stared hard at the major not speaking. He had thought that he was improving, losing some of the rough edges to his manner when dealing with people, but apparently he was still guilty of wearing his heavy boots and an old, frail, gentle ex-Monitor Corps officer was replacing him. Craythorne returned his stare without dropping his eyes, plainly reading the bitter disappointment on O’Mara’s face; then he shook his head again.
“Don’t jump to conclusions, Lieutenant,” he said. “You’ve worked very hard during these past two years with the department, but you’re beginning to show signs of stress. I don’t know what, precisely, is troubling your mind, and I know you would never admit to any weakness much less tell your superior officer if there was anything bothering you, but something most definitely is. This is the best opportunity you’ll have for a while to get away from this place, so I want you to relax, rest, or at least do something strenuously different for a while, and sort things out for yourself. You have a lot of leave owing. Take it.”
O’Mara had not realized that he was holding his breath until it came out in a long sigh of relief. He said, “Thank you, sir. But I’ve no family or planet-side friends. There’s nowhere I want to go and nothing else I want to do.”
The major frowned. “Lieutenant,” he said, “that answer falls into the grey area between a chronic lack of imagination and manic dedication to duty. As a psychologist I am prescribing a six-week change of scene, and as your superior officer I am making it an order. Go anywhere you like, but go.”
O’Mara spent the rest of the day tidying up clerical loose ends, speaking to the transport officer about the availability of outgoing flights, and trying to make up his mind where he wanted to go. But he kept thinking back to Neenil and the Euril’s last, concerned words to him.
“You must search for and find this being” it had said. “Speak your mind to it.”
CHAPTER 17
He had known, although he had never really expected to make use of the knowledge, that since he was a Monitor Corps officer on space service no commercial vessel (provided it had a species-suitable berth free and it was going in the right direction) could refuse to take him as a passenger. There was no restriction regarding destinations or the number of ship transfers he could make, but if he wanted to go fast and far it was best to stick to the busy commercial routes serving the long-established star-traveling cultures of Traltha, Orligia, Kelgia, and Earth. He was free to visit a more out-of-the-way planet or colony world if he wished, but that could mean spending a large proportion of his leave waiting for a suitable connection.
The Monitor Corps supply vessel Trosshannon plied the three-cornered route between Nidia, Melf, and Sector General. As the initial letter of its name implied, it had been built on the heavy-gravity world of Traltha, where they built starships that were renowned throughout the Federation for their structural strength and dependability. It was said that on Traltha even the earthmoving machinery was put together by watchmakers. Trosshannon listed accommodation with environmental support for five physiological classifications: Tralthan FGLIs, Melfan ELNTs, Hudlar FROBs, Kelgian DBLFs, and DBDGs like or unlike himself who were expected to use the same cabin type even though it was a tight squeeze for Orligians and the furniture was on the large size for Nidians, who considered themselves tall if they made it to more than a meter.
He met the eight-man, Earth-human crew, who were all Monitor Corps personnel, only at mealtimes. They were friendly enough but they made it clear that they were very busy and, other than at meals, they preferred him not to get underfoot. O’Mara spent most of that four-day trip in his quarters, which was exactly what he wanted to do. But Craythorne had been right about him being tired. He was surprised at how much of the time he spent sleeping.