Ensign?"

"No, sir."

"Was he sedated by security?"

"No, sir."

"You came up here with someone you're accusing of assault, without sedating him or putting him

under guard?"

"Sir, he'd calmed down. He wasn't-"

Dockery touched one of the com panels on the bulkhead. "XO to med, stat response team to my

location." He turned back to Barin. "Ensign, the Chief is clearly not himself. He needs medical

evaluation prior to anything else."

"I feel fine, Commander," Zuckerman said. Indeed, he looked like the model of a master chief. "I'm sorry to have upset the ensign; I'm not sure why . . ."

"Just routine, Chief," Dockery said. "Just a checkup, make sure you aren't coming down with something."

A team of medics arrived, carrying crash kits. "Commander?"

"Chief Zuckerman's had a little spell of confusion this morning. Why don't you take him down to sickbay and check him out. He might need a little something to calm him."

"There's nothing wrong with me," Zuckerman protested. Barin noticed his neck flushing again. "I'm . . . sorry, Admiral!" He stared at Barin and saluted stiffly. Barin felt a coldness settle into his belly; he returned the salute, just to get Zuckerman to relax. "Whatever you say, Admiral,"

Zuckerman said, though no one had said anything in the surprise of seeing a master chief confuse a grass-green ensign with an admiral.

"Just a checkup," Barin said, afraid to let his gaze wander to see how Commander Dockery was taking this. Zuckerman was staring at him with an expression halfway between fear and awe. "It'll be fine, Chief," he said, putting what he could of the Serrano voice in it. Zuckerman relaxed again.

"By your leave, sir."

"Go along, then," Barin said. The medics led Zuckerman off, with the obvious care of professionals ready to leap to action.

"Well, Ensign," Commander Dockery said. "You've made a right mess of things, haven't you?"

Barin knew better than to protest that it wasn't his fault. "I know I did something wrong,

Commander, but I'm not sure what I should have done."

"Come along, and I'll tell you as we go. Down on Troop Deck, wasn't it?" Dockery strode off,

leaving Barin to follow. Over his shoulder, he asked, "And just how much of Zuckerman's problem did you know about?"

"Me, sir? Not much . . . another NCO had said something, but he said it had been checked by

another officer and nothing was found."

"Did you look for anything? Or did you just ignore it?"

"I looked, sir, but I didn't know what to look for. The times I talked to him, Chief Zuckerman

seemed fine to me. Well, there was once . . . but it didn't seem that important."

"And you didn't see fit to pass on what this other NCO told you?"

Barin began to see the shape of his sin looming ahead. "Sir, I wanted to have something definite

before bothering you."

Dockery grunted. "I'm just as unhappy to be bothered with trifles as anyone else, Ensign, but I'm

even more unhappy to be bothered with a large problem that someone let get big because he didn't know what to do about it."

"I should have told you right away, sir."

"Yes. And if I'd chewed on you for bringing me vague unsubstantiated reports, well-that's what

ensigns are for. To provide jaw exercise for grumpy executive officers. If you'd told me, or this other mysterious NCO had told me-and who was that, by the way?"

"Petty-light Harcourt, sir."

"I thought Harcourt had better sense. Who'd he tell before?"

"Uh . . . a Major Surtsey, who was transferred out. He said they'd done a med check, and found nothing."

"I remember . . . Pete told me about that before he left, but said he hadn't found anything definite. I said I'd keep an eye out . . . thinking my officers would have the good sense to pass on anything they heard . . ."

"Sorry, sir," Barin said.

"Well. All you youngsters make mistakes, but mistakes have consequences. In this case, if I'm not mistaken, the ruin of a good man's career."

They were on Troop Deck now, and Dockery led the way to the right passage and compartment as if he

never needed to stop and think. Barin supposed he didn't.

The security team had cordoned off the passage, and as Dockery arrived so did a forensics team.

"Commander . . . all right to go on and start collecting evidence?"

"If it's been scanned. Come on, Ensign, I want to show you how to do this."

If Barin had not been so aware of his failings, it would have been a fascinating hour. But it was

followed quickly by a less pleasant time in Dockery's office.

"Remember-the chewing out you get for bothering me with a nonproblem problem will never be as big as the one you get for not bothering me with a real problem."

"Yes, sir."

"Unless Zuckerman turns out to have an unsuspected medical problem-and anything big enough to excuse this would probably get him a medical out-he's in big trouble."

Something tickled a corner of Barin's mind. Medical problem? He cleared his throat. "Sir-?"

"Yes?"

"I-something I just remembered, sir, about another senior NCO back at Copper Mountain."

"Relevant to this?"

"It might be, sir. But it's not something I observed myself, it's just that when you said medical

problem . . ."

"Go on, Ensign."

Barin related the story of the master chief whose crew was covering up for some strange memory

lapses as succinctly as possible. "And, sir, back on Koskiusko, I remember being told that the master chief in inventory had had a breakdown after the battle . . . everyone was surprised, because he'd been in combat before, and he wasn't directly involved anyway."

"And . . . you're wondering what affected three master chiefs? Do you have any idea how many master chiefs there are in the whole Regular Space Service?"

"No, sir," Barin said miserably. So this one had been a stupid idea, too.

"Of course, by the time they're master chiefs, most of the problem cases have been eliminated,"

Dockery said. "But it is odd. I'll tell the medics and see if anyone has any ideas."

But his sins had earned him yet another chewing out, this time at the captain's hands.

"Ensign, Commander Dockery has had his chance at your backside-now it's my turn. But first, let's see if you understand what you did wrong-or rather, didn't do right."