"Out with it, then. Found another problem with master chiefs?"

Barin's jaw almost dropped. "As a matter of fact, sir, possibly yes. But that's not my main concern."

"Which is?"

Best get it out quickly, before he was tempted to soften it. "Sir, an officer from this ship has accessed records which she has no legitimate interest in, and may have given false information about someone else."

"Hmm . . . that's a serious charge about an indefinite-I presume you have a name for each of these?"

"Yes, sir." Barin took a deep breath. "Lieutenant Ferradi talked a master chief named Pell-who incidentally is known to his juniors to be forgetting things this past year-into accessing Lieutenant Suiza's legal records from the court-martial."

"It didn't occur to you that she might have had orders to do so? She is on Admiral Hornan's staff for the present . . ."

"No, sir. If she'd had orders, she'd have gone through channels, not Chief Pell."

"And you also accuse her of giving false information about Lieutenant Suiza? What kind of false information?"

"She's said a lot of things about what Es-what Lieutenant Suiza was like in the Academy. Now I was too far behind to have witnessed any of this directly, but other people who were there don't have the same account at all."

Dockery pursed his lips. "I know that Lieutenant Ferradi's been interested in you, Ensign-it's been fairly obvious. Scuttlebutt had it that you were . . . 'falling under her spell,' I believe, is the term I heard used most. Are you sure this isn't just a lovers' quarrel you're trying to make official business? Because if so, you're about to be in more trouble than you were in over Zuckerman."

"No, sir, it is not a lover's quarrel. I have no interest in Lieutenant Ferradi and never did."

"Mm. The other rumor was that you had been in love with Esmay Suiza-" Barin felt his face getting hot; the exec nodded. "And so the other possibility I see is that you're accusing Lieutenant Ferradi of unprofessional behavior toward another officer because you're still besotted with Suiza and can't stand to hear her criticized."

"Sir, I became . . . very fond of Lieutenant Suiza when we were both on Koskiusko. I think she's a fine officer. We quarrelled at Copper Mountain, over what she'd said to Brun Meager"-and to him, though he wasn't going to mention that at the moment-"and I haven't seen her since. Whether I have a bad case of hero worship, which is what Lieutenant Ferradi's told me, or a friendship, or-or something else, doesn't really matter. What does, is whether the stories Ferradi's spreading about her are true."

"If they were true, what would you think?"

Barin felt a pain in his chest squeezing out hope. "Then, sir-I would have to change my opinion."

"Barin, I'm going to tell you something, in confidence, because right now you need to know it.

Casea Ferradi has been trouble for every commander she's had-it's why she's at the back of her class's promotion list-but she's never quite managed to get herself thrown out. If Lieutenant Suiza hadn't had that quarrel with Sera Meager, if Lord Thornbuckle hadn't fastened on her as the scapegoat in this mess, no one would be paying the slightest attention to Ferradi's accusations.

Now they are-and if she's so far overreached herself as to break regulations concerning legal paperwork, we've got her at last. Tell me, do you know if Koutsoudas is still running scan on your cousin's ship?"

"I think so, sir." Where was this leading?

"Good. We're going to need really good scan to catch her in the act, because she's no dummy. And by the way, good job on finding Pell. We've found two others here . . . though we haven't figured out what the problem is yet."

A half hour later, Barin was on his way to the berth of the Navarino, his cousin Heris's ship.

Heris was at home to family members-he had the distinct feeling that if he'd been an ensign named, perhaps, Livadhi or Hornan, he might have cooled his heels for an hour before getting in to see her.

"You want my scan techs sucking for you? What's wrong with yours? Escovar's always been able to pick good people."

Dockery had left it to him how much to tell, but this was family. Barin made it as short as he could, emphasizing that he had thought at first it was Heris's record Ferradi was after, in order to help Hornan wrest command of the task force from Admiral Serrano.

"Are you involved?" The emphasis clearly meant culpable as well.

"No, and yes," Barin said. "Lieutenant Ferradi also happens to see me as her ticket to the Serrano dynasty."

"Does she now?" Heris looked suddenly very dangerous indeed, as if a sleeping falcon had waked, and aimed its deadly gaze at a target. "And what do you think she's done, that you need Koutsoudas to discover?"

"Gone hunting in supposedly secure legal files, and possibly altered data, sir." That last was his own guess; Dockery hadn't been impressed by it, but he was sure that if Ferradi would lie verbally, she would not be above fudging the records. Why else risk tinkering with those files at all?

"Ah. Well . . . tell you what. You can have a couple of hours of Koutsoudas' time-but I get the whole story afterwards."

"Yes, sir."

"And your captain owes me dinner."

Now how was he going to explain that one? He returned thoughtfully to Gyrfalcon's berth, and reported his success to Dockery. "Koutsoudas will be along after lunch, sir," he said at last.

"Good. In the meantime, I want you to go destroy property and get yourself chewed out."

"Sir?"

"Go find Lieutenant Ferradi-which shouldn't be hard, as you say she's been adherent-and figure out some way to damage her datawand. I want her to have to initialize another. I don't care how you do it, as long as you don't damage the lieutenant-but I will mention that just dropping one in an alcoholic beverage is not sufficient. On the other hand, the application of sufficient point pressure is."

Barin set out on this mission with the uneasy feeling that Dockery's past might be more interesting than he had thought. When-and why-had Dockery discovered that dropping a datawand in alcohol wouldn't damage it?

Ferradi found him just as he was turning into the junior officers' mess and recreation area.

"Lunch, Ensign?" she asked brightly.

"Oh-yes. Excuse me, Lieutenant-" He made a show of patting his pockets. "Drat!"

"What?"

"I was supposed to check on something for Commander Dockery, and then Major Carmody asked me something else, and-I forgot my datawand. It's back aboard. I'll have to go back-unless I could borrow yours, sir?"

"You should carry it with you all the time," Ferradi said, pulling out hers. "What did Dockery want?"

"Spares delivery schedule," Barin said promptly. "He says they've shorted on pre-dets the last four times. You probably know all about it."

"Oh-yeah. Everyone's complaining." She handed over the wand, and Barin looked around. The nearest high-speed dataport was out in the corridor.

"I'll just be moment," he said. "I heard they have Lassaferan snailfish chowder today-" Sure enough, she went on to the serving tables. Snailfish chowder was a rare treat.

Barin found the high-speed port and jammed the datawand in. Nothing happened; it lit up normally.

He pulled it back out, looked around, and shoved it in as hard as he could. Its telltales came up normal again. He pulled it out and looked at the tip. Someone had designed it to withstand normal carelessness . . . and he realized that a high-speed dataport probably had internal cushions to protect the port side of the contact as well. Fine. Now what? She'd be looking for him any moment.

A thought occurred. He went back into the lounge, waved to Lieutenant Ferradi, who had found a seat at a small table facing the entrance, and pointed at the head, then strode quickly in that direction, as if in urgent need.

Heads were full of hard surfaces; Barin tried one after another, between flushes, until he'd produced a crumple at the datawand's tip by catching it between the door and its jamb, and then squashing it with the door as a lever. He'd had no idea datawands were that tough.

"Sorry, sir," he said to Lieutenant Ferradi, as he seated himself and handed her the wand. "Some kind of bug, I expect."

She had tucked it away without looking at it. "So-you're not having chowder?"