“Begging the fleet captain’s indulgence.” She didn’t sound at all as though she cared whether I’d give it or not. Under the table, she clenched her gloved hands into fists. “Fleet Captain. Sir. You’ve removed some medications from Medical.”

“I have.”

That stopped her momentum, briefly. She had, it seemed, expected a denial. “No one else could have done it. Ship insisted they’d never left inventory, and I’ve looked at the logs, at the recordings themselves, I’ve been all through them, and there’s no record of anyone taking them. There’s nobody else on board who could hide that from me.”

I feared that was no longer true. But I didn’t say that. “Lieutenant Tisarwat came to you yesterday at the end of her shift and asked you for help with some minor nausea and anxiety.” Two days ago, some hours after we’d gated, Lieutenant Tisarwat had begun to feel stressed. Slightly sick. Had found herself unable to eat much of her supper that evening. Her Bos had noticed, of course with concern—the problem with most seventeen-year-olds was feeding them enough, not tempting them to eat. They had decided, among themselves, that she was homesick. And distressed by my obvious anger at her presence. “Are you worried for her health?”

Medic nearly started up out of her seat in indignation. “That’s not the point!” Recollected whom she was speaking to. “Sir.” Swallowed, waited, but I said nothing. “She’s nervous. She reads as under some emotional stress. Perfectly understandable. Perfectly normal for a baby lieutenant on her first assignment.” Realized, as she was speaking, that I probably had extensive experience of what was normal for very young lieutenants on their first assignments. Regretted speaking, regretted, momentarily, coming here to confront, to accuse me. Just for an instant.

“Perfectly normal under the circumstances,” I agreed, but I meant something different.

“And I couldn’t help her because you’d taken every single med I might have given her.”

“Yes,” I acknowledged. “I had. Was there anything in her system when she arrived?” I already knew what the answer would be, but I asked anyway.

Medic blinked, surprised by my question, but only for an instant. “She did look as though maybe she’d taken something, when she came to Medical from the shuttle. But there was nothing when I scanned her. I think she was just tired.” A tiny shift in her posture, a change in the emotions I read coming from her, suggested she was considering, now, the significance of my question, the odd, small mismatch of how Lieutenant Tisarwat had looked, to her professional eye, and what the readings had said.

“Any recommendations or orders to dispense medication, in her file?”