“And let me know if you hear from your friend,” Abumwe said. “I don’t know what Sub-Ambassador Ting is up to, either. It’s making me uncomfortable. But I have a worry that somehow that wildcat colony on Wantji is involved. If it is, I want to know how before anyone else.”

*   *   *

“You want me to do what?” asked Doctor Tomek. They had taken the entire bodies of the Ivanoviches after all, and both of them were now spread out on examination tables. Doctor Tomek was too much of a professional to register displeasure at the sight and smell of the decayed bodies, but she was not notably pleased with Lieutenant Wilson for bringing them into her medical bay unannounced.

“Scan their brains,” Wilson said. “I’m looking for something.”

“What are you looking for?” Tomek asked.

“I’ll tell you if I find it,” Wilson said.

“Sorry, I don’t work that way,” Tomek said. She glanced over to Lieutenant Lee, who had remained after her soldiers had hauled the Ivanoviches into the medical bay. “Who is this guy?” she asked, pointing at Wilson.

“He’s temporarily replacing Mitchusson,” Lee said. “We’re borrowing him from a diplomatic mission. And there’s something else about him.”

“What?” Tomek asked.

Lee motioned with her head to Wilson, who took that as his cue.

“I’ve got top-level security clearance that allows me to order anyone on the ship to do what I want them to do,” Wilson said, to Tomek. “It’s left over from my last mission. They didn’t get around to revoking it from me.”

“I’ve already complained to Captain Augustyn about it,” Lee said. “He agrees it’s a crock of shit but also that there’s nothing we can do about it right now. He’ll send a complaint with the next skip drone. Until then, you’ve got to do what he tells you.”

“It’s still my medical bay,” Tomek said.

“Which is why I’m asking you to do the scan,” Wilson said, and nodded at the body scanner tucked into a cubbyhole in the back of the medical bay. “I’ve serviced those, and have trained on them. I could do the scan myself. But you’d do it better. I’m not trying to shut you out, Doctor. But if what I’m looking for isn’t actually there, then it’s best for everyone if my paranoid delusions are kept to myself.”

“And if it is there?” Tomek asked.

“Then things begin to get really complicated,” Wilson said. “So let’s hope we don’t find it.”

Tomek glanced back over to Lee, who shrugged. Wilson caught the substance of the shrug. Humor this idiot, it said. We’ll be rid of him soon enough. Well, that worked for him.