“I don’t understand why you’re targeting me,” she said to Sagara, unwilling to let the topic go. “If you think even the patient sessions are dangerous, then why aren’t you taking away Boone’s gun?”

“He doesn’t have the authority to do that,” Boone growled, speaking up for the first time.

“I’m not targeting anyone,” Sagara added, ignoring him. “You just happen to be the ship’s primary psychologist now, so you’re the one affected by the decision. I wonder why you take it so personally.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“No.”

Boone broke in: “He can’t take my gun away. Right?”

Park whirled on him. What a child, she was thinking, furiously. He was like a kid who couldn’t wait for the adults to stop talking before butting in with some ridiculous non sequitur. Wick, hesitating as Boone stared at him, answered: “I don’t think that’s important right now.”

Boone in turn whirled on Sagara, who merely looked impatient. “That’s bullshit! You can’t do that!”

“I haven’t,” Sagara drawled. “In case you hadn’t noticed.”

“But ISF says you could? If you wanted to?”

Sagara gave him a cool-eyed stare. “If I determined you were a threat to the ship.”

He is, Park thought emphatically—but even her anger wasn’t hot enough to propel her into the middle of this particular power struggle. Boone, looking like he wanted to spit, turned and stormed out of the room.

“You see,” Park said, turning back to Sagara and Wick. “You see he’s volatile. Unstable. He should have never been given something like an EL gun in the first place.”

“I didn’t give it to him,” Wick said, raising his eyebrows.

“Neither did I,” Sagara said.

“But you can take it away from him.”

The security officer gazed at her inscrutably. Even in the bright room, his dark hair and black uniform made him look like some kind of living shadow; like a lean and stalking predator, circling even when he didn’t move. “I’m in the process of reviewing the current protocols,” he said. “But Boone wasn’t necessarily out of order in doing what he did. He’s authorized to use his gun in compliance with his directives.”

“But what are his directives?” Park felt an unprofessional urge to raise her voice; the fierce golden glow of the solarium was starting to give her a headache. “His duties state that he’s—what, allowed to shoot anybody on the ship if he wants to?”

“Now, Park,” Wick said, using a soothing, patronizing kind of tone that spiked her blood pressure.

“I don’t know if his duties are any of your business,” Sagara finished, without sympathy.