Joel slumped back behind the desk as his first officer pivoted, left. He tried a swallow from the flagon; fumbled at his tunic pocket for the small frame, extracted it; looked at it again. Then put it back a second time.
Carruthers sat down opposite him.
"You going to talk to me, Nicholas, or pass out before you get the chance?"
"All right, Sam." Joel got up, put the Bond back in its cabinet; emptied the flagon and put it in too. "I get your point. Only you listen. The crew of that ship was deliberately murdered. Cold-bloodedly murdered, and it isn't going to happen to us."
"I see." The ship's surgeon eyed the tips of his fingernails, then slowly looked up into Joel's red, swollen face. "Naturally, there wouldn't be any bodies around to prove your theory, would there, Skipper? And no signs of struggle. We didn't see any. Of course, their guns were racked up pretty neatly—But it's all there in the report—" he waved a slender hand toward a roll of tape on the desk.
"Never mind your sarcastic technicalities! They were—"
"Nicholas, sit down. And listen."
"All right. But I don't get your point! And I don't want any of your double-talk! The trouble with you guys—"
"First of all, Nicholas, you know that crew wasn't murdered or anything of the kind. And you know, and Dobermann realizes that you know he knows, that K'hall-i-k'hall was lying in his teeth. And K'hall-i-k'hall knows we know it."
Joel lowered his eyes. "All right, Sam," he said. No, there hadn't been any use in trying to drum up a bunch of tripe—no use in trying to fool Sam. He had known that from the start. But sometimes—sometimes, even when a man knew he was fooling himself, he had to give it a try, just to see— "They went native, didn't they, Sam?" he said.