had a bag with me."

"Talk to doctor in morning," he said, gesturing with the hypo, fitting it with a
needle-and-dosage cartridge and popping the sterile wrap off with a thumbswitch.
"Now, for sleepink." He advanced on me.

I'd been telling myself that this was a chance to rest, to relax and gather my
wits. Soon enough, I'd sort things out with the doctors and I'd be on my way.
I'd argue my way out of it. But here came Boris Badinoff with his magic needle,
and all reason fled. I scrambled back over the bed and pressed against the
window.

"It's barely three," I said, guessing at the time in the absence of my comm.
"I'm not tired. I'll go to sleep when I am."

"For sleepink," he repeated, in a more soothing tone.

"No, that's all right. I'm tired enough. Long night last night. I'll just lie
down and nap now, all right? No need for needles, OK?"

He grabbed my wrist. I tried to tug it out of his grasp, to squirm away. There's
a lot of good, old-fashioned dirty fighting in Tai Chi -- eye-gouging, groin
punches, hold-breaks and come-alongs -- and they all fled me. I thrashed like a
fish on a line as he ran the hypo over the crook of my elbow until the
vein-sensing LED glowed white. He jabbed down with it and I felt a prick. For a
second, I thought that it hadn't taken effect -- I've done enough chemical sleep
in my years with the Tribe that I've developed quite a tolerance for most
varieties -- but then I felt that unmistakable heaviness in my eyelids, the
melatonin crash that signalled the onslaught of merciless rest. I collapsed into
bed.

I spent the next day in a drugged stupor. I've become quite accustomed to
functioning in a stupor over the years, but this was different. No caffeine, for
starters. They fed me and I had a meeting with a nice doctor who ran it down for
me. I was here for observation pending a competency hearing in a week. I had
seven days to prove that I wasn't a danger to myself or others, and if I could,
the judge would let me go.

"It's like I'm a drug addict, huh?" I said to the doctor, who was used to non
sequiturs.

"Sure, sure it is." He shifted in the hard chair opposite my bed, getting ready
to go.

"No, really, I'm not just running my mouth. It's like this: *I* don't think I
have a problem here. I think that my way of conducting my life is perfectly
harmless. Like a speedfreak who thinks that she's just having a great time,
being ultraproductive and coming out ahead of the game. But