er on a tray.
Also, the man tossed him half a pack of cigarettes when Lance sought to
bum just one. But when the pilot started pitching questions back, the
trusty looked scared and unhappy and quickly limped away.

The night dragged on, as unending seemingly as one of Luna's two-week
darkouts. Lance smoked, paced the cell from wall to wall, occasionally
plopped down on his cot and went over everything that had happened,
trying to find some pattern to it.

But there was no pattern.

Next morning, he splashed up and shaved beard away from a tired,
red-eyed face in the mirror. Then, he waited. No one came.

Finally, at noon a new officer checked in for duty at the guardhouse.
Lance recognized him as a young ordinance captain he'd met before. He
called out to the man. The officer, striding down the hallway, wheeled
at the sound of his name and came back to the cell. His eyes bugged
slightly, when he saw Lance: "Holy smoke, major! What've they got you in
for?"

"Search me." Lance was overjoyed to find someone, at last, who didn't
dummy up. "I thought maybe you might have a notion."

"I just came on duty. But if there's a charge sheet lying around, I
might dig up something from it."

"Would you try?"

The captain held up two fingers and grinned. "No sweat."

* * * * *

Lance waited some more.

The captain did not come back, however, until several hours later. After
Lance's evening meal, in fact. His face bore a puzzled frown.

Lance stood at his cell door, gripping the bars. "Well?"

"I checked. Seems the brass are holding you for observation until some
headshrinker gets in from HQ. A specialist in hyperspace medicine."

"Then, how come I'm not in a regular hospital? Why the jailhouse?"

"Beats me, major. I can tell you this, though. You're not the first
hype-pilot who's been dragged in here screaming."

"But I wasn't screaming! I was perfectly calm and collected, when I
climbed down out of my ship. All I did was ask about Carolyn."

"About who?"

"Carolyn Sagen. Old Hard-Head's daughter." Lance felt a sinking feeling.
He stopped, cocked a wary eye at the other officer. "Don't look at me
that way, man."

The captain had been staring hard at Lance. Now, he began shaking his
head back and forth, slowly and sadly.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Lance asked.

"It means Colonel Sagen doesn't have a daughter."

Lance snorted. "Don't tell me that. I'm engaged to her."

"