s.

Mardikian rolled in the air like a drowned man.

Swiftly, then, Coffin towed him down the corridor, to the pharmacy room.
He unlocked the alcohol barrel, tapped a hypo, diluted it with enough
water, and injected. Lucky the fleet didn't carry a real psychiatrist;
if you broke, you went into deepsleep and weren't revived till you got
home again to the clinics.

Coffin dragged the boy to a point near the air lock. Then he shouted.
Hallmyer came from the bridge. "He started raving and attacked me,"
panted the captain. "I had to knock him out."

Mardikian was revived for a check-up, but since he only mumbled
incoherently, he was given a sedative. Two men began processing him for
the vat. Coffin said he would make sure that the Com officer hadn't
damaged any equipment. He went back to the shack.

* * * * *

Teresa Zeleny met him. She did not speak, but led him to her room again.

"Well," he said, strangling on it, "so we're continuing to Rustum, by
unanimous vote. Aren't you happy?"

"I was," she said quietly, "till now, when I see that you aren't. I
hardly think you're worried about legal trouble on Earth; you have
authority to ignore orders if the situation warrants. So what is the
matter?"

He stared beyond her. "I shouldn't have come here at all," he said. "But
I had to talk with someone, and only you might understand. Will you bear
with me a few minutes? I won't bother you again."

"Not till Rustum." Her smile was a gesture of compassion. "And it's no
bother." After waiting a bit: "What did you want to say?"

He told her, in short savage words.

She grew a little pale. "The kid was actually dead drunk, and they
didn't know it when they processed him?" she said. "That's a grave risk.
He might not live."

"I know," said Coffin, and covered his eyes.

Her hand fell on his shoulder. "I suppose you've done the only possible
thing," she said with much gentleness. "Or, if there was a better way,
you didn't have time to think of it."

He said through his fingers, while his head turned away from her: "If
you don't tell on me, and I know you won't, then you're violating your
own principles, too: total information, free discussion and decision.
Aren't you?"

She sighed. "I imagine so. But don't all principles have their limits?
How libertarian, or kind ... how human can you be, out here?"

"I shouldn't have told you."

"I'm glad you did."

Then, briskly, as if she, too, fl