They weren't in the bedroom. She checked the bathroom. The only evidence of the morning's violence was several shattered tiles at eye level.

Returning to the bedroom, she stood for a few seconds before the holo- phone's clustered lens array, just outside the sensor field. She wanted to step into the field, activating the device, and call Evans.

She almost did just that, but at the last instant changed her mind. Evans wouldn't have anything yet; he'd barely had enough time to begin his investigation. Besides, he had promised he would call if he uncovered anything.

If he investigated her story at all.

Meanwhile, shouldn't she begin packing?

No. The floater to Luna City wouldn't leave Fleet Base until zero-six-hundred hours tomorrow morning. She would get up early, perhaps four or four-thirty, and pack then. That should give her plenty of time.

Then what should she be doing? She knew she'd have to remain in her quarters if she wanted to receive Evans' call.

Stepping to the desk, she sat and opened its drawer. She pulled out her chip carrying case-six inches by three inches by one half inch thick-and placed it on the desk top. Thumbing the case open, she scanned the neat array of a dozen garnet chips filed inside. Each chip measured less than half an inch on the side and a thirty-second inch thick, and each represented an entire book. Printed across their surfaces in nearly microscopic script were the names of the books they contained.

Most held history texts, a passion Susan had inherited from her father. Some contained biographies, while others were Fleet technical manuals. Only two chips were programmed with fiction.

She took her LIN/C from the pouch at her waist and positioned it in the center of the desk beside the carrying case, then removed a chip from the case. It was a fiction she had started on the shuttle up from Earth. She placed it atop the appropriate contact spot on the LIN/C and felt it adhere.