Ron left the tiny medical complex, rubbing his face to try to smooth out the grimace that was gathering there; no one liked to see a worried doctor walking the halls. But he was worried. When one of your charges was missing his dose of psychotropic drugs to stay on balance, you ought to be.
When he’d first seen Leroy’s prescription, in the early days of the winter-over, he’d approached Keene to make sure the psychologist was aware of just what kind of challenge they might have on their hands. Keene had assured him he had the situation under control and gone back to reading his copy of Applied Psychology , leaving Ron frustrated but powerless. TransAnt had cleared the man to work, he was taking his medication, and Shackleton’s shrink said everything was okay. It had bothered him at the time, but after that early push, work and life on base had swept the issue away. Until now.
A knock at Leroy’s berth went unanswered and no one he asked seemed to have seen the electrician, not his neighbors in the dorm or Pete scrubbing down the breakfast grill or a weary Dave Boychuck climbing the Beer Can steps. Growing progressively more concerned, Ron struck gold when he spotted Biddi coming out of the e-systems lab carrying a bucket and a mop.
“Biddi!”
Biddi smiled. “Dr. Ayres?”
“Have you seen Leroy Buskins around?”
“No need to use his last name, Doctor, he’s the only Leroy on base,” she teased. “As a matter of fact, I haven’t. Not for some time, in fact. Why? Is there something wrong?”
Ron ran a hand across his forehead. “I need to find him and I’ve looked everywhere.”
“Is it possible you’ve simply missed him? Shackleton isn’t that big, but there are a bunch of nooks and crannies to this place.”
He mentally ticked off the places he’d looked and crew he’d asked so far. Discounting the locations Leroy simply wouldn’t bother to go, like the skiway or COBRA, then he’d damned near covered the entire station. It was always possible that they’d both been moving and missing each other, of course—he was on the second floor when Leroy was walking the first; he’d checked the galley when Leroy was in the library—but he’d been thorough and asked nearly a dozen people if they’d seen the man . . . and almost to a person, they hadn’t seen him in recent memory. Out of a crew of forty, that was the equivalent of sending out an APB. Unless he’d missed the obvious.
“Biddi,” he began slowly, “you’ve got keys to the berths, don’t you?”
“I do. Though Leroy specifically asked me not to clean his room. I shudder to think what state it’s in.” She cocked an eyebrow. “He’s not in any trouble, is he?”
“No, not like that. He’s simply due for a checkup and it’s strange he hasn’t shown up for it. And no one’s seen him around. You don’t think . . .” His voice trailed off as he thought about what he was considering.
“Yes?”
Ron blushed. “Do you think you could perhaps give me a peek into his room? If he’s sleeping soundly, I’d hate to pound on his door. But if he is in there, it would put my mind at ease. What do you say?”
She made a motion like she was clutching an imaginary necklace of pearls. “Why, Dr. Ayres, are you asking me to break into a fellow crew member’s private sleeping quarters?”
He gave her a weak grin. “Something like that, yes. It’s for his own good.”
“Then we’d better hurry before anyone catches us.”
Biddi pushed the mop and bucket into a niche and they hustled to the E1 berth. When they got to Leroy’s room, Ron rapped lightly on the door as a final courtesy to roust the man if he were in there, then motioned for Biddi to unlock the door. Flipping through her keys, she located the master and had the door open in a few seconds. She stepped back and presented the door with a flourish.
He paused for a moment, staring at the knob. For the people who worked in Antarctica, privacy was cherished above almost everything else. Living cheek-by-jowl with the same people for nine months meant that absolutely nothing replaced a sense of ownership over the space that was your berth. Breaking into someone’s room was a violation on a level that was hard to match short of physically attacking someone.
Weighted against that was everything he believed in as a physician, both in what he considered his medical obligations, but also the social ones. He was responsible for the crew’s well-being, dammit, whether that was a broken leg or a serious mental issue. There’d only been one time he hadn’t listened to his inner voice and followed up on a patient. The blank, sad stares of the other VA doctors. The glancing, sliding gaze of the nurses. No one had wanted to tell him. Where is Gary? Where is my son? He should be getting treatment, he should be getting help, goddammit. He doesn’t need an IV drip full of poison, he needs his father. Yes, I took him off of that shit. You’d turn him into a vegetable instead of talking to a man. Where is Gary?
Jaw muscles worked at the memory. You could only be told so many times that something wasn’t your fault before you became convinced that it was.