The Winter Over(50)

Throughout his vigil, the wind was constant, thrashing against the walls of the station then subsiding to a low hiss. Only once did it build into such a towering wave that it seemed to actually shake the building. The few people left in the galley glanced up, then went back to their conversations, relegating the wind to nothing more than background noise.

But Leroy, rigid in his seat, listened to the keening wind with wide eyes. When it finally tapered off, he let out a long, low groan, then rose unsteadily to his feet. He stumbled over to the buffet and grabbed handfuls of crackers and dry goods before tottering out of the galley. He proceeded directly to his berth, where he threw the food in a sack, gathered a few essential things, then headed to the Beer Can and followed the stairs down, deep into the dark.





PART IV

JUNE





CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR


Ron Ayres frowned at his laptop. According to his records, Leroy Buskins hadn’t refilled his bimonthly prescriptions in more than three weeks.

What was he on, again? Ron clicked through several screens, having trouble even remembering much about the man. Leroy was one of those quiet, self-effacing types who, despite his size, had seemed to be perpetually in a corner, even if he was sitting in the middle of a room.

Oh, hell. That’s right . Amoxapine and iloperidone. How’d he forgotten that ? His frown deepened and he flicked through several more screens. The automatic e-mail alert he should’ve received when Leroy was three days delinquent had been turned off.

Without taking his eyes from his laptop, he called to the front room. “Beth?”

Beth Mu?ez, the station’s nurse, poked her head around the corner, eyebrows raised.

Ron tapped his screen with a fingernail. “You haven’t been making any changes in the pharma software, have you?”

“No, of course not. Why?”

“Leroy Buskins is way overdue for a pickup, but his alert’s been toggled off.”

She came fully into the room to look over his shoulder. “Wasn’t me. Now that I think of it, though, it has been a while since he’s come in. What’s he taking again?”

Ron pointed at the screen. “Something he shouldn’t be missing.”

She grunted. “Not good.”

“Definitely suboptimal.” He pushed his chair back. “Hold down the fort for me, will you? I’m going to check up on him.”

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?”