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His Paymaster-Lieutenant was waiting. The fiscal officer was holding a message form; Brisby recognized it. The night before, after hours of dividing Baslim's report into phrases, then recoding it to be sent by split routes, he had realized that there was one more chore before he could sleep: arrange for identification search on Colonel Baslim's adopted son. Brisby had no confidence that a waif picked up on Jubbul could be traced in the vital records of the Hegemony -- but if the Old Man sent for a bucket of space, that was what he wanted and no excuses. Toward Baslim, dead or not. Colonel Brisby maintained the attitudes of a junior officer. So he had written a dispatch and left word with the duty officer to have Thorby finger-printed and the prints coded at reveille. Then he could sleep.
Brisby looked at the message. "Hasn't this gone out?" he demanded.
"The photo lab is coding the prints now, Skipper. But the Comm Office brought it to me for a charge, since it is for service outside the ship."
"Well, assign it. Do I have to be bothered with every routine matter?"
The Paymaster decided that the Old Man had been missing sleep again. "Bad news, Skipper."
"Okay, spill it."
"I don't know of a charge to cover it I doubt if there is an appropriation to fit even if we could figure out a likely-sounding charge."
"I don't care what charge. Pick one and get that message moving
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