Wherein Pike is tapped

Excerpt:"Run that by me again?" Chris says."I need you to look after Joanna for a few hours," says Haprin. Her voice is different over the comm. It's been flattened, not stripped of depth so much as soil, cool and tightly packed."This is very short notice, Haprin," he says. "Yes, it is," Haprin answers, and there's a bold silence during which she does not mention that she was sent to the Riverside shipyard on equally short notice. Chris apologized at the time, but it was unavoidable that she go in his stead. How was Chris to know two weeks ago, when the walk-through was scheduled, that today he'd be too lazy?