I'm at sea on a military ship - I'm the captain and I'm nearly in charge but there's this other officer (played by William Hurt) who's capable of interfering with my plans, and a woman officer who's not actually a shipboard officer but something like an investigator or a shrink and she seems to have it in for me. Something's been going wrong on the ship and it's like a mystery-story. Wm. Hurt seems to be well-liked and the crew (there are women among them) like to do what he says. They don't precisely ignore me but I could ask for better cooperation. Actually I like him too but this is awkward.
Wm. is trying to repair something in a sort of hole in a wall of electronic equipment; he's had to like jam his whole body inside this small opening to check things out, and there are some crewmen helping him. There's a large Styrofoam cup with something nasty in it (that somehow I acquire) and when I ask about what to do with it I get a snotty reply [from whom?], so I throw it on the floor. Actually somebody jostled me and some spilled first, which startled me and I dropped it. Now I'm really frustrated. I look around for someone to clean it up. There are some crew sitting at some small tables right here around the corner as though we've just been having a tea or something, and some of them get up and leave. I call out, "Is anybody here free to come clean up this floor?" or words to that effect and reluctantly a couple come forward. The stuff in the cup was both oily and caustic, so this requires some special attention. I'm actually embarrassed to have someone else clean it up since it was my fault, and I am fighting the urge to do it myself, but I'm the captain here and I know I shouldn't do that sort of thing. So I set them to doing the job and go back to Wm. Hurt and the "investigator". She's there next to the wall where he is with a plate of french fries and something else - I think she made them herself - that she's feeding him. I comment on this and she snidely remarks that he hasn't had anything to eat in ____ long and he needs to keep his strength up. I sample one of the fries when I think she's not looking, very big and fresh they are. This work he's doing on the ship seems to be sabotage, but I don't know what the results of it would be except to get us off course. The "investigator" says she wants to tell me something round the corner, and we move off. I'm standing, not facing her, expecting her to move around further, and someone starts talking in a voice that sounds mechanical. It says something about now that we're within sight of land, we'll be getting ready to (what? do a proper investigation?) since it was my fault. I don't think I heard right, and I don't know where it was coming from, so I say "Who's that? Repeat that, please" or something and she starts over, it's coming from her, I don't know why her voice sounds like that, and I don't know what she means about "it" being "my fault". Nor was I aware we were anywhere near land, but I can see we are, just barely on the horizon. Also: I'm with a man at a shop or something, looking for a teapot. This tubby little old woman only has 2, one's squattier than the other, both pottery, and she says (or a sign says?) they come with strainers. When we choose one, the squatty one, she digs around and brings out a plastic thing that's not even round and doesn't look like a strainer to me, and we try to fit it into the pot and of course it won't go. We call it to her attention. I think it was just a minor ruse.