Rogers made an exasperated noise and sat down on the floor, his back against the wall. Klein didn’t take visitors into his stateroom, so he wasn’t very particular on making the place comfortable.

“No,” Rogers said. “I’m not going to help you with that. We’re supposed to be working on straightening things out, remember?”

“So,” Klein said, “where would be a good place to use the word ‘dirge’? It’s got such a nice ring to it.”

Rogers sighed. “Never mind.” He thought for a moment. “I have one other question I wanted to ask, Admiral.”

“And that is?”

“Those posters that are up all around the ship—” Rogers began.

“Ah yes, the motivational posters. Brilliant ideas, wonderful language.”

Rogers didn’t remember any wonderful language, but he figured he and Klein were on the same page. “Sure. Those. Did you order them made?”

“No,” Klein said. “They started popping up a little while ago. I thought they were in response to some talks I gave a while ago. They’re sort of along the same theme.”

Useless rhetoric that does nothing, Rogers thought. Sounds about right.

“So, who makes them?” Rogers asked. “Do we have a department for that sort of thing?”

“Information Operations,” Klein said in the largest combination of coherent syllables Rogers had ever heard outside of one of Klein’s speeches. “He does it.”

Rogers frowned. “You mean ‘they’ do it?”

“No,” Klein said. “It’s just one guy. Ralph, I think his name is. You’ll like him.”

“First name or last name?”

“I don’t know,” Klein said, suddenly throwing up his hands. “Damn it, Rogers, I don’t know why you expect me to know all of these things about the people on my ship. Why don’t you go ask him and get the hell out of my hair for an hour or so?”

“IT’S RALPH,” Ralph said.

Rogers’ hands shot up to his ears, which were now ringing quite loudly. The small, cramped, glorified janitor’s closet that made up the entire office space of the information operations squadron didn’t do much to distill the noise of a man shouting at him from his desk.

“I’m right here,” Rogers said. “You don’t have to shout.”

“WHAT?” Ralph shouted, squinting. He hadn’t taken his eyes off his computer terminal since Rogers had entered the room. Ralph—Rogers still didn’t know if it was his first name, last name, nickname, or what he did after meals—typed furiously away at the oldest keyboard system that Rogers had ever seen. It looked like it actually contained mechanical moving parts, and it made loud clanking noises every time Ralph hit a key. How did the computers even read that kind of technology?

“I’m Lieutenant Rogers, Admiral Klein’s executive officer,” Rogers said.

“I’M RALPH.”

“Yeah,” Rogers said, wincing. He should have brought earplugs. “You told me that.”

“YOU’RE AN EXECUTIVE OFFICER?” Ralph took a sip of what may have been the largest, most viscous cup of coffee in the galaxy. It took a full three seconds for the liquid to find its way from the side of the cup to Ralph’s lips, and Rogers was almost sure that Ralph chewed on it.