Sometimes. How bright a light can I shine? Jerry wondered. Without evidence, Anderson would think he was a nut. So would any reporter in his right mind. Even with evidence, Jerry feared he’d have trouble getting anyone with good, hard common sense to take him seriously. Good, hard common sense argued against things like Humpty Dumpty. Which only went to show what good, hard common sense was or wasn’t worth.

Dave Schoals eyed Jerry and Steve in the compartment that opened on to the moon pool. They had their protective suits on once more, all but the masks and mouthpieces. “Here we go again,” Dave said, trying to ease the tension he knew was there.

“Here we go again,” Steve agreed.

Jerry didn’t say anything. His belt had a lot more weight on it this time than it had had when he and Steve first tried to get into the spaceship. No one then had really thought they’d succeed. Now that they’d done it once, they were supposed to do it again. He was equipped accordingly.

He had a scratch pad and three pens. He had his very own Instamatic, with flash cubes and extra film. He had a flashlight, which could do double duty as a blackjack. He had a walkie-talkie—for emergency use only, everybody told him. And he had a big, fancy Swiss Army knife, with a whole bunch of tools that would probably be useless inside Humpty Dumpty and with a knife blade unlikely to scare off anything the flashlight couldn’t deal with. Steve carried the same sort of gear. They also had balls of nylon twine, for finding their way out again.

“We’ll have people ready to go in after you if you need help,” Dave said.

“Far out,” Jerry muttered, more sarcastically than not. They were doing what they could. He gave them credit for that. But he didn’t think they could do anything that would save Steve and him if trouble came.

“Remember, you’re looking for the way down to the engines—or the way up to them,” Dave said. “Or the way to the control room, if there is one. Or to the crew quarters, if there are crew quarters.”

“That sounds like kind of a lot on forty-five minutes’ worth of air,” Jerry said.

Dave gave him a dirty look. “Do what you can, that’s all,” he said. Jerry nodded back. That at least seemed reasonable. Seeing he wasn’t going to have a mutiny on his hands, the recovery director nodded, too. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“We ready?” Jerry asked Steve.

“I think we are,” the older man said. They both went to the watertight door. Dave touched each of them on the shoulder, as he had the last time. They stuck in the rubber mouthpieces and started the canned air going.

Dave undogged the door. “Luck,” he said. Out they went. He closed and secured the door behind them.