“Yeah.” Jerry nodded. He knew that; he’d taken the history of ancient Egypt as an undergrad breadth requirement, and was prouder of the B he’d earned than many As in things that came easier for him. He’d never felt so intimidated as when the prof intoned, before both midterm and final, You may write your bluebooks in English, German, or Arabic.

Manfred said, “If all is good, then, come ahead for your decontamination check and cleanup.”

Come they did. A guy in gear like theirs checked them for radioactivity, as had happened before. Then they took everything out of their pockets, peeled off the tape holding booties and gloves to their suits, and did the prescribed triple scrubdown. Jerry thought he came out of it smelling like a veterinarian’s office (minus dog shit), but nobody on the Glomar Explorer gave a damn about his opinion.

Dr. Rogers went through the same routine of breathing over and spitting into culture medium, mouth swabbing, and cleanout at the other end as Doc Borden had before. After it was over, Jerry asked him, “Did anything weird grow on the culture medium from last time?”

“Not so far as I’ve been able to tell,” the physician said. “That’s good news, remember. You don’t want to carry anything from another world that you may not have any resistance to.”

“I understand that,” Jerry said, as sympathetically as he could. The new guy was still getting up to speed.

Sure enough, Rogers repeated, “Anything from another world…” and let his voice trail away. After a moment, he picked up again: “You could have knocked me over with a feather when they told me about that on Midway. Up till then, I thought I’d be doing autopsies on Russian sailors, not on little green men.” His laugh sounded nervous.

They aren’t little green men, and two of them aren’t dead. I don’t think they are, anyway. Jerry kept his lips buttoned. The doctor didn’t have need to know. People who did, people like Dale and Jack and Dave, would detonate like H-bombs if he talked out of turn.

Rogers’s office had a tiny waiting room. A rent-a-frog sat in a chair reading an old U.S. News & World Report. When Jerry started to walk out, the diver said, “Why don’t you wait here till the doc finishes with Mister Dahlgren, sir? Then I’ll take you both to the director’s cabin.”

Why don’t you? had to mean You’d better. “You talked me into it, Gator,” Jerry said. The other man got his handle from a tattoo on his right forearm. A little farther up the arm was a nasty burn scar.