“I haven’t done that in a long time,” Steve said, at least half to himself. “Not since a friend of mine had a stroke and died walking to an elevator at a conference. Whitey was forty-eight—no, forty-seven.”

“Damn!” Jerry said. Forty-seven felt old to him, but it wasn’t old enough to die, even if it was older than his mother’d got.

For years, he hadn’t even been able to think about her, much less talk about her, without puddling up. He still sometimes wanted to. The wound had a scar on it these days, but he felt it now and then all the same.

He and Steve sat there under the fluorescent lights for a while, not saying much. Then Jerry remarked, “The steward who cleans up’ll wonder where you scored that bottle.”

“Probably.” Steve tried a nod. It didn’t seem to hurt him too much. “On a ship full of big mysteries, though, that’s just a little one.”

Before Jerry could answer, the chuntering roar of a copter settling down on the helipad made his head want to fall off. Steve flinched, too. Jerry said, “Never mind termination with extreme prejudice later. Somebody kill me now.”

Steve looked around. Not seeing anyone obviously listening to them, he relaxed—a little. Not much above a whisper, he said, “Using that phrase out in the open isn’t a great idea.”

“Mm … I can see that. Sorry,” Jerry said. People who’d kill you if you got out of line wouldn’t like your saying they’d kill you if you got out of line, not even if you borrowed their euphemism.

“I wonder who’s on the helicopter,” Steve said. “I always do, whenever one comes in from Midway. I wonder if it’s got my replacement aboard.”

“You and me both, man. You and me both. I’m almost to the point where I’d sooner go home and try to forget any of this ever happened.”

“Almost?”

Half embarrassed, Jerry gave back a careful nod. “Yeah. Those units, those yellow buttons … Kinda want to know how the movie ends.”

“If it has a happy ending, for us and for them.” Like Jerry, Steve didn’t go into detail in a public space.

“Well, yeah.” The aliens might die after people tried reviving them. That would be tragic, because humanity hadn’t discovered any other sunken spaceships … as far as he knew, anyhow. Then again, the centaurowls might take control of Humpty Dumpty again. If they did, and if they were pissed off, that one ship might be able to beat everything America and Russia threw at it, even if you tossed in England, France, and China for good measure.