“I shouldn’t.” Steve hesitated, too. “But I already know yours, and fair is fair. Who will you blab to? I’m Stephen Dole—Stephen with a PH. On the papers I have here, I’m Steven with a V. What do you want to bet I screw up signing my name at least once before I get home?”

Jerry hardly heard the last bit. He was gaping at the man with whom he shared a cabin. “You’re Stephen Dole from RAND? The Stephen Dole from RAND? The guy who wrote Habitable Planets for Man? I’ve read that book three times. You can’t beat it for world-building ideas.”

“I’m that Stephen Dole, yes,” his roommate said. “Thanks. I didn’t expect you to recognize my name.”

Jerry burbled on regardless: “This is crazy, man! I’d rather meet you than Becker and Fagen, even.”

“Than who?” Steve plainly drew a blank.

“The lead guys for Steely Dan.”

Steve went right on drawing a blank. He and Jerry eyed each other in perfect mutual incomprehension. He’s thirty years older than you are, maybe more, Jerry reminded himself. It’d be scarier if he did know who they were. Steve would have been in his thirties by the time rock ’n’ roll came along. Poor guy was what went through Jerry’s head: the heartlessness of youth.

Then something else occurred to him: “If you write about worlds where we might live or where aliens might come from, what are you doing on a ship going after a Russian sub?”

“That’s not all I do. If it were, I’d write science fiction myself,” Steve said easily. “My job title at RAND is director of communications. If we bring up any of the submarine’s codebooks, I go to work. No, when we bring them up. John P. wants everybody confident.”

“He … knows how to get what he wants, doesn’t he?” Jerry said.

“From everything I’ve seen, yes.” Steve swung off the bunk and got to his feet. “Do you know where the messroom is? I just came straight here and threw some stuff in my locker, but it’s getting on toward dinnertime, isn’t it?”

Jerry looked at his watch. Sure enough, it was almost half past six. “Getting there and then some,” he agreed. “I did the same thing. No, I don’t know where it is, but I bet we can find it pretty easy. They’ve got this ship organized.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Steve said, which was bound to be true.

When they went out into the passageway, they quickly came to a sign informing them the messroom lay one level down. The steel stairway was narrow and steep. “Gotta watch it,” Jerry said. “You can break your ankle here if you aren’t careful.”

“Or your neck,” Steve agreed.