“Habitable Planets for Man,” Jerry said. Like a lot of aerospace people, his friend thought about what humanity might get up to if its reach ever stretched beyond the solar system.

“There you go! Must have been something, working with a guy with that kind of firepower,” Tim said. “What’s he like for real?”

“He’s, like, dead.” Jerry’s voice went hard and flat. “He got killed in a ‘robbery’ the night before I came to get the envelope from you. I didn’t park the car under the building when I went back to my place to grab some stuff before I took off.”

Tim Ishihara studied him. “You aren’t kidding?” Jerry shook his head. Tim asked, “Who bumped him off? The KGB?”

“Three letters, but those aren’t the right three. Word about the Glomar Explorer and the Russian sub and even the spaceship was starting to leak out. Even the reporters who heard that didn’t believe it, but guys who ran things got scared somebody from the other side would. So…”

“Huh,” Tim said. “Is that why you talked with the Russians, then?”

“Partly. I figured it was the best chance, maybe the only chance, to save my own ass. But c’mon, Tim! A spaceship! A starship! Aliens, for God’s sake! I thought that was too important to, well, everybody for us to get greedy about it. And we were.” Jerry waited anxiously. Along with Anna’s and perhaps his father’s, Tim’s good opinion mattered more to him than anyone else’s.

His friend didn’t say anything for close to half a minute. Then his head went up and down, once, twice. “Yeah, I don’t see how you had much choice. If they’re after you like that, you do whatever you’ve gotta do.” He made as if to point a camera at Jerry. “Who’s gonna play you when they make the flick?”

“Fuck that shit!” Jerry exclaimed in sincere horror. Tim laughed his head off. Jerry didn’t think it was funny, not even a little bit. But he did a little thinking of his own. Things being as they were, the CIA might not do anything to him if he didn’t send the manuscript of the story of his time with Project Azorian to Schenectady before he tried to sell it. Didn’t contemplating murder render a nondisclosure agreement null and void?

People would want to read a story like that. They’d want to know how Humpty Dumpty got discovered, how the Glomar Explorer raised it to the surface, and how humans made contact with the centaurowls … if humans could do that without killing the two survivors and without letting them retake control of their ship. If he wrote the book, he thought he could sell it. If it did well, somebody might play him in a movie after all.

“Hey, I’ve got another question for you,” Tim said.

“Shoot.”