The astronomer also photographed the two centaurowls in suspended animation and the remains of the one whose gear had failed. He looked into some of the other chambers. And he eyed the two airlock-style doors the Americans had found after Jerry got booted off the ship. One apparently led toward Humpty Dumpty’s projections, the other toward the dimples at the far end of the spaceship’s long axis.

“To say ‘Friend!’ does not make these open?” he said.

“I guess not, or they would’ve gone through them.” Jerry’s thought about those two doors was The lady or the tiger? Except they were both liable to have tigers behind them. What might he think of or say to make them disappear so he could find out? He thought of traveling across the galaxy. He said, “Warp Factor Seven, Scotty!”

It didn’t work. It did make Nikolai Kalyakin laugh. “This is from your show Star Trek. I know of Star Trek. I have never seen, but I know of,” he said.

“Maybe when you get back to the American mainland, you’ll have the chance to watch some.” Jerry pitied Kalyakin. Here he was, a man who’d devoted his career to the idea of life on other planets, and he’d never seen Star Trek? That seemed almost unimaginably sad.

“If we cannot find way through these doors, we perhaps have to try to wake up aliens and find out what they can tell us. Will tell us,” Kalyakin said.

“Yeah.” Jerry nodded reluctantly, but he did nod. “That scares me. It scares me a lot. But we’ll never learn anything if we don’t.”

“This is how I see things, too. Also my superiors,” Kalyakin said. Jerry wasn’t surprised; he didn’t think the Russian would come out with any views Moscow didn’t approve of. Kalyakin went on, “Now that the two most powerful nations on Earth meet this challenge together, we have better chance of success.”

“I sure hope so.” Jerry couldn’t help thinking of the Romans and the 747 again. Or maybe it would be more like New Guinea natives paddling out to a battleship dead in the water with engine trouble. They’d have no idea what fourteen-inch guns could do …

“When we agree to try, we must inform both governments of exact moment of effort,” Kalyakin said. “They need time to make, ah, certain preparations.”

“Must we? They do?” Jerry didn’t like that. Here was the talk he’d had with Pournelle, coming to life for real. The generals would want to be sure they had people with their fingers on the launch buttons, just in case. If something went wrong, they’d try to erase the evidence. And maybe they would, and maybe not.

The lady or the tiger? Jerry thought again. The question seemed even nastier this time around.