Steve had told him that John Graham, the naval architect who’d designed the Glomar Explorer, wasn’t aboard because he was dying of lung cancer back in California. From what Steve said, Graham was, or had been, another chain-smoker. He’d quit for a while after getting sick, then started up again when he realized it was too late for him.

Jerry banged a fist down on his knee: not the knee the photos lay on, though. He was careful about that. But he remembered his mother doing the same thing. He hadn’t understood it then. He thought he did now. Understand it or not, he hated the hooks nicotine sank into people.

At least half the men on the Glomar Explorer lit up. The air in the movie theater had been foggy with cigarette smoke. The pipe wranglers and divers seemed to think they weren’t real likely to get old anyway, so what the hell?

He stared at one picture that had caught his eye before. He’d found a magnifying glass in a drawer—the people who’d outfitted this ship honest to God had done their best to think of everything—and used it to examine the photograph again.

“Fuck,” he muttered. Even with the magnifier’s help, he couldn’t be sure he was seeing what he thought he was.

Someone outside stopped at the door and punched in the key code. That was quite audible inside the container … which implied that at least some of what went on inside could be heard outside, too. Jerry knew a certain amount of relief that he hadn’t shouted his obscenity.

The door opened. In came Steve. Like Jerry, he closed the door behind him, making sure it shut securely. “How’s it going?” he asked.

“Not bad. You?”

“Fine so far.”

“Cool. Take a look at this for a second, will you?” Jerry held out the photo and the magnifier. “Between the second and third tubes in particular. Any chance we can get an enlargement of that area?”

“We as in ‘you and me,’ here on the Glomar Explorer? Probability zero.” Stephen Dole shook his head. “It may be possible to get someone who has access to another set of these photos, or to the negatives, to have an enlargement done … wherever those things are kept. I’m not trying to hide that from you; I don’t need to know myself.”

“Might be worth doing. Have a look and tell me what you think.”

Look Steve did. When he raised his head from the magnifying glass and the picture, he was frowning. “I don’t know. It may just be some sediment clinging to the spaceship’s outer skin.”

“Yeah, it may,” Jerry agreed. “But there sure isn’t much clinging to the rest of hull, is there? I was thinking it might be writing, only with the characters too small to show up well on a photo of this size.”