Now it lay only about 135 feet down. The docking legs had hold of Clementine at either end. Raising them would help the derrick bring the claw and Humpty Dumpty the rest of the way up. The spaceship wouldn’t be a scenario, a hypothetical, anymore. It would be right there, as real as a punch in the face.

Which was why, that evening, he got trained in donning a suit that would, with luck, protect him from whatever Humpty Dumpty brought with it from the bottom of the sea and from wherever it had been before it found Earth.

Dave Schoals, who gave the training, wouldn’t take no for an answer. He banged on Jerry’s cabin door and said, “You want to go down into the moon pool, you have to know how to give yourself a chance to stay safe. C’mon.” He fixed Stephen Dole with a businesslike stare. “You, too.”

“I had the training up in Northern California,” the man from the RAND Corporation protested.

“That would’ve been months ago,” Dave answered. “You can do with a refresher, or else you can let Jerry grab all the glory from meeting the Martians.”

Steve said something uncharitable under his breath, but he came. There proved to be two layers of long johns that went over people’s usual underwear, a papery outer garment over regular clothes, and booties and surgical gloves for feet and hands. Those got taped to the outer garment to make an airtight seal.

A hood fit over the hard hat everyone who went into the moon pool would have to wear. A face mask protected eyes, nose, and mouth. “If it turns out there isn’t an oxygen atmosphere inside the spaceship, we can rig up air tanks,” Dave said.

“What if it’s a couple of hundred degrees below zero, though?” Jerry asked. Coming out of the mask, his voice sounded unearthly in his own ears.

“In that case, we try to figure out what to do with the next man who goes in,” Dave said. Jerry was already warm enough, and then some, in the protective suit. He got warmer yet. Dave went on, “After contact with Humpty Dumpty, we’ll check you out for radiation and have you clean off till you make the Geiger counters happy.”

Jerry found another question: “How about checking for germs?” He couldn’t have been the only guy on the Glomar Explorer who’d read things like Harry Harrison’s Plague from Space and Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain.

“We’ll do the best we can with that,” Dave told him, and said no more. After a moment, Jerry realized there wasn’t much more to be said. What could they do but their best?