“Clementine’s a tool, a thing. People are people. That may not make any difference. But it may, too. Can you tell me for certain that whatever’s in there doesn’t read minds if somebody touches it?”

“You sure you aren’t the skiffy writer?” Jerry said. Jack laughed and waved away the compliment, if it was one. Jerry continued, “If it does read minds, I bet it doesn’t need contact, though. The Russian sub was three miles above it when it did … whatever it did.”

Jack grunted. “There is that. We don’t want to take chances even so. Hear me?”

“I already said so once.”

Jerry waited. If Jack got huffy about that, he meant to get huffy right back. Being expendable brought certain advantages … till expending time came, anyhow. But the security officer just said, “Okay, fine,” and left it alone. Jerry felt deflated. He’d braced himself for a fight that didn’t happen.

The weather got warmer as the Glomar Explorer chugged south. In California, 40 degrees north latitude was well north of San Francisco, about halfway between Fort Bragg and Eureka. Midway, on the other hand, lay at 28 degrees north. That parallel split Baja California into two equal parts.

He’d seen albatrosses while the ship was grappling for and grappling with Humpty Dumpty. The gooney birds had wingspans that put him in mind of light planes. However magnificently they flew, though, they were as avid for garbage as Hermosa Beach herring gulls. The farther south the Explorer came, the more of them there were to squabble over the uneaten food the ship threw into the ocean.

Steve pointed at one that rose now after skimming along the surface of the sea. “I think it’s eating a big piece of cellophane.”

“That can’t be good for it. Probably figured it caught a jellyfish or something,” Jerry said. “People throw all kinds of shit into the ocean these days. I wonder how much of it birds and fish and sea turtles try to eat. A lot, I bet.”

“Whales and porpoises, too,” Steve said.

“Yeah.” Jerry scratched his head. “That might be interesting, y’know? I don’t remember any research studies about it. Not saying there aren’t any, but I’ve never run across one.”

“Have you ever looked?”

“Not really, but I’ve pawed through a bunch of journals doing homework for the diss. If I’d seen an article like that in a table of contents or flipped past it going to something I was after, I’d know I had.” Jerry was proud of his memory. It let him do things most people couldn’t, or not so easily. It let him be right most of the time, too. Only very slowly was he starting to wonder if being right most of the time wasn’t an overrated talent.

Steve didn’t challenge him. He said, “My mind works the same way.”