There were new faces in the messroom at lunch. Having seen only the same old ones for most of the past two months, Jerry found himself wondering how the men from B crew would fit in. The A crew had worried all the time, first that they’d be able to raise Humpty Dumpty from the seafloor, and then that they’d be able to get inside once the spaceship lay on the leaky gates under the moon pool.

B crew didn’t have to sweat any of that. They would deal with knowns, not unknowns. Except for one, of course. Nobody knew what would anger the aliens or robots in charge of the starship. If anything did, a new wreck would lie on the bottom of the Pacific. I’m not even wearing seaboots, Jerry thought.

After lunch, he went forward to the moon pool to look at the starship. Several people were always doing that. He saw three or four of the new men staring at it as if they couldn’t believe their eyes. Had anyone briefed them on the true story till they got to Midway, or had they signed up like him, thinking they were going after the sunken Russian submarine?

One of the strangers came over to him and held out his hand. “Hi. I’m John Rogers. I’m John Rogers here, anyway,” he said. He was about forty, suntanned and fit, and had a disarming smile. “I’m the new doctor.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Jerry Steinberg. Like you say, that’s who I am here, I mean. I do oceanography and stuff.” Even with somebody who was here, Jerry watched what he said. Sure as hell, the CIA had indoctrinated him whether it meant to or not.

Rogers pointed down at Humpty Dumpty. “That’s the most astonishing thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“I said the same thing. Everybody does,” Jerry said.

“I believe it. What else can you say? Did I hear right? Did somebody really smart figure out how to get in there without blowing it up?”

“Somebody really smart? Nah.” Jerry shook his head. “Matter of fact, it was me.”

“You’re kidding!” the doctor exclaimed. Jerry shook his head again. He knew he didn’t look like much: a longhair with a beard, dressed the way he would have been on campus, with a T-shirt, bell-bottom jeans, and his sadly scruffy Blue Tips. John Rogers went on, “That’s wonderful! How did you ever do it?”

“I got lucky,” Jerry answered, and told again about the Tolkien connection. He wondered if he’d be telling the same story, maybe in the same words, at conferences fifty years from now. He also wondered if he’d ever be able to tell it to people not cleared to hear it.