Jones had already accepted as much. He hadn’t had time to think much of his own wife and family. There was just so much to do, although, if truth were known, he was probably avoiding the issue. There had been one or two quiet moments since Midway, but he hadn’t sat down by himself to think through the personal implications of the Transition. If they were stuck here, he’d never see Monique or his niece again. It neatly inverted the burden of separation they always felt when he was away on active duty. Now he got to share in their sense of loss, and dread.

“Colonel?”

He returned from the unhappy line of thought. “I’m sorry, Captain. You were saying?”

“I said we might want to think about screening our personnel for acute depression. People are going to respond differently, but some will want to check out, like the lieutenant here. He’s not the first, you know.”

That surprised Jones. He leaned over, plucked the ziplock bag up between the tips of his fingers, and motioned Francois out of the cabin. She shut the door behind them.

“You’ve had more suicides?” he asked in a low voice.

“Four,” said the combat surgeon. “This is the first on the Kandahar. Oddly enough, they’ve all been male so far, even though we’ve got about five hundred mothers serving on ships throughout the task force. You’d think this would have hit them the hardest.”

“What, you’re saying women miss their kids more? That sounds awfully old-fashioned, Doctor.”

“Fucking A, that’s what I’m saying, Colonel. And it’s true.”

Jones was mildly surprised by her fervor, but he chose not to argue with her, even though just that morning he’d found a young marine sobbing on the shoulder of a female petty officer. Jones learned that the man’s wife had given birth to a son just a few weeks before the ship had left for East Timor.

On the other hand, he knew, not everybody was upset by their circumstances. He was aware of a pilot on the Clinton who’d broken out in a huge wolfish grin when he realized he’d escaped three ex-wives and one fat, famously unsympathetic Chechen bookie named Anxious Stan, to whom he owed about forty grand.

And some lucky individuals, he guessed, were probably too stupid to comprehend the situation at all. They’d react as they did to all the important events in their lives, by continuing to find undiluted enjoyment in eating, sleeping, and evacuating their bowels whenever the opportunity presented itself.

“So, how serious do you think it could be,” he asked. “We’re living in a heavily armed village here, Doc. Wouldn’t do to have the natives go weird on us.”