But Spruance had insisted that she join him and his party for a late supper. So she padded quietly into the cocktail lounge of the Moana, her temper improving when she discovered that the two female reporters were to be part of the evening.

“I’m glad to have your company,” she said quietly as they all shook hands. “At least that’s one flank secure tonight. Where’s your date, Julia? All I hear about from my spies is this Cro-Magnon character you snagged for yourself.”

Julia smiled. “He’s patching himself up in the bathroom, Captain. A bit of roughhouse in the boudoir, I’m afraid.”

Ensign Curtis arrived, tricked out in his whites and looking incredibly nervous. He saluted, then shook Captain Halabi’s hand and stammered a greeting.

“Wally, just calm down,” said Rosanna, his date for the evening. “What’s up, you never been surrounded by so many beautiful women before?”

“Uh, no,” Curtis confessed sincerely. “Never. Oh, sorry, Captain, I didn’t mean that you were beautiful, I just, oh darn . . .”

Against her better judgment, Halabi found him endearing. He was a geek, just like she’d been, a long time ago.

“Be cool Ensign,” she said, patting him on the arm. “Take a few slow deep breaths, and don’t worry about what you’re going to say to Admiral Spruance. Trust me, you’ll hardly get a word in edgeways with these two at the table.”

Curtis looked only vaguely relieved.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. It’s just that nobody back in Oak Brooke would ever believe that Wally Curtis would find himself having dinner with a real admiral. And I can’t write my mom and dad about it, the censors would just cut it out and anyway they’d never believe me, and—”

“Ensign, calm down,” said Halabi. “You’re babbling. I imagine there’s plenty that folks won’t believe about what’s happened to you the last few weeks. But it has, and you’ll always have that. Admiral Spruance told me you were the first man on the Enterprise to have any idea of what was happening. That makes you just about one of the most interesting people in the world right now. Imagine that.”

“I can’t,” he confessed.

“It’s pre-Warhol syndrome,” said Natoli. “Nobody here realizes they have a constitutional right to fifteen minutes of fame and their own cable talk show.”

“It’s kind of sweet, don’t you think?” said Julia.

“Heads up, the boys are here.”

Dan Black and Ray Spruance appeared at the same time. “Ms. Duffy,” said the admiral, “Commander Black here has been telling me all about your adventures after the riot. I’m glad you’re giving him back to me in one piece.”

“I’m not quite finished with him, Admiral,” she teased. “I might just break him yet.”