Spruance wasn’t so naive as to think them rude. He assumed they weren’t behaving out of the ordinary at all, and he was fascinated by their lack of . . . what? Refinement? They both seemed well traveled and sophisticated. Manners? Both obviously knew how to deal with a silver service place setting and had a relaxed way of relating to the dining room staff that he associated with the idle rich. Was it their lack of gravity, perhaps?

At one point he listened while the two women discussed another outrage yet to pass, some sort of germ bomb attack on LA, which he gathered they’d both covered as journalists. They seemed inured to the horrors they described, as though it was all passé.

Spruance stirred his coffee. What sort of a world have they come from? he wondered.

“You look pensive, Admiral.”

It was the British officer. She’d caught him gathering wool.

“I’m sorry, Captain. I was just wondering about your world. About how different it is from ours.”

Halabi leaned back to give the question its due.

“I guess you look at us,” she said, “you look at me and people like Julia and Rosanna and Colonel Jones, and you can see some hard changes coming. All I can do is remind you that change was ordained, whether we came or not.”

Spruance and Black said nothing. The conversation at the other end of the table fell away, too, as the reporters picked up the sound of the names. Spruance was aware of how quickly the other two women shifted gear, from flighty to sober.

“In some ways, no matter what your views, or how broad-minded you might consider yourself,” Halabi continued, directing her remarks at Black now, as well, “you would look on our world and shudder. But if the time since your day has taught us anything, it’s that you can’t pick and choose your freedoms. You take freedom’s curses along with its blessings.”

Halabi stared into the middle distance as though examining her own world from a new vantage point. “In some ways, our world is no different from yours,” she said. “It’s violent. I’d hesitate to say it’s more violent, seeing as you’re engaged in a world war. But so are we, of a sort. And ours has gone on for years longer than yours.”

“Why haven’t you won?” asked Curtis. “You’re so powerful.”

“Weapons are one thing, Ensign. You can kill a man; reduce him to nothing, literally. But the ideas that made him your enemy, those survive. Ideas are much harder to kill than men. They outlive us all.”

“Could you avoid it, your war, knowing what you do now?” asked Spruance.

“I don’t know,” she replied honestly. “Why do you ask? It’s a way off yet. It won’t be yours to worry about.”