One hundred and thirty hours didn’t sound very long to Norman. He did the calculation in his head: five days. Five days didn’t seem very long, either.

They went into the next cylinder, the lights clicking on as they entered. Cylinder C contained living quarters: bunks, toilets, showers (“plenty of hot water, you’ll find”). Barnes showed them around proudly, as if it were a hotel.

The living quarters were heavily insulated: carpeted deck, walls and ceilings all covered in soft padded foam, which made the interior appear like an overstuffed couch. But, despite the bright colors and the evident care in decoration, Norman still found it cramped and dreary. The portholes were tiny, and they revealed only the blackness of the ocean outside. And wherever the padding ended, he saw heavy bolts and heavy steel plating, a reminder of where they really were. He felt as if he were inside a large iron lung-and, he thought, that isn’t so far wrong.

They ducked through narrow bulkheads into D Cyl: a small laboratory with benches and microscopes on the top level, a compact electronics unit on the level below.

“This is Tina Chan,” Barnes said, introducing a very still woman. They all shook hands. Norman thought that Tina Chan was almost unnaturally calm, until he realized she was one of those people who almost never blinked their eyes.

“Be nice to Tina,” Barnes was saying. “She’s our only link to the outside-she runs the com ops, and the sensor systems as well. In fact, all the electronics.”

Tina Chan was surrounded by the bulkiest monitors Norman had ever seen. They looked like TV sets from the 1950s. Barnes explained that certain equipment didn’t do well in the helium atmosphere, including TV tubes. In the early days of undersea habitats, the tubes had to be replaced daily. Now they were elaborately coated and shielded; hence their bulk.

Next to Chan was another woman, Jane Edmunds, whom Barnes introduced as the unit archivist.

“What’s a unit archivist?” Ted asked her.

“Petty Officer First Class, Data Processing, sir,” she said formally. Jane Edmunds wore spectacles and stood stiffly. She reminded Norman of a librarian.

“Data Processing…” Ted said.

“My mission is to keep all the digital recordings, visual materials, and videotapes, sir. Every aspect of this historic moment is being recorded, and I keep everything neatly filed.” Norman thought: She is a librarian.

“Oh, excellent,” Ted said. “I’m glad to hear it. Film or tape?”

“Tape, sir.”

“I know my way around a video camera,” Ted said, with a smile. “What’re you putting it down on, half-inch or threequarter?”

“Sir, we use a datascan image equivalent of two thousand pixels per side-biased frame, each pixel carrying a twelvetone gray scale.”

“Oh,” Ted said.

“It’s a bit better than commercial systems you may be familiar with, sir.”

“I see,” Ted said. But he recovered smoothly, and chatted with Edmunds for a while about technical matters.

“Ted seems awfully interested in how we’re going to record this,” Barnes said, looking uneasy.

“Yes, he seems to be.” Norman wondered why that troubled Barnes. Was Barnes worried about the visual record? Or did he think Ted would try to hog the show? Would Ted try to hog the show? Did Barnes have any worries about having this appear to be a civilian operation?

“No, the exterior lights are a hundred-fifty-watt quartz halogen,” Edmunds was saying. “We’re recording at equivalent of half a million ASA, so that’s ample. The real problem is backscatter. We’re constantly fighting it.”

Norman said, “I notice your support team is all women.”

“Yes,” Barnes said. “All the deep-diving studies show that women are superior for submerged operations. They’re physically smaller and consume less nutrients and air, they have better social skills and tolerate close quarters better, and they are physiologically tougher and have better endurance.

The fact is, the Navy long ago recognized that all their submariners should be female.” He laughed. “But just try to implement that one.” He glanced at his watch. “We’d better move on. Ted?”

They went on. The final cylinder, E Cyl, was more spacious than the others. There were magazines, a television, and a large lounge; and on the deck below was an efficient mess and a kitchen. Seaman Rose Levy, the cook, was a redfaced woman with a Southern accent, standing beneath giant suction fans. She asked Norman whether he had any favorite desserts.

“Desserts?”

“Yes sir, Dr. Johnson. I like to make everybody’s favorite dessert, if I can. What about you, you have a favorite, Dr. Fielding?”

“Key lime pie,” Ted said. “I love key lime pie.”

“Can do, sir,” Levy said, with a big smile. She turned back to Norman. “I haven’t heard yours yet, Dr. Johnson.”

“Strawberry shortcake.”

“Easy. Got some nice New Zealand strawberries coming down on the last sub shuttle. Maybe you’d like that shortcake tonight?”

“Why not, Rose,” Barnes said heartily.

Norman looked out the black porthole window. From the portholes of D Cyl, he could see the rectangular illuminated grid that extended across the bottom, following the half-mile-long buried spacecraft. Divers, illuminated like fireflies, moved over the glowing grid surface.

Norman thought: I am a thousand feet beneath the surface of the ocean, and we are talking about whether we should have strawberry shortcake for dessert. But the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. The best way to make somebody comfortable in a new environment was to give him familiar food.

“Strawberries make me break out,” Ted said.

“I’ll make your shortcake with blueberries,” Levy said, not missing a beat.

“And whipped cream?” Ted said.

“Well…”

“You can’t have everything,” Barnes said. “And one of the things you can’t have at thirty atmospheres of mixed gas is whipped cream. Won’t whip. Let’s move on.”

Beth and Harry were waiting in the small, padded conference room, directly above the mess. They both wore jumpsuits and heated jackets. Harry was shaking his head as they arrived. “Like our padded cell?” He poked the insulated walls. “It’s like living in a vagina.”

Beth said, “Don’t you like going back to the womb, Harry?”

“No,” Harry said. “I’ve been there. Once was enough.”

“These jumpsuits are pretty bad,” Ted said, plucking at the clinging polyester.

“Shows your belly nicely,” Harry said.

“Let’s settle down,” Barnes said.

“A few sequins, you could be Elvis Presley,” Harry said.

“Elvis Presley’s dead.”

“Now’s your chance,” Harry said.

Norman looked around. “Where’s Levine?”

“Levine didn’t make it,” Barnes said briskly. “He got claustrophobic in the sub coming down, and had to be taken back. One of those things.”

“Then we have no marine biologist?”

“We’ll manage without him.”

“I hate this damn jumpsuit,” Ted said. “I really hate it.”

“Beth looks good in hers.”

“Yes, Beth works out.”

“And it’s damp in here, too,” Ted said. “Is it always so damp?”

Norman had noticed that humidity was a problem; everything they touched felt slightly wet and clammy and cold. Barnes warned them of the danger of infections and minor colds, and handed out bottles of skin lotion and ear drops.

“I thought you said the technology was all worked out,” Harry said.

“It is,” Barnes said. “Believe me, this is plush compared to the habitats ten years ago.”

“Ten years ago,” Harry said, “they stopped making habitats because people kept dying in them.”

Barnes frowned. “There was one accident.”

“There were two accidents,” Harry said. “A total of four people.”

“Special circumstances,” Barnes said. “Not involving Navy technology or personnel.”

“Great,” Harry said. “How long did you say we going to be down here?”