" "The Americans do this for two months, Ivan. Of course, their submarines are far more comfortable.' Despite her huge bulk, the October's crew accommodations would have shamed a gulag jailer. The crew consisted of fifteen officers, housed in fairly decent cabins aft, and a hundred enlisted men whose bunked were stuffed into corners and racks throughout the bow, forward of the missile room. The October's size was deceptive. The interior of her double hull was crammed with missiles, torpedoes, a nuclear reactor and its support equipment, a huge backup diesel power plant, and bank of nickel-cadmium batteries outside the pressure hull, which was ten times the size of its American counterparts." (The First Day, Friday, 3 December)

"After clearing the screen, he scrolled up the Christmas list, things he still had to get. With a simple command a copy of the list was...