They had lunch with the ship’s captain. He was the potbellied character with the six gold pens. His name was Blaize. Nineteen of the ship’s other commissars joined him in the supertanker’s cavernous dining room, with its hinged chandeliers and oak wainscoting. They dined off old gold-rimmed china with the insignia of the P&O Shipping Line and were served by teenage waiters in uniform, hauling big steel tureens. They ate scop. Various hideous forms of it. Soups. Nutmeg-flavored mock chicken breast. Little fricasseed things with toothpicks in them.