Mike Brody was trapped, drowning. The great white had nosed through the creaking door of the wreck, was filling the doorway; Mike cowered behind the skeleton of the purser, out of air. Bubbles rose between them, but the great white ignored them and came onward, and there was blood in the water….

He sat up with a start. Carla lay beside him, breathing deeply. He heard a distant chant. He listened curiously. It lacked the rhythm of the steel-drum calypso you often heard when the breezes blew along the beach from Prince George Town, or the primitive goombay beat you heard at the Junkanoo masquerades. It had a gloomier voice to it, and a richer, jungle swing.

Curious, he got up and moved to the open window. He was wearing only boxer shorts, but the night was balmy and the moon was bright. The sound seemed to him to be coming from Masthead Point.

He was thirsty. Sometimes, if he couldn't sleep, a glass of milk helped. He moved quietly to the kitchen, careful not to awaken Carla. She had been working too hard, and he had too. They had hardly spoken a word to each other since his mother had arrived, and they hadn't made love in a week.

He should tell her of the shark. Now that it was tagged, it posed no danger. As long as it cruised Masthead Sound, he and Jake would tail it.

They had decided to study it if it stayed long enough, and if the conch project failed.

How many marine biologists had studied the heartbeat of Carcharodon carcharias in the wild? He wasn't wedded to conch; a thesis was a thesis and a degree was a degree.

There was a paper to be written about great whites, maybe more papers than one.

He stepped out to the porch. The music seemed to be rising in intensity. Curious, he put down the milk and wandered down the steps.

He felt oddly light-headed, as if he were still in the dream. The sea breeze ruffled his shorts as he moved along the path. When scrub and branches whipped his legs, he hardly felt it. He was barefoot, but even when he stepped on rocks and shells, it didn't seem to hurt.

He shook his head. Weird... that Clarence could afford to throw a party when he hadn't worked for days. Invited or not, he found that he wanted to go.

He seemed to be floating above the path, as if he had lost his will. All at once he became aware that he was being followed. He turned and saw no one, but he felt it in his soul.

He stepped aside and waited in the brush.

Thea glided along the path, eyes as vacant as the moon. She was walking in her sleep, he knew, for her hands were extended before her, as if someone were pulling her along.