Sometimes the first surge would deposit fish, swept inland and left to suffocate. Fools would hurry forward to take the fish. But the wily Japanese knew that more surges would come, and ignored the apparent bounty. That was the folk wisdom, the common experience. The Japanese were, after all, used to tsunamis.

But he wondered if they really understood what today would bring.

There would, of course, be no-one to help. For, as the flickering TV images showed, the Moonseed was surging in many places, and the world was, evidently, starting to come apart.

He had no desire to sleep again. He pulled on his habit, slipped out of the main hall, and walked through the soft quiet to the staircase cut into Mount Nantai.

He took nothing but the clothes on his back, the sandals on his feet. Not even a light, a lantern or a torch, to guide his way on the rocky steps. The sky was so bright now, glowing a thin red like a sunset, all the way through the night — thanks to the volcanic dust being injected into the air, from Britain and Italy and the Philippines, and a hundred smaller eruptions — that he needed no light anyway.

It would have been nice to see the stars, he thought. But then in an hour or so the baleful countenance of Venus was due to rise, and he had no desire to witness that ill omen again; let the dust blot it out for good.

He reached the caldera rim, and was greeted by the stink of sulphur and ash and chlorine. There seemed to be new fissures in the ground here, and he suspected he could see the vent of steam.

Here and there, the rock burst into subdued silvery light. It was the mark, he had learned, of Moonseed growth. His creation.

He smiled.

He found a place where he could sit in comfort, with his back to the subtle warmth of the reviving volcano. Here he could look out over the lake, to the south and east, towards the ocean, and Tokyo.

There were twelve million people in Tokyo, an incredible number. One quarter of the population of the country lived within thirty miles of the Imperial Palace there.

He wondered how many had already fled. But, as the light of a new dawn seeped into the sky, many more would even now be making their way into the city, by car and train and bus, for another day’s work, regardless of the warnings.

The Japanese were used to tsunamis, after all.

The sun was high, but it was a pinprick, a wan disc in an ugly grey sky. He was cold, despite the thickness of his robe.

Unseasonal weather.

Declan knew he would have to wait most of the day, until perhaps the early evening, before the wave arrived.

By now, Hawaii must already have suffered.