"All right. I'm tired. Can you stay around for dinner? I'm still able to eat. I won't be able to keep it down much after next week. The old-fashioned treatments."

Arthur told him he had to catch a plane shortly. Dinner was out of the question.

"Give me a call tomorrow, then," Harry said. "Keep me informed."

"You bet."

"And talk some more with Hicks. He could replace me.

Arthur shook his head at the whole idea.

"I don't want you to get the impression I've been pinned to the mat by this," Harry said. "I've been thinking crazy thoughts for days now. I'm going to write them down soon."

"Crazy thoughts?" Arthur asked.

"Putting it all in perspective. The aliens, my cancer, the Earth, everything."

"That's a tall order."

"You bet. Keeps my mind off the rest of this nonsense." He thumped his chest and abdomen with his hand. "Might even be useful, sometime ..."

"I'd like to hear it," Arthur said.

Harry nodded. "You will. But not now. It still hasn't jelled."

Chapter 29

29

November 15

The blue and white taxi roared and jerked along the winding road up the slope of the hill with frightful speed and efficiency. Samshow sat rigid in the back, leaning this way and that against the curves, wondering if he should have accepted the invitation when there was so much work to be done. Outside, night jungle rushed by, relieved by lighted entrances to private roads and ghostly houses floating out above the hillside. Below, visible occasionally through the trees, lay the bright spilled jewel box of Honolulu.

Sand had told him there would be interesting people at the party. He had gone on ahead two hours before. The Glomar Discoverer had put in at Pearl Harbor that morning, and the invitation from Gina Fusetti had come by telephone at ten o'clock. Mrs. Fusetti, wife of University of Hawaii physics professor Nathan Fusetti, was known across the Pacific for her parties. "We can't turn this one down," Sand had said. "We need a few hours' rest, anyway."

Samshow had reluctantly agreed.

Fingers faltering through a palm full of dollar bills and change, he paid and tipped the driver and stepped back quickly to avoid a spray of gravel from the rear wheels. Then he turned and looked at a broad, split-level pseudo-Japanese house draped with hundreds of electric folding paper lanterns, its stone walkway flanked by carved lava tikis with candle-burning eyes.

Even from where he stood, he could hear people talking—but no loud music, for which he was profoundly grateful.

A tall young woman opened the door at his knock and smiled brightly. "Mom!" she called out. "Here's another. Who are you?"

"Walt Samshow," he said. "Who are you?"

"Tanya Fusetti. My parents . . . you know. I'm here with my boyfriend."