"You must be Doctor Samshow!" Gina Fusetti stalked intently through the archway leading to the sunken dining room, rubbing her hands and smiling gleefully. In her late sixties, hair gone completely white, she regarded Samshow with smiling, squint-eyed worship, ushering him inside, equipping him with a beer (Asahi) and a paper plate of hors d'oeuvres (teriyaki tuna and raw vegetables). "We're very pleased to have so distinguished an author and scientist with us," Mrs. Fusetti said, smiling her thousand-watt smile. "Mr. Sand is in a back room with some friends ... He told us you'd be here."

Sand came through a side door. "Walt, glad you've finally come. Something extraordinary—"

"Ah, there he is!" She nodded at both of them, still smiling. "Such a pleasure to have men capable of saying something when they talk!" Another arriving guest drew her away. As she departed, she gave him an ushering wave of both hands—party, enjoy.

"She's pretty extraordinary," Samshow said.

"Acts like that with everybody. She's a charmer."

"You've been to her parties before?"

"I dated her older daughter once."

"You never told me that."

Sand shook his head and grinned. "Do you know Jeremy Kemp? He says he knows you."

"We shared a cabin years ago, I think—some expedition ... no, it was during a seminar at Woods Hole. Kemp. Geophysicist, earthquakes, isn't he?"

"Right." Sand pushed him forward. "We all have to talk. This is a real coincidence, his being here, our being here. And I sort of broke our rules. I brought up our sighting."

"Oh?"

"We've already sent our data to La Jolla," Sand said, by way of an excuse.

Samshow was not completely mollified. Sand opened the door to a back bedroom. Kemp and two other men sat on chairs and on the bed's Polynesian print coverlet, beers and cocktails in hand. "Walt! Very good to see you again." Kemp stood, shifted his cocktail, and shook Samshow's hand firmly. Introductions were made and Samshow stood in a corner while Sand encouraged Kemp to explain his own scientific problem.

"I'm in resources discovery for Asian Thermal, an energy consortium in Taiwan and Korea. We're keeping track of Chinese oil, for Beijing—it's official—and we're trying to chart the whole southwestern Pacific all the way south to the Philippines. Partly we chart through seismic events and analysis of the wave propagation through the deep crust. Now this is at least as proprietary as what you've told me . . . Understood?" He glanced conspiratorially at the door. Sand closed it and latched it.

"My group has listening stations in the Philippines and the Aleutians. We're also tapped in to the U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Information Center in Colorado and the Large-Aperture Seismic Array in Montana. We have an anomalous seismic event. We think it's a bad reading or a screwed interpretation. But maybe not. It's from the vicinity of the Ramapo Deep. We got it on the night of November first, Eastern Pacific Time."