He noticed that the sunlight was just barely able to filter down through the perfectly cloudless eye of the storm, which meant that something far above the eye, probably a globe-spanning layer of stratospheric dust, was intercepting much of the solar radiation before it got anywhere near sea level, and that within a year the oppressive heat on the surface would be replaced by oppressive cold.

Not that we’ll have to trouble our little heads about that, Jonathan thought acidly, and then, looking northward across Long Island, he saw a rapidly retreating stack of cloud banks—the nearer wall of the eye, where the winds were exceeding two hundred kilometers per hour. He guessed that it would be passing somewhere between Oceanside and Rockville Centre by now, and he understood that if the northern wall were moving away from him at nearly thirty-three kilometers per hour, the southern wall would reach him in scarcely more than ninety minutes.

“Well, here’s the game plan,” Hollis said. “I want to be back in the hull and under deep water with ten minutes to spare before the south wall hits us. If this weren’t likely to be the only calm break we’ll ever have to go ashore, I wouldn’t be risking my ship. Got that?”

“Understood, sir.”

“Good. Alvin will keep time for us on our pads and sound the alarm every fifteen minutes. One blast when we’ve gone a quarter hour, two when we’ve gone half an hour, and so on. When we hear two blasts we start winding up whatever we’re doing, and at three blasts I don’t care if you’ve found the Ark of the Covenant itself, you drop everything and come right back. Before the fourth blast we must be closing the hatch and blowing ballast.” She adjusted the utility belt around her coveralls.

“Got it, sir.”

“No more daydreaming, Wayville. I’ll leave alone if I have to.”

The pilot descended the line, and the would-be historian followed. The surf threw up angry bursts of foam, breaking against Jonathan’s thighs and waist and making it awkward for him to maneuver. Twice he lost his balance, and by the time the water was below his knees, he saw that Hollis was already ashore and heading toward a dozen dark shapes sprawled above the high tide line.

As he emerged onto dry land and began to walk toward the remnants of a stone jetty half buried in dunes, the pad dangling from his belt gave out one loud blast. He cursed and walked on.

Hollis came to a herd of pilot whales, washed up on what was, according to the charts, the city of Long Beach, New York. All things considered, the bodies seemed to be in reasonably good condition. Scans from her pad revealed that they had been boiled through to their very hearts, and she realized that in the absence of bacteria the corpses would never rot. Only the wind and rain would remove them, by a process of slow erosion.