Nell sat on the bed and reflexively called Andy to check in, and Geoffrey stammered belatedly in protest. She looked at him apologetically as she answered. "I know they miss us, Andy. Could you just tell them that we miss them-? Oh, hi, Hender!"

Geoffrey sighed and stretched back on the bed next to her, placing his hands on his forehead. All five sels demanded to speak to her in succession. By the time she finished, the sleep-depleted Geoffrey snored loudly.

She decided not to wake him up and curled up beside him, still coming down from the high of delivering her first Fire-Breathing Chat at the legendary Lillie Auditorium.

MARCH 15.

9:01 A.M. EASTERN STANDARD TIME.

Geoffrey and Nell woke to a loud noise that sounded like the screech of a spiger, the most terrifying predator of Henders Island, and she jolted upright, peering out the window. She recoiled at the image of a garbage truck raising its spiked arms as it hoisted a bin. Adrenaline jolted her body as her groggy mind reacted, and she instinctively grabbed Geoffrey's arm, breathing hard.

He jerked awake and noticed that both of them were still dressed on top of the bedspread. "Oh, no," he said. "You let me sleep?" He noticed the terrified expression on her face. "What's the matter? Did you have a dream again?"

"The garbage truck," she sighed, mad at herself. "I thought it was a spiger!"

"Sorry."

"Damn," Nell said, trying to shake it off.

"It's only natural. We'll probably have nightmares for the rest of our lives. But we're safe now. I wish you hadn't let me go to sleep. I wanted to attack you, too." As he reached out to tickle her, the phone rang. Geoffrey answered and listened for a moment. "OK," he said, and hung up, dropping his head. "There's a limo out front. They found us."

"Surprise, surprise. I need a shower. I can't wear this hula skirt on the plane for nine hours."

"But we're going to Kauai."

"Ha."

"I'll go down and stall them."

He kissed her and dragged their luggage downstairs.

9:07 A.M.

In front of the dorm sat a huge black limousine. The Secret Service must have tracked her cell phone signal and, in the most annoyingly polite way, were waiting in front of the dormitory to escort them to the airport for their honeymoon. Geoffrey plucked a pink beach rose from the hedge bordering the sidewalk outside Brick Dorm. Then he peered into the open back door of the limousine.

Inside the cavernous cabin, which was far more opulent than their usual ride, he saw a large man reclining with his back to the driver and stretching telephone pole legs toward him, crossed at the ankle on the spotless black carpet. He wore expensive loafers on his feet. Geoffrey smelled strong cologne. Long black hair was combed back from the man's sharp widow's peak, and his massive, jutting face was overhung by bushy eyebrows, his jaw framed by a beard with snow-white brackets on his chin. He wore a stylish charcoal suit with a white dress shirt opened at the collar. Leaning forward toward Geoffrey, he grinned, flashing a gold tooth, his ice blue eyes strangely magnetic. "Come, come!" he boomed with a prodigious voice. He waved Geoffrey in with one hand and extended a drink with the other: "A mimosa for groom!"

Geoffrey accepted the fizzing mimosa and noticed a gold ring set with what looked like a 20-carat diamond on the man's pinkie finger. "Is this the right car?"

"Yes, Dr. Binswanger, this is right car!" laughed the man. His voice was not only deep but also explosive-like a Gatling gun inside the broad barrel of his chest. "Come, come! Let me introduce myself. I am Maxim Dragolovich!" He reached out hands as big as goliath tarantulas to grasp Geoffrey's hand. "You cut your hair, yes?"

Geoffrey winced as the man nearly crushed his hand and pulled him inside the car. He sat on the nearest seat and smiled. "Did you say Maxim Dragolovich?"

"Yes. You heard right." With his jutting jaw and nose like the broken ram of a trireme, and his six-foot-five-inch frame, the man was imposing in a way that handsome men cannot be. Geoffrey had certainly heard of the legendary Russian oligarch. His celebrity-adorned rooftop soirees in his Upper East Side mansion on Fifth Avenue were frequent grist for the "Page Six" gossip mill. The billionaire's latest investments were headlined in The Wall Street Journal. His hobbies were sports teams. His homes were feature spreads in Time magazine. For a man with such an outsized profile, Geoffrey thought, he certainly lived up to the hype.

"Congratulations on your wedding! Here is to bride!" With a sweep of his long arm, Maxim toasted Geoffrey so lustily, the biologist felt obliged to lift his glass. As he sipped the drink, he felt a kick of vodka in the "mimosa."

"Don't worry, Doctor. I have come with wonderful proposition for you!" The billionaire peaked his eyebrows apologetically, softening the natural threat of his countenance.

"Oh, yes? What would that be?" Geoffrey asked.

"Being capitalist, I promise to make your cooperation quite agreeable. I require expertise only you and your bride can provide. I am prepared to pay two million dollars for not more than few months of your time. Maybe only few weeks, perhaps." He shrugged. "With condition that you leave today. Right now, in fact."

Geoffrey laughed. "My wife and I are going on our honeymoon today. And due to other extremely pressing obligations, I'm afraid we couldn't possibly commit to that kind of time. I'm very sorry. It's really out of the question."

"But it sounds very interesting," Nell said. She climbed into the limousine wearing faded jeans and a fresh T-shirt. She pecked Geoffrey on the cheek, took the pink rose that was still in his hand, and sat next to him, facing Maxim Dragolovich.

Maxim laughed. His entire body quaked. "Mimosa?" He poured a glass and handed it to her, clinking their glasses in another toast. "I will pay you same amount as your husband. Two million dollars."

"Wow!" Nell tasted the surprisingly powerful drink. "What would we have to do for all that money?"

"I would rather not say before you agree, for reasons you will understand later. That is part of reason for high price. For now, let me say that only scientists with your expertise may be able to identify some species. Species that you will be able to take full credit for discovering. You can name some of them after yourselves. I don't care! So long as you name one of them after me." As he spoke, he removed a bottle of vodka from the refrigerator in the limo and spiked his own drink, downing it like fuel or medicine.

"Where?" Nell and Geoffrey asked simultaneously.

"Kaziristan." Maxim wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "Former satellite of Soviet Union near Kazakhstan. I own city there." Maxim reached out and swung the door of the limo shut, decisively. He rapped on the glass partition behind him, and the limo pulled away from the curb. "Unfortunately, that is all I can tell you." He reached inside his jacket pocket and produced two envelopes, fanning them like a winning hand. "I have checks made out to both of you already."

"Wait, our luggage is back there!" Geoffrey said.

"Don't worry!" Maxim gestured a magician's hand. "It has been loaded into the trunk, Dr. Binswanger."

Geoffrey was incensed. "I'm sorry, Mr. Dragolovich. We can't do this. We're going on our honeymoon today. Please turn the car around immediately."

"We would have to have time to consider your offer, anyway," Nell said. "Please, turn the car around now!"

Maxim opened the bar and produced a jar, which he held up in front of them. Inside was a squirming centipede.

"OK," Geoffrey said. "Please-"

Maxim chuckled and flicked the jar with a fingernail. The "centipede" broke into a dozen pieces. Each segment raced around the jar independently pointing long mandibles. As Nell and Geoffrey watched, the segments came back together, coupling again like a train.

Nell gasped, squeezing Geoffrey's wrist.

"What is it?" Geoffrey said.

"You must answer that!" Maxim laughed.

"Can I see it?" Geoffrey asked.

Maxim handed him the jar. "Don't open, please."

He and Nell gaped at the long-legged creatures that had joined into one. "It's pale. Long legs, huge eyes on each segment..."

"A subterranean species?" Nell asked.

"With at least some light..."

"Very good! I see that I have best experts in world for this job. If you would like to see more, however, you must accept my offer first. Or, you can look for wolf spiders in lava vents in Hawaii. Yes, I attended your lecture last night, Doctor. It was quite intriguing! I tell you what. I know that you have two weeks set aside for your honeymoon. Why don't you come with me, instead? I promise first-class travel and accommodations. Plus chance to discover more than you ever found on Henders Island. In perfect safety, of course. And if you want to return after two weeks, I will fly you back home or to Hawaii, if you wish." Another confident laugh rocked his ribs.

Geoffrey and Nell looked at each other. "Why not?" she said.

Geoffrey pursed his lips, then shrugged and smiled involuntarily.

MARCH 16.

8:29 P.M. PACIFIC TIME.

"They are usually on time, Your Eminence. And they like very much for others to be, as well. Are you ready? We don't want to be late."

"I'm not sure how I could be ready," the cardinal answered irritably. "Do they speak English?"

"Yes. The one called Hender speaks English fairly well, I'm told. The others are learning."

"How many will there be?"

"Only two. Hender and another named Kuzu."

"I don't understand why you can't come with me."

"They don't like to meet more than one human at a time, Your Eminence."

The cleric drew in a deep breath, trying to steady his nerves. He was aware that the pope himself had declared that Revelation established that God made only man in his own image and for his own sake. And yet he was also aware that the pope's official astronomer declared intelligent life from alien planets should be treated as brothers who were equally the children of God, since there could be no limits on the creativity of God and such beings would necessarily be part of his creation. Yet these intelligent alien creatures were said to have evolved on Earth, long before humans. They were a living paradox, and the greatest trial of his faith he had ever encountered or imagined.

"Are you ready?" his aide asked again.

The cardinal took a deep breath, humbled by the test God laid before him. "As I'll ever be, Franklin," he said.

8:30 P.M. PACIFIC TIME.

Kuzu and Hender arrived at the visitors' lounge, consulting the wristwatch on one of their eight wrists, both of which were synchronized to atomic clocks four times daily through a radio signal broadcast from Fort Collins, Colorado. The watches were accurate to within a second every million years. The sels were precisely on time as they entered the visitors' lounge through the air lock. Joe let them in.

Joe was sure to be there at the precise moment, knowing the sels took punctuality very seriously. Indeed, the sels seemed to fetishize their human timepieces. Joe assumed their compulsion was born of necessity on Henders Island, where life and death could be decided by nanoseconds.

The plush dining and meeting lounge had been constructed for VIPs just inside the western edge of the sels' Mylar dome. Over the polished mahogany table, acrylic windows arched, through which visitors could observe the sels' lifeless habitat: a circle of five cement trees connected by rope bridges under an artificial silver sky. On the conduit- and cable-snarled cement floor between the fake trees were scattered labs and trailers.

The two hendros strode through the vestibule of the air hatch on four springing legs. The one called Kuzu was a full third larger than the one called Hender. Kuzu's bristling fur coat shone black and purple. Hender's fur shone shifting patterns of blue, pink, and green.

Andy Beasley, a marine biologist who had been the first human to encounter the hendros on their isolated island in the South Pacific, rose from the table and greeted them. Skinny and narrow-shouldered, with frazzled blond hair and tortoiseshell eyeglasses, Andy looked more nervous than usual to Hender.

"Hi, Andy," Hender said. "OK?"

"Hi, Hender. OK."

According to sel tradition, as soon as they arrived, dinner was served by Joe and Bo. They were both warrant officers in the navy and wore dress whites for the occasion. While in Hawaii, they had been assigned guard detail over the sels and had not left their sides since, at the sels' request.

Hender and Kuzu sat down and immediately began eating. They did not rise with Andy to acknowledge their guest when he arrived a minute late through the opposite hatch of the lounge. Both sels pointed one eye in his direction as they sipped their soup from spoons.

Steadying himself with a cane, the bent human shambled along, dressed in a black cassock studded with crimson buttons and bound at the waist with a crimson fascia. A large gold crucifix dangled on a chain, bouncing on the cardinal's potbelly. A scarlet zucchetto domed the wispy cloud of his white hair. The clergyman's green eyes bulged as he saw his dinner companions. He had seen photographs-but nothing could prepare him for seeing the hendros in person.

Each of them used four hands to eat, holding four spoons that they lifted to their mouths in an unbroken succession. Rising like shoulders to each side of a cylindrical trunk, their arms bent down to a second joint that acted as an elbow from which forearms emerged. Their long boneless necks stretched and shortened under large heads with pronounced brows jutting over wide eyes the size of avocados that popped out of their sockets on stalks as they moved independently.

Cardinal Carnahan was told that they were related to crustaceans. But they were covered with a shining mammal-like fur that changed color in front of his eyes now. The old man cranked open an unconvincing smile as he approached the table, and he raised his cane in a brave, benevolent gesture. "I see that I'm late!"

Kuzu unfolded a six-foot-long arm across the table and pointed a few inches from the cleric's mouth. "Teeth yellow," he rumbled like a muffled truck engine. "Like!"

Bo sharply cleared his throat. "Excuse me, Your Eminence. May I introduce Hender and Kuzu. Hender and Kuzu, may I introduce you to Cardinal Michael Carnahan." The Texan pulled out their guest's chair.

The sels did not rise and kept eating, watching the cardinal with alternating eyes.

The cardinal seemed flustered now, which Andy Beasley noticed in dread, and he reached out a hand to the clergyman. "It is an honor to meet you, sir." Andy shook the cardinal's hand inappropriately, hoping to distract him.

"For the sels, discussion comes only after food has been shared," Andy whispered with urgency into the cardinal's ear.

The cardinal nodded with a polite smile. He gathered his cassock as he sat down on the chair and waved Bo off, preferring to skooch his chair up to the table himself. He crossed himself and placed his hands in his lap as he regarded the strange beings across the table.

Andy quickly seated himself to the right of the cleric and eyed both hendros anxiously.

"The lobster bisque is very good, Your Eminence," Joe said, setting a bowl in front of the cardinal.

Cardinal Carnahan wrinkled his nose, nodded, and then drank all his wine. Joe served dinner and replenished his glass as the clergyman sipped three spoons of soup, swallowed one ravioli, and nibbled half a brussels sprout before he was finished with his meal. Joe placed a grappa on the table near the cardinal's empty wineglass. The cleric snatched the digestif and tossed back the snort of clear brandy, staring at the creatures from under his bushy white eyebrows as his cheeks flushed.

"Others came to talk about God."

It took a moment before the cardinal realized that Hender had said it while one of his four hands wiped his wide mouth with a napkin. "Ah?" The cardinal pulled back, shocked to hear one of them speak even though he was told to expect it. "Are you addressing me?"

Hender nodded. "Someone came before and told me very funny things."

"Ah." The high cleric quailed as he glanced at Andy to make sure that he was in control of the situation. Andy's expression did not persuade him. He turned back to the sels across the table. "What did this person say?"

To Andy's relief, the old man's voice sounded gentle and kind. All guests were shaken, at first, to hear the hendros speak. Andy was grateful that the clergyman was using the right approach so far.

"I did not know this man," Hender said.