"So it's an active geological region with a deep trench," Evans said. "I still don't see the game."

"Lot of undersea volcanoes, lot of slope debris, and therefore the potential for landslides," Kenner said.

"Landslides." Evans rubbed his eyes. It was late.

"Undersea landslides," Kenner said.

Sarah said, "They're trying to cause an undersea landslide?"

"We think so. Somewhere along the slope of the Solomon Trench. Probably at the five-hundred- to one-thousand-foot depth."

Evans said, "And what would that do? An undersea landslide?"

Kenner said to Sanjong, "Show them the big map." Sanjong brought up a map of the entire Pacific basin, from Siberia to Chile, Australia to Alaska.

"Okay," Kenner said. "Now draw a straight line out from Resolution Bay and see where it takes you."

"California!"

"Right. In about eleven hours."

Evans frowned. "An undersea landslide..."

"Displaces an enormous volume of water very quickly. That is the most common way a tsunami is formed. Once propagated, the wave front will travel right across the Pacific at five hundred miles an hour."

"Holy shit," Evans said. "How big a wave are we talking?"

"Actually, it's a series, what's called a wave train. The undersea landslide in Alaska in 1952 generated a wave forty-seven feet high. But the height of this one is impossible to anticipate because wave height is a function of the shoreline it hits. In parts of California it could be up to sixty feet high. A six-story building."

"Oh boy," Sarah said.

"And how much time do we have before they do this?" Evans said.

"The conference runs two more days. The wave will take a day to cross the Pacific. So..."

"We have one day."

"At most, yes. One day to land, make our way to Resolution Bay, and stop them."

"Stop who?" Ted Bradley said, yawning and coming back toward them. "Je-sus! Do I have a headache or what! How about a little hair of the dog?" He paused, stared at the group, looking from face to face. "Hey, what's going on here? You guys look like I interrupted a funeral."

TO GAREDA.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14.

5:30 A.M.

Three hours later, the sun came up and the plane began its descent. Now it was flying low, passing over green forested islands fringed in an unearthly pale blue. They saw few roads and few towns, mostly small villages.

Ted Bradley looked out the window. "Isn't it beautiful?" he said. "Truly unspoiled paradise. This is what is vanishing in our world."

Seated opposite him, Kenner said nothing. He, too, was staring out the window.

"Don't you think the problem," Bradley said, "is that we have lost contact with nature?"

"No," Kenner said. "I think the problem is I don't see many roads."

"Don't you think," Bradley said, "that's because it's the white man, not the natives, who wants to conquer nature, to beat it into submission?"

"No, I don't think that."

"I do," Bradley said. "I find that people who live closer to the earth, in their villages, surrounded by nature, that those people have a natural ecological sense and a feeling for the fitness of it all."

"Spent a lot of time in villages, Ted?" Kenner said.

"As a matter of fact, yes. I shot a picture in Zimbabwe and another one in Botswana. I know what I am talking about."

"Uh-huh. You stayed in villages all that time?"

"No, I stayed in hotels. I had to, for insurance. But I had a lot of experiences in villages. There is no question that village life is best and ecologically soundest. Frankly, I think everyone in the world should live that way. And certainly, we should not be encouraging village people to industrialize. That's the problem."

"I see. So you want to stay in a hotel, but you want everybody else to stay in a village."

"No, you're not hearing-"

"Where do you live now, Ted?" Kenner said.

"Sherman Oaks."

"Is that a village?"

"No. Well, it's a sort of a village, I suppose you could say...But I have to be in LA for my work," Bradley said. "I don't have a choice."

"Ted, have you ever stayed in a Third-World village? Even for one night?"

Bradley shifted in his seat. "As I said before, I spent a lot of time in the villages while we were shooting. I know what I'm talking about."

"If village life is so great, why do you think people want to leave?"

"They shouldn't leave. That's my point."

"You know better than they do?" Kenner said.

Bradley paused, then blurted: "Well, frankly, if you must know, yes. I do know better. I have the benefit of education and broader experience. And I know firsthand the dangers of industrial society and how it is making the whole world sick. So, yes, I think I do know what is best for them. Certainly I know what is ecologically best for the planet."

"I have a problem," Kenner said, "with other people deciding what is in my best interest when they don't live where I do, when they don't know the local conditions or the local problems I face, when they don't even live in the same country as I do, but they still feel-in some far-off Western city, at a desk in some glass skyscraper in Brussels or Berlin or New York-they still feel that they know the solution to all my problems and how I should live my life. I have a problem with that."

"What's your problem?" Bradley said. "I mean, look: You don't seriously believe everybody on the planet should do whatever they want, do you? That would be terrible. These people need help and guidance."

"And you're the one to give it? To 'these people?'"

"Okay, so it's not politically correct to talk this way. But do you want all these people to have the same horrific, wasteful living standard that we do in America and, to a lesser extent, Europe?"

"I don't see you giving it up."

"No," Ted said, "but I conserve where I can. I recycle. I support a carbon-neutral lifestyle. The point is, if all these other people industrialize, it will add a terrible, terrible burden of global pollution to the planet. That should not happen."

"I got mine, but you can't have yours?"

"It's a question of facing realities," Bradley said.

"Your realities. Not theirs."

At that point, Sanjong beckoned to Kenner. "Excuse me," Kenner said, and got up.

"Walk away if you want," Bradley said, "but you know I speak truth!" He gestured to the flight attendant and held up his glass. "Just one more, sweetie. One more for the road."

Sanjong said, "The helicopter's not there yet."

"What's the matter?"

"It was coming over from another island. They've closed the air space because they're worried the rebels have surface-to-air missiles."

Kenner frowned. "How long until we land?"

"Ten minutes."

"Keep your fingers crossed."

Abandoned, Ted Bradley slid to the other side of the plane, to sit with Peter Evans. "Isn't it gorgeous?" he said. "Look at that water. Crystalline and pure. Look at the depth of that blue. Look at those beautiful villages, in the heart of nature."

Evans was staring out the window but saw only poverty. The villages were clusters of corrugated tin shacks, the roads red mud ruts. The people looked poorly dressed and moved slowly. There was a depressing, disconsolate feeling about them. He imagined sickness, disease, infant death...

"Gorgeous," Bradley said. "Pristine! I can't wait to get down there. This is as good as a vacation! Did anyone here know the Solomons were so beautiful?"

From the front, Jennifer said, "Inhabited by headhunters, for most of history."

"Yes, well, that's all in the past," Bradley said. "If it ever existed at all. I mean, all that talk about cannibalism. Everybody knows it is not true. I read a book by some professor.* There never were any cannibals, anywhere in the world. It's all a big myth. Another example of the way the white man demonizes people of color. When Columbus came to the West Indies, he thought they told him there were cannibals there, but it wasn't true. I forget the details. There are no cannibals anywhere. Just a myth. Why are you staring at me that way?" There never were any cannibals, anywhere in the world. It's all a big myth. Another example of the way the white man demonizes people of color. When Columbus came to the West Indies, he thought they told him there were cannibals there, but it wasn't true. I forget the details. There are no cannibals anywhere. Just a myth. Why are you staring at me that way?"

Evans turned. Bradley was talking to Sanjong, who was indeed staring.

"Well?" Bradley said. "You're giving me a look. Okay, buddy boy. Does that mean you disagree with me?"

"You're truly a fool," Sanjong said, in an astonished voice. "Have you ever been to Sumatra?"

"Can't say that I have."

"New Guinea?"

"No. Always wanted to go, buy some tribal art. Great stuff."

"Borneo?"

"No, but I always wanted to go there, too. That Sultan What's his name, he did a great job remodeling the Dorchester in London-"

"Well," Sanjong said, "if you go to Borneo you will see the Dyak longhouses where they still display the skulls of the people they killed."

"Oh, that's just tourist-attraction stuff."

"In New Guinea, they had a disease called kuru, kuru, transmitted by eating the brains of their enemies." transmitted by eating the brains of their enemies."

"That's not true."

"Gajdusek won a Nobel Prize for it. They were eating brains, all right."

"But that was a long time ago."

"Sixties. Seventies."

"You guys just like to tell scare stories," Bradley said, "at the expense of the indigenous people of the world. Come on, face the facts, human beings are not cannibals."*

Sanjong blinked. He looked at Kenner. Kenner shrugged.

"Absolutely beautiful down there," Bradley said, looking out the window. "And it looks like we're going to land."

VII.

RESOLUTION.