Perry had been hard to take, with his obsessive need to work and his fixation about visits to Quake, but Julius Graves was no easier. Worse, in some ways, sitting there talking to himself when he should have been on his way back to Miranda weeks before. There he remained, day after day, loafing about indoors and not lifting a finger to help with the reconstruction work, and all the while ignoring recall messages from his own superiors. He seemed ready to stay forever.

Even so…

Birdie paused at the entrance to the building and took a deep breath of damp sea air.

Even so, it was impossible to feel anything other than elated these days. Birdie stared up at the dappled blue sky with Mandel’s golden disk showing through broken cloud, then around him at the torn vegetation pushing out new shoots from broken stems. A light breeze roamed in from the west, signaling a perfect day for sailing. He loved it all, and it all seemed too good to be true. Summertide was over, the surface of Opal was returning to its usual tranquility, and Birdie had survived. That was more than could be said for half the unfortunate population of the waterworld.

It was more than he had expected for himself. One week earlier, as Summertide reached its climax and the gravity fields of Mandel and Amaranth tore at Opal, Birdie had huddled alone in the prow of a small boat and watched the turbulent surface ahead of him veer from horizontal to near-vertical.

He was a goner and he knew it. Radio signals had warned that the monster was on the way. Tidal forces had created a great soliton, a solitary wave over a kilometer high that was sweeping around the whole girth of Opal. Sling after Sling had sent their last messages, reporting on wave speed and height before the huge but fragile rafts of mud and tangled vegetation were torn apart and fell silent.