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consisted of a thin polymer fabric stretched over a metal-tube frame. They were ballasted with slabs of rock cut to fit the bilge and powered by solar-charged storage batteries. They were not fast, but they were cheap and efficient. Each was ten meters by three, without decking or overhead cover. All comm and navigation equipment was in weathertight modules.
    "What if it rains?" Dierdre wanted to know.
    "Get wet and like it," said Govinda Murphy. She was a wiry, nervous woman who rarely stopped moving.
    "Team Red, climb aboard," Forrest shouted. Boat One was tied at the end of a spindly pier made of native wood, and metal struts scavenged from earlier building projects. It shook and swayed, seeming ready to collapse at any moment, as the team filed along it.
    Dierdre was among the last to board. She tossed her duffel to Colin, who stored it amidships. Happily, she managed to scramble aboard without stumbling. When the whole team was aboard, the boat held thirteen explorers and their gear. Three other boats waited at the dock. Teams Blue, White and Gold would leave the next day.
    As the sun broke over the horizon, Forrest addressed his team, the morning breeze ruffling his tawny beard. "Everybody listen close so I don't have to say this twice. Nobody sits on the gunnels while we're at sea. If you have to puke, do it over the leeward side. Got that? All right, cast off."
    "Real inspiring oration, there," Dierdre whispered to Colin. "What's the leeward side?"
    "That's the side where the wind's blowing away from you."
    The silent engine started and the boat backed away from the pier, then reversed and nosed its way toward the entrance of the little lagoon. It hit open water just as the sun rose fully. In the open water, the gentle rocking of the craft turned to a more violent pitching, which smoothed out as they picked up speed.
    To her relief, Dierdre found that she rather liked the motion of the boat. She had taken anti-nausea pills and was a bit groggy from their effects. It was another new experience, being tossed about amid a totally hostile environment. She looked over the side, hoping to see sea life, but the water was virtually opaque.
    After about two hours, they sighted the island. Several of the team members hung queasily over the sides, but Dierdre felt fine. She stared eagerly at the island and was startled when a red-headed young man named Gaston pointed behind them.
    "Look there!" he shouted.
    They all looked back and saw a huge, humped form break the surface a hundred meters away. It was grayish and unbelievably big. With a hiss, a pillar of spray shot from an orifice, straight up for twenty meters. Beyond it, two other forms rose and did likewise. Then all three sank beneath the water.
    "What was that?" Dierdre's heart was pounding.
    The formerly benevolent ocean had turned hostile. It was full of monsters.
    Forrest shrugged. "We see lots of things from a distance. All sorts of sea life's been observed from orbit, some of it bigger than those things. We've called those 'whales' for lack of a better term. They only show up near this archipelago. Nobody's figured out what keeps the oceanic life confined to specific areas. It's completely different from the way the Earth ecosystem worked."
    "Do they ever get violent?" she asked,
    "Not yet. Nobody's had a close look at them yet. They don't come closer to boats than those we just saw. So far."
    Within an hour, they were a few hundred meters offshore. The southern tip of the island, where they were to land, appeared to be heavily wooded nearly to the waterline. It was girded with a narrow strip of sandy beach. A half-kilometer northward, on the eastern side of the tip, was a narrow inlet which had been chosen as the landing site. Wave action around the island was relatively mild, and in the little bay it was minimal. The boat nosed through the tiny breakers at its slowest speed and, with a gentle nudge, grounded.
    "There," Forrest said, "jump smartly and nobody has to