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Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. ‘It's not like I'm using,’ Case heard someone say, as he shouldered his way through the crowd around the door of the Chat. ‘It's like my body's developed this massive drug deficiency.’ It was a Sprawl voice and a Sprawl joke. The Chatsubo was a bar for professional expatriates; you could drink there for a week and never hear two words in Japanese.

Ratz was tending bar, his prosthetic arm jerking monotonously as he filled a tray of glasses with draft Kirin. He saw Case and smiled, his teeth a webwork of East European steel and brown decay. Case found a place at the bar, between the unlikely tan on one of Lonny Zone's whores and the crisp naval uniform of a tall African whose cheekbones were ridged with precise rows of tribal scars. ‘Wage was in here early, with two joeboys,’ Ratz said, shoving a draft across the bar with his good hand. ‘Maybe some business with you, Case?’

A woman is gardening. She feels it starting to rain, so she returns inside and enters a room where a man lies on a bed. Every four days she washes his burned body, making it her job to care for his wounds and make him more comfortable. She feeds him with fruit from the garden.

The nurse asks the patient how he was burned. He tells her he fell from a plane into the desert. Bedouin nomads saw him stand up, still burning, and emerge from the plane. They carry him across the desert to their camp and care for his wounds, putting a mask of herbs on his face and teaching him to lift his arms and draw strength from the universe. They do not know who he is, nor does he know them. Though he never sees them, he can tell them by scent and taste. They chew his food for him so that he might eat.