There was no winter in the deep submarine trench off California, two miles down. Everything was as it had been: a dark pressurized sameness where the Sea Beast lay by his black smoker, grieving for love lost. He stopped grazing on deep water worms that grew on the rocks and his great body began to waste away under the weight of the water and the years. He had resolved never to move again—to lie there until his great heart stopped and with it the throb of heartbreak—when sensor cells along his flanks picked up a signal. Something he had not felt for half a century, the signature of a creature he thought he would never feel again. He flipped his tail and shook off the crust of loneliness that had settled over him, and that organ buried deep beneath his reptile brain picked up a message coming from the female. Roughly translated, it said, “Hey, sailor, want to get lucky?”

Acknowledgments

My thanks to Dr. Kenneth Berv and Dr. Roger Wunderlich for their advice on mental health and psychoactive drugs; to Galen and Lynn Rathbun for help with biology and rat tagging information; to Charlee Rodgers, Dee Dee Leichtfuss, and Jean Brody for manuscript readings and comments; to Nick Ellison for agent stuff; to Rachel Klayman for patience and precision in her editing; and finally to all those people who were willing to share their experiences with antidepressants and other psychotropic drugs—you know who you are, you crazy fucks. (Just kidding.)

About the Author

CHRISTOPHER MOORE is the author of seven novels, including this one. He began writing at age six and became the oldest known child prodigy when, in his early thirties, he published his first novel. His turn-ons are the ocean, playing the toad lotto, and talking animals on TV. His turn-offs are salmo-nella, traffic, and rude people. Chris enjoys cheese crackers, acid jazz, and otter scrubbing. He lives in an inaccessible island fortress in the Pacific. You can e-mail him at [email protected]. Visit the official Christopher Moore website at www.chrismoore.com.

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