He was terribly hot and sweaty, and bright light was in his eyes, and none of these things were consistent with being underwater. He awoke to see a bright blue sky overhead, pawed at his face, and found that the spectacles were gone. Fiona was there in her white dress, watching him with a rueful smile. The floor was pounding Hackworth on the buttocks and evidently had been for some time, as the bony parts of his backside were bruised and raw.

He realized that they were on the raft, heading back toward the London docks; that he was naked and that Fiona had covered him with a sheet of plastic to protect his skin from the sun. A few other theatergoers were scattered about, slumped against one another, utterly passive, like refugees, or people who've just had the greatest sex of their lives, or people who are tremendously hung over.

"You were quite a hit," Fiona said. And suddenly Hackworth remembered himself being paraded naked and dripping down the thrust stage, waves of applause rolling over him from the standing audience.

"The Quest is finished," he blurted. "We're going to Shanghai."

"You're going to Shanghai," Fiona said. "I'll see you off at the dock. Then I'll be going back." She cocked her head over the stern.

"Back to the ship?"

"I was a bigger hit than you were," she said. "I've found my calling in life, Father. I've accepted an invitation to join Dramatis Personae."