Book One: The Thing Was, Chapter 15-Chapter 16 Summary

Andrew MacIntosh is in Selena's room, waiting for the phone call that will close his deal to buy up cheap Ecuadorian property. The narrator sees blind Selena as an experiment by Nature. When she is twenty-eight, she will refuse to participate in Mary's experiment. If she had born a child, she might have passed on blindness. In the future, she will couple with Hisako to raise Hisako's baby. At the moment, she is protected by her father's wealth and power.

While MacIntosh waits for his call, he orders two rare steaks. The hotel and ship are filled with good food for the celebrity passengers of the cruise, and they are protected from the starving people by soldiers and barbed wire. Jesús Ortiz, the hotel bartender, brings the food to MacIntosh...