Book One: The Thing Was, Chapter 19-Chapter 20 Summary

Andrew MacIntosh is persuasive because he doesn't care about the truth. His speech, with the coincidental airing of a documentary about blue-footed boobies, inspires Jacqueline Onassis to book a cabin for the trip. The birds later become the colonists' food on Santa Rosalia. The highlight of the documentary and of Mary's classroom lectures is the courtship dance of the blue-footed boobies. In it, the two birds approach each other in a stylized walk and stand, pressing their necks together, with their beaks pointed to the sky. This is called Sky-Pointing.

Mary Hepburn would give extra credit to students for writing poems or essays about the birds. Most students claimed that the birds were praying to God. Mary's favorite poem is a repeating cycle, parents having a child who becomes the same...