Carthago

This chapter opens with a description of a strange object floating in the North Pacific Ocean. The object is described as a "big, flying fish" with a "low frequency wave" that is interfering with the ship's sonar system. The narrator wonders if the object is a "flying saucer" or a "ballet of some sort" , but he does not know where it is coming from. He tells the narrator that he has retired to the village of Kotik creek in Alaska, where he has been writing a local recipe for wolfgang, a type of fish. He says that he is not comfortable talking to the narrator about the recipe, but that he needs to tell him about his friend, tuak, an old Inuit friend of his, who invented the recipe. He adds that tuak never did anything half way, and that he had "no desire" to go to Alaska. He also says that it is great to see the narrator after so many years, as he has read all the reports about the city of plato in the Galapagos and the discovery of the great pyramid in the middle of the ocean. He asks the narrator why he has kept the discovery a secret, and the narrator says that after the recent "flash emergency" in the Pacific Ocean, a whole new set of storms has descended on the west coast of the U.S.