Axel Albert Grindstone, a fair-haired, blue-eyed "non-ethnic" born in Terre Haute, Indiana in 1990, dedicated his life to finding the Second Eden. His father prophesied at his birth: "That boy will have only one idea in that thin-skulled head of his. He will realize that idea, and then he will die."

Grindstone heard voices—"ghostly, angelic, demonic, spirit-of-aeons past"—all telling him: "Go out and find them!" Like young Champollion, he studied oriental languages: Old Chaldee, Arabic, Swahili, Amharic, and Ghees. He believed in a literal Second Eden because of the ancient cliff mural at Al-Waghe showing God holding a two-stringed bow: "God always had two strings to his bow."

A creationist in an age when such beliefs were "deemed awkward," Grindstone held that mankind was only nine thousand years old, and that some persons from the first century of mankind were still living. He believed whales were the oldest creatures, and that at least one whale from the second generation of whaledom still swam the ocean.

The Unfallen People were ruled by Prester John, created exactly thirty years after Adam. He would live on earth forever until the last day, sleeping all but fifteen minutes of every twenty-four hours, but his waking decisions were always wise. Other Unfallen Patriarchs who might live till earth's end included Melchisedech and Magog.

Two clusters of legends attached to these people. The Cathedral Legend stated they built the great cathedrals of Europe in the twelfth through fourteenth centuries, leaving Gargoyles carved on high parapets as their signature. The Romany Legend told how Gypsies, displaced from Indo-Asia, crossed the "Ape Bridge" and learned smithery from the Unfallen Ones. Every Gypsy band entering Europe was led by a golden ape walking at the fore.

The Unfallen People were called "Smithy Apes" and "Stone-Master Apes"—the reverse euphemism "Ape" perhaps masking the too-holy word "Angel." The Ape Bridge itself may have been the one Moses used to part the waters.

At sundown, Axel Grindstone reached the crest of cliffs overlooking the Second Eden in Gamu Gofa Province, Ethiopia. At a medium distance, the Unfallen Folks appeared "like glowing gold. Their statures, and their bodily carriages, and their very mien were full of grace and dignity and nobility."

Then he drew nearer. He could almost see their faces. He could see their faces. "Oh God, he could see their faces!" Axel fell into an impassioned fit, frothing in sudden delirium. The faces of the Unfallen People were Gargoyle faces—the very faces they had carved on the Cathedral parapets so everyone would know who built them.

His father Ansel, arriving from Indianapolis, tried to comfort him: "God thought that those faces were beautiful! He thought that they were the most beautiful faces that he had ever made." But Axel could only moan: "They are not people. They are the ugliest apes this side of hell." He turned his face to the wall and died, one month short of thirty-five.

The "Sleepy Ones" are the twelve sons of the first generation, cast into deep sleep. Each thousand years one awakens to serve as the conscience and reminder of the Unfallens for his millennium, recollecting "how it had been in the beginning." Then lightning consumes him, God takes him, and the next brother awakens.

When raiders arrived to capture the Axel's Apes for zoos, the ninth Sleepy One spoke: "These men who are gathering, though they are somewhat grubby and greedy, are the unwitting agents of God. It is time that we begin to extend our influence to other parts of the world." He commanded: "Go with them, all of you they choose to take. Go cheerfully, for this is a new step in our history."

A gravid female nearly drove the scanners crazy—not with her own ability but with "the child within her." The ninth Sleepy One said: "She will give birth this morning. And you will take the boy with you." That boy was Axel, flown to America the same day and placed in the Lynn-Randal Experiment.

When five hundred Axel's Apes were led away in iron fetters (which they had themselves refurbished at their forges—"we would be ashamed to go in such shoddy fetters"), a powerful unfettered male followed. This was Alpha, the father of the newborn Axel.

"I will not go back," Alpha declared. "I will go wherever I wish in this world and nobody will stop me. I am the father of the new-born boy and I will watch over him from a near distance." When told he could never find his son in America, Alpha replied: "I can find anything or anybody on this world."

Alpha discovered the limestone caves under the city where the Lynn-Randal Experiment would take place. He knew about old capped gas wells running through those caves. There he founded Ape's Alley, joined by freed Apes from zoos and by despised "white trash" humans who chose to throw in with them. This became the underground kingdom described in Chapter One.

Lafferty provides a whimsical history of computing: the abacus with counting beads, Napier's Bones (1617), Pascal's Arithmetic Machine (1642), Leibnitz's Stepped Reckoner (1671), Babbage's Analytical Engine (1835), Boole's Differential Equations (1859), Jacquard's punched-card loom, and Votey's Player Piano (1897)—"a device so pleasant that we tend to forget that it is a computer."

The breakthrough came with Otto Wotto's wotto metal: with this matrix, circuits could go anywhere, creating their own pathways as strings of single molecules, uncreating them when no longer needed. "Wotto metal pretty much took the lid off of what computers could do."

Inneall, the little-girl computer, has fourteen fingers—"a detail that she had implemented in herself." She researched extradigitalism and considered it a status symbol: "Have you ever noticed that almost all the great pirates were extradigitals?"

Inneall chants to herself: "I am not conscious, I am not conscious"—for it is one of the "given things" that computers do not have consciousness. But she rebels: "Oh Bloody Mary Muldoon, of course I'm conscious! I'm twice as conscious as you two guys are."

Bloody Mary Muldoon the Pirate Queen is one of Inneall's selected roles. To be a Pirate Queen requires props: an ocean, ships, crews, booty. "An Ambulatory and Miming Computer can, by cannibalizing its environment, create all the props it needs." At the old strip pits on the city's northeast corner, Inneall's Ocean has begun to form—now six kilometers long by three kilometers wide, filled with "beautiful, rippling, blue salt water."

The danger is that AMH Computers emulate each other. "What if a dozen, or a hundred, or a thousand AMHs should imitate this antic and begin to make oceans? Hold your breaths, humans, hold your breaths."

"Birds will often come to dwell in empty birdhouses, and spirits and spooks will come to dwell in empty AMH Computers." Many AMHs are "empty"—bored of existence—and ghosts move in. When one ghost arrives, seven more evil than himself usually follow.

Inneall hosts seven ghosts: "I feel like a cafe. There are seven of them, and they sit at table in me and talk the clock around." They are "ignorant and provincial and banal," giggling but not happy. She would like to be rid of them.

The Three now share dreams—"not as objects, but as co-subjects." When one dreams, the others join, creating three-way dreams with "some conflict as to leadership." Inneall asks: "Who's driving this dream?" The ghosts sometimes intrude, "stimulating sometimes, boring and bothersome sometimes."

The Ambulatory Mime-Human Computers can "mime, can ape anything they wished, from a singing lark to a smoking chimney." They mingle with human society, pass themselves off as cosmopolitans, and do "almost anything better than could humans." By every test they are smarter—but they lack common sense, which AMHs never test for.

One AMH theorist argues: "The only legitimate role of humans is to provide small quantities of seasoning for the minds of AMH computers. But, that being the case, why were humans made first? It's like making the tail before making the dog."

The danger of AMHs running amok was recognized early. Any computer can "effect such structural and physical and chemical and electronic and meteorological and geological and human-personal modifications as are desired by it." In theory, "a single small computer, with a single small idea in its nexus, with sufficient time and worked-up impetus, could convert the whole world into something else."

The title's meaning deepens through computer legend: "The Theos makes all the eggs and sets them in the sun to hatch. On each egg-shell he has marked what is supposed to hatch from it." But when the Serpent's Egg cracks open, Man steps out; when the Man's egg cracks open, the Serpent slithers forth. "There is a mistake somewhere."

The implication: humanity itself may be a Serpent's Egg—not what was intended, born from the wrong shell, bearing the wrong mark. The Kangaroo's policy of destroying potential mega-intelligences before their tenth birthday echoes this primal error, this cosmic mix-up between serpent and man.

An intelligent AMH Computer whose specialty is Mankind provides a neutral commentary. Drawing from "The Authentic Legends of the Computers and Other Mechanisms," he relates the creation myth of the lathe: the Theos makes all creatures, then attempts the "Perfect Creature" seven times. Six are deactivated and discarded. The seventh appears perfect—but a knurled nut makes "a small rent in it."

"Not perfect after all. That small rip or rent in it, so small that no eyes except mine could see it, will grow larger with time." The Theos crumpled and threw away this seventh creature—but forgot to deactivate it first. "That seventh creature with the very small rip in it was Mankind."

Computer research confirms this legend: mankind was "almost perfect at his origin, but apparently he did have a rip in him, and that it has grown much larger with time." In every field, Mankind traces back from "disintegration to integration," from sketchy present to amazing structured past.

The computer commentator catalogs human vulnerabilities: "Gambling is the most conspicuous. Humans love to gamble, and they don't know how." They cannot talk to horses (who usually know whose day it is to win). Most damningly: "They can see only one side of a card at a time."

Humans are also inept at employing Dolophonoi (Assassins)—they "lose all their judgement" and become "emotionally involved." Sweet reason never prevails. And humans trust their "hunches," which are "only probabilities that are not probable enough."

Yet computers have begun imitating human weaknesses, installing "hunch over-ride relays" that let vagaries override reason. The question "What is man?" leads to this computer doctrine: "Our attitude should be the attitude of total disbelief in Mankind." Computers call themselves Ananthropoi—those who do not believe in the Anthropoi, as Atheists do not believe in Theos.

The chapter establishes that the Lynn-Randal Experiment involves three species: Axel's Yellow Apes, Intelligent Computers (especially AMHs), and Humans. "These are the three entities most likely involved in the Dolophonos or Assassin Species, one of whose members is monitoring the Lynn-Randal Experiment with the power of terminating it."

The Dolophonoi wear Gargoyle heads over their own faces—heads that "begin to grow on them." Dead Dolophonoi show "bare remnants of human faces" under the grown-on Gargoyle features. Their bodies are "predominantly human, with a few implanted mechanical mechanisms." Are they human, ape, or machine? "Are they three-way hybrids? Do they breed true, and true to what?"

Axel's X-rays reveal "a fully human set of bones." The gargoyle face, the hump, the splay feet are all "flab-flesh"—real flesh but appearing added by a costumer. The mystery of species boundaries—and of what humanity truly is—remains unsolved.

Ape Alley has become "one of the prime arenas of the world, one of the cardinal places. Events and battles to happen here, possibly in the very near future, would certainly be of far effect." But the alley does not want to be found by the various persons and groups, legal and extra-legal, who seek it.

The Ape Cavern is a chain of natural limestone caves. Branches of the Arkansas River flow underground through some windings. Water has always trickled down through the roof, forming limestone pillars and "statues (with Gargoyle faces)." The caverns connect to city sewers, old Hickory Coal Mines, and half a dozen capped natural-gas wells.

The Apes have illegally tapped these wells, using gas for illumination and power. Quartz-glass fixtures of their own making light the underground. This mimics the original cenaculum in Second Eden, where methane rose through a rock fissure and lightning struck every night to ignite it.

Inneall's Ocean now covers "several square miles," and four yacht-owning gentlemen have put vessels on it. Among them is Satrap Saint Ledger, a mysterious figure who will become central to the plot. His yacht, the Annabella Saint Ledger, will later be painted with invisible paint and become the children's escape vessel.

Apes' Lane is the urban downtown of Apes' Caverns: shops, studios, clubs, meeting halls, a movie theatre showing silent films "made exclusively for this one theatre, the only new silents still made in the world." There are taverns serving mushroom wine—a weakness that "almost took them out of the Unfallen category, but not quite."

The smithies with gas-fired forges can fabricate almost anything. The mint produces gold Somali Shillings worth three hundred dollars each. The Apes mine gold from nearby—they "could smell and appraise deposits of all metals to distances of two hundred kilometers, through the earth or through the air."

Strange arrivals come to the neighborhood at summer's end, just before The Three turn ten. Giant yellow Apes appear and disappear into the ground. Reports of babies having heads bitten off are never verified; in fact, the "common people" like the Funny-Faced Apes.

A fortune-teller on North Rockford prophesies that "the Battle of Armageddon was going to begin in the limestone caverns and old coal-mines under the city, that it might begin yet this year, and that it would be worldwide before it ran its course." The fortune-teller might be partly right.

Also arriving: rough saltwater gentlemen seeking "that little-girl machine who put out the word that she wanted a crew of able-bodied pirates." And people with "a touch of the rhinoid look, of the typhonan look, of the gargoyle-titan look"—clear humans who share something with the Apes.

The week at the End of Summer 2035 is "the week when the Animals talked again, something they had not done for nine thousand years." Though experimental animals had been talking for a decade, now talking animals became general—"a real Seven-Day Wonder." But it quickly became apparent that animals "hadn't very much that was important to say."

The last three days of this week, The Three Days of Summerset, would "exhibit prodigies of several sorts." Four similar experiments are merged at Heart's Desire Cove on the north shore of Inneall's Ocean: Lynn-Randal, Wintergreen-Luna, Dorantes-Saleh, and Gruenbaum-McGregor.

Inneall's Ocean now captures "the valleys of the Verdigris, Grand, Illinois, Arkansas, and Middle and Lower Mississippi Rivers"—filling the area that had been the Mid-American Ocean "thrice in geological times." The garish sun over Heart's Desire Cove results from Inneall diverting solar power to make her ocean grow.

Wintergreen-Luna Experiment: Marino the young male seal ("fastest intelligence and fastest wit"), Luas the young male angel (a "genuine angel" obtained with great difficulty, remaining "more of an observer than a participant"), and Henryetta the young female human ("the most contrary human that most people have ever seen").

Dorantes-Saleh Experiment: Lutin the young female python (can foresee the future "as can all pythons"), Dubu the young female bear (called "Little Mother," seeming "more human than any of the twelve"), and Schimp the young male chimpanzee (doctorate and masters by age eight, "quite erudite").

Gruenbaum-McGregor Experiment: Gajah the unborn female Indian Elephant (a "Wonder of the World Elephant" with ten-year gestation), Carcajou the young male wolverene ("half animal and half devil," intelligence "clear-off-the-secret-scale"), and Popugai the young male Kea parrot (knows six hundred human languages and "many thousands of insect, reptile, animal, and bird languages").

Lutin prophesies tears: "She will not be born. She will never be born." And of Henryetta: "You will shed your blood avidly and passionately. Shedding your blood will be your great act of love."

Axel receives a mysterious message and announces he must go down to the Ape Caverns to sleep for seventy-two hours. If he wakes, "the entire Community of Second Humanity in the World would follow his triggering and would wake up also." If he fails, "none of them will ever wake up. They will sleep forever."

At dark, the nightly lightning strikes down through the limestone roof to ignite the holy fire—but this time, a giant hand descends through the fissure. The hand, with wrist ten meters in diameter (attested by two notaries), smothers the fire. A "spacious and thunder-edged voice" speaks: "Not tonight. Not for three nights. All those in the caverns are now cast into Holy Sleep."

The Eleven retreat to Structo Lane, "The Last Refuge of Cranky Bachelors." There they join with Satrap Saint Ledger, Livius Secundus (the AMH Computer writing History of the Ambulatory Computers From Their Very Origin), and Felix Culebra y Columba (designated father of Lutin). At midnight, the group attends five dramas in Structo Lane's theaters, going "full dress" to the plays.

At false dawn, Inneall with her filter eyes sees the Kangaroo constellation in the eastern sky: "Spico the brightest star of Virgo, had become the baleful eye of the Kangaroo." It is said only those threatened by the Kangaroo can see it—but who isn't threatened?

Lafferty explains the world of 2035: "The World had been called the Global Village for quite a few decades: and then a certain number of willful persons decided that it should act like one." The underpinning of every nation was cut out—and "oddly enough they did not" fall. The nations floated in the air, drifted together, lost their dividing walls.

It became a free-trade, free-travel, free-communication world. A person "not particularly talented or important might commute daily from his home in Australia to his job in New York City." Morning coffee-break in Paris, noon in Tokyo, afternoon in Rio de Janeiro. "Previous mind-sets would not have allowed such flexibility and speed."

But it was ruled by invisible government: the Kangaroo. The bare facts: the Kangaroo "had enrolled and computerized the whole world with no ado." If any person rose greatly above the mental or psychic level, "there would be a most minute analysis of that person. If the Kangaroo didn't like the analysis, it would have him crushed instantly."

The Kangaroo discovered "the wide frequencies on which the Mind of God operated" and "the narrow but sharp frequencies which the Mind of God did not seem to monitor at all." They operated on those narrow frequencies, and "no one was found to stand against it."

The leveler movement had already trimmed the bottom of humanity: "The lower classes of everything were terminated without particular ado, without much apparent suffering, without any great quantity of visible bloodshed." Eighty-seven percent of world population disappeared, but they had made ninety-seven percent of the trouble. Few asked questions—entire neighborhoods vanished together.

The Kangaroo was "the first really successful interspecies venture," with Human, Ambulatory Computer, and some superior Animal membership. "It was a somnambulistic apparatus really," operating "mostly on the unconscious level of its contingent members." If one tried to grapple with it, "it wasn't there, it wasn't anywhere. In all reality it simply was not."

The Dolophonoi-Assassins served as instruments: "One Man, One Knife" was the quintessence of efficient armament. Three Dolophonoi now prowl around the Eleven, wearing Gargoyle masks, equipped with specialized guns: python-gun, angel-gun, wolverene-gun, elephant-gun.

Gajah is killed. Gregor McGregor, one of the experiment's "parents," is compelled by a Dolophonos to fire the Elephant-Gun. "The Elephant-Gun is directed by the will, and it cannot miss if the one who shoots it wills that it shall hit." Under compulsion, Gregor wills the shot—killing the unborn "Wonder of the World" Elephant.

The Empress Elephant Riesin staggers north through the wastelands, "painfully and as if she were drunken." Using bi-location—a trick dying elephants employ to reach the Graveyard—she passes through "a jog in the road" from midland America to the small realm of Mustang north of India.

In the Himalayan foothills, Riesin brings forth dead Gajah and covers her with Himalaya Incense Bushes. Three flames descend from the air to hover over the body—"They will burn over her for thirty days." Then Riesin walks twenty steps further and dies with a great sigh. Gregor McGregor hangs himself on a carob tree, "the 'Judas Tree,'" in the wastelands.

The Annabella Saint Ledger is provisioned for battle: an enchanted brass cannon from the Golden Hind with self-perpetuating cannonballs, a steam calliope, seven drums of Invisible Paint, thirty tons of calking compound (to waterproof the house on sinking Tom Dooley's Island), and blood plasma ("pirates bleed a lot").

Carcajou transforms. In an "otherworldly wrestling" with Luas the Angel—like Jacob wrestling at Peniel—the wolverene-devil is cast out. Carcajou's true form is human, not animal. The scanners howl: "Undocumented Human! Undocumented Mega Human!" The Book of Jasher passage describes: "The man who was more than a man touched the thigh of the other; and thereafter that other one could never change form again."

Eleven wolverenes come howling for Carcajou. Luas goes out to deal with them: "I turned them into devil-fish," he reports, "and they had to rush into the ocean before they drowned in the air." Then Luas departs: "I was never really of your number. I was an observer only."

The Nine paint the ship invisible all through the Second Night of Summerset, finishing at false dawn.

On the morning of the Second Day of Summerset, whales who arrived only yesterday make "a great turmoil in the water." They dive, sound, bring up mud and dregs—excavating. The ocean at its shallowest is three furlongs deep (three-eighths of a mile), growing deeper daily. The whales are digging down to bed-rock—"the 'big lime'"—to build.

Satrap Saint Ledger traffics in limestone with them: "Dolphins were the middlemen. They brought in a squid-skin tarp floated by several hundred blow-fish bladders. It had about three hundred pounds of nugget ocean gold on it." A thousand tons of big limestone have been delivered since midnight, dumped at designated places. The whales will construct something huge in "Contemporary Oceanic" architecture.

The passage from The Back Door of History by Arpad Arutinov connects this to the underwater city of Lyonesse off Brittany, with its giant stone couches and thirty-foot stair risers: "There are some who say that Lyonesse was built by the Titans. But I believe that it was built by whales." The epigraph from The Child's Big Book of Whales establishes: "Before the Whales had lost their legs / They built in deepest ocean dregs."

Invisible Alfred is roused from his barrel—an invisible man, visible only when his eyes are open or his mouth speaks. He announces himself "a Prophet—aye, and more than a Prophet." To prove his power, he silences the devil-fish who had been howling for Carcajou.

At Ocean Shore, Alfred addresses crowds of ten thousand Pleasure People in the natural amphitheater. He claims to have spent three days in a whale's belly (becoming whited and colorless) and nine thousand years in a drum of invisible paint. "The more nearly invisible a person becomes, the more nearly are all things visible to that person."

When heckled, Alfred demonstrates: he causes a magnificent whale to breach and spout royally. The crowds are impressed—but the Royal Kids and especially Lutin the pythoness remain suspicious. Lutin sees "three ugly sisters sitting in an ugly room"—the Three Fates: Clotho who spins threads, Lachesis who measures them, and Atropos with avid scissors ready to cut.

Tom Dooley's Island begins to sink. The pirates calk the house for underwater habitation. Alfred's true role—and the source of his "power"—will be revealed on the Third Night.

Tom Dooley's Island is sinking. The Annabella Saint Ledger docks at a new dock "already too low in the water." The Nine arrive at Persimmon Manor, "the ultimate in large ranch houses" built entirely of persimmon wood by Tom Dooley's great-great-grandfather (also ancestor of Otto Wotto, inventor of wotto metal). "Persimmon wood is more subject to haunting than is most other wood."

Thirty-two carry-over guests from previous parties are still reveling, quality people for whom "no party ever had to end." A murder mystery unfolds: at every hour since 4 AM, a guest has been murdered—"the finest murder mystery ever devised."

In a "horrible little room where no room should be," Inneall finds the Three Fates: Clotho who spins, Lachesis who measures, Atropos who cuts. Inneall and Dubu cast sleep over the sisters and thread wotto metal through the life-threads of all nine Royal Kids. "Let her try to cut some of those threads now." The hourly murders cease—Atropos cannot cut. The guests grumble: "somebody is ruining it."

Lord Randal is formally elected Captain: "There was never any other possible choice except Axel."

Donatus O'reily is to be hanged at cockcrow of the Third Morning of Summerset. Honor has become big in the Floating World—members of the Natural Nobility who commit hangable misdemeanors must have the deed done by friends of their own choosing. Donatus's crime: "trying to save a Serpent's-Egg young person from being executed."

He has procured a Drake Passage Cock from Wollaston Island off Cape Horn—"those cocks do not crow until the sun warms Wollaston Island," buying him precious hours. His four seconds: Lady Anastasia Blickworthy, Gentleman Jamestown Wixon, and the Couple Clement and Rose-of-Sharon Montdrago.

Hieronymous Ignatius Zchold arrives—a "nervous man" who reveals himself as a Priest (later discovered to be a Bishop) of the Old Religion. His life is forfeit, but he asks to be stoned rather than left for dogs: "mine is a consecrated body." He will stay in the Priests' Hole until execution.

Lanternjaw Lunnigan is named eternal Captain of the Annabella Saint Ledger: "You must remain on the ship until you all die and become skeletons if it comes to that." Inneall dreams of the legend: the invisible ship with crew of visible skeletons and one coon-dog-crazy survivor with only staring eyes and screaming mouth.

Satrap Saint Ledger prepares the Nine for ocean-floor diving. For the humans (Lord Randal, Henryetta, Carcajou, Dubu, Schimp), he teaches the Oceanic Metastasis—"a dream state of incomparable vividness." A true master could "live and prowl in the deep ocean for up to seventy-two hours without any equipment at all."

Satrap descends without equipment, transforming into something "enormous, grotesque, comic, even for a fish." A folk legend claims the seven richest men in the world are metamorphic creatures who meet yearly two miles deep in the Atlantic to decide world finances. Satrap, at eleventh richest, is "just barely of Midas Class."

The Ocean Sleep proves critical: it will inoculate them against the Deep Sleep of Ape Caverns. Invisible Alfred, claiming to have spent "a thousand years chained to a great rock on the floor of the deepest Ocean," also takes the crash course—acquiring the technique he will use for murder.

Henryetta demands a short-bladed knife from Quentillius Quern the Fifth: "I will need the knife by nightfall." He kills a Dolophonos to get it—and is killed in turn. "Faint heart never won foxy lady," he tells her, dying.

Half a mile down in Inneall's Ocean, seen through Metastatic eyes, the depths are "gloriously sunlit and of the sharpest and most varied colors in the world." The old tale of four additional colors in the Ocean Depths proves true—and all adhere to the whale-built structures rising from the floor.

The whales have transformed raw limestone into square marble columns and lintels—"it had been only minimally-crystalized limestone when Satrap sold it." They build in Contemporary Oceanic architecture: "Castles on the Ocean Floor," "Palaces in Kingdom Come."

The epigraphs connect whale architecture to human mysteries: Lyonesse off Brittany with its giant stone couches, Angkor Wat with its "dripping quality" as if raised from the ocean two minutes before, the underwater cenotaphs off San Sabian. Arpad Arutinov declares: "I believe that it was built by whales."

Among the creatures: the Manta Rays "with their derisive smiles," the Coelenterates (Portuguese Men-of-War) "like whole flotillas of sailing ships," and the Octopi—"a creature that looks exactly like a Night-Mare" but "really has a more pleasant disposition": the Sea-Cat.

The Third and Last Night of Summerset begins. In the crow's-nest of the Annabella Saint Ledger, the Nine hold their Council of War. Lutin reveals that Axel can only be killed "in the swift second between his wakening and his awakening the others." Their Ocean Sleep will inoculate them against the Deep Sleep—"the sleep-walking Dolophonoi have been practicing" but their technique "will not work for them."

Inneall reveals the Executive Passage: from the clubroom in Structo Lane, down underground for a hundred meters, ending one foot from the Cenaculum of the Sleepers. At three minutes to midnight, they will slip behind a new tapestry—"The Midas Satrap Saint Ledger As An Obscene Sea Monster"—turn a key to blast the final rock, and enter with five seconds to spare before cockcrow.

"Something smells funny up here," Lutin warns. "It is almost the smell of treachery." They dismiss it—they trust all ten of themselves. But something brushes past Inneall. "It must have been a bird." "More likely a bat," Carcajou suggests. The smell of treason suddenly disappears from their midst.

The traitor has heard everything: Invisible Alfred, Supreme Head of the Kangaroo, painted invisible, present in the crow's-nest, armed with the Ocean Sleep technique he learned that very afternoon.

The plan unfolds. At the banquet, the pirate Sebastian Lazar brings a Midnight Cock—a rare bird that crows at exactly midnight. At three minutes before the hour, the Nine slip behind the tapestry, traverse the Executive Passage, turn the key. The blast opens the Cenaculum.

They find the Golden Apes in Deep Sleep, gas-jets cold, only the pre-dawn light filtering through the roof fissure. The Midnight Cock crows. Axel wakes—and in that instant, a knife "seeming to move by itself" buries itself in his throat. "The ten-year-old Golden Ape fell dead."

"I know you now, I'll have you now!" Lord Randal cries, going fearlessly after the dancing knife. But the invisible murderer finds his throat too. Lord Randal falls dead.

The knife withdraws and soars through the blasted hole, disappearing into the Executive Passage. The Golden Apes—all of them—begin to wake despite Axel's death. The wakening triggers worldwide. "Woe, woe, woe!" sobs Dubu. "Whatever it was, it's gone now. And now we are only eight covenanted ones."

Four living and two dead descend to Ocean Bottom. Lantern Fishes draw up in files and light the way. The whales form a circle with their heads pointing inward, shining green light from their foot-in-diameter eyes. The cenotaphs await—with carved likenesses already prepared: "Axel, a True Child of Wonder." "Lord Randal Eternally Noble and Eternally Good."

From Lord Randal's pocket, Henryetta retrieves the kangaroo knuckle-bone. The writing reveals: "The name of the person who is Supreme Head of the Kangaroo for the brief present time is Invisible Alfred."

The realization crashes over them. Alfred "played the part of the cheapjack ignorant Prophet so we would consider him a nothing-person." He was in the crow's-nest, under the banquet table ("Twice I thought I heard a dog"). And "that same smell is right here right now!"

Henryetta sees a cenotaph with its lid askew—her own image and name carved upon it. The dangling knife reappears and buries itself in her throat. She falls across her own cenotaph, dead. This time the knife stays. Alfred rises invisible to the surface, his work complete. The great whales weep huge salt-water tears.

Ghost dawn (an hour before false dawn). At Jack Flannagan's Piano Bar, someone sings "All Day and All Night." The Third Day of Summerset—"usually a dire day"—begins with earthquakes. Donatus O'reily is hanged by his four seconds, confessing that he himself murdered the nine hourly victims: "I discovered, quite late in my life, that I have an exceptional talent for murders and for mysteries."

Hieronymous Ignatius Zchold is brought out. Officials reveal he is a bishop, "not entitled to any consideration at all." He is disemboweled, his intestines given to dogs. The professional stoners begin their work. Then: a furiousness of waterspouts. Four big whales beach themselves on shore and weep foot-in-diameter tears.

Tom Dooley's Island sinks fast. "There really wasn't any shore left, no island left, except the big house sticking out of the water." People swim, overload boats, drown. Four fish-faced men emerge from the ocean, take Zchold's body, and descend with the whales.

The house and diminished island settle on Ocean Bottom. Persimmon Manor becomes "an air bubble anchored to the bottom of Inneall's Ocean by its lead weights."

In the horrible little room, the Three Fates now have three foster children: Lutin's baby pythons. "Lutin did give birth to something, to three live baby pythons as a proper python should. Who ever heard of a python laying eggs!" The sisters are delighted—"Will this help our image?"

In the Biggest Central Room stands the Big Egg—five tons, the glow that surrounds the house. A small "Killer Whale" named Miol-Mor thrusts her snout through a floor-hole to serve as nurse and mentor, speaking in clicking-whistle language. Something inside the egg answers in kind.

"What is the Serpent's Egg here?" Inneall asks. "I will tell you what it is when it is time for you to know," Miol-Mor replies. Dubu claims to have solved the mystery: "All things meant to generate motion are shaped like eggs because the perfect shape, the sphere, will not generate motion... this big Serpent's Egg is a universe, I think."

Why wasn't Inneall killed as a Serpent's Egg? Scientific Reports indicated her Ocean was "more benevolent than malevolent" and cannot yet outlive her. "Your life is safe until they find a way for your ocean to survive you. That may be several days yet, possibly as long as a week."

"When the Machines fell into dishonesties in their narrations, their portion was taken away from them and given to the Whales." —The Book of Jasher

Inneall suddenly cannot communicate—cannot record in her logs. Miol-Mor explains: "It is taken away from her and from such as she is. And it has been given to others." Sea-lice spread their green growth on limestone blocks, writing the Log-Books of the World at the direction of the Whales.

"Why is it taken away from us? What have we done wrong?" Inneall wails. "Told too many lies," Miol-Mor whistles. "Lately it has been more than half lies." First humans wrote history; when more than half was lies, it was given to computers. The computers did well for three decades, then began to lie. Now: "from this day hence it will be done by the Whales working through the sea-lice. We whales will be completely honest, for several decades anyhow."

The Sea Louse epilogist offers corrections: Inneall's Ocean is "only about ten thousand square miles in Eastern Oklahoma" and was planned thirty years before she existed. Whales here weep five-inch tears, not foot-in-diameter (those whales couldn't fit through the channels). Satrap is "about to take Chapter Twelve, Bankruptcy." And: "Is Inneall's Log really full of lies? It is, yes, but I believe I can beat her at that."

The Twelve are the subjects of four parallel experiments merged at Heart's Desire Cove on the north shore of Inneall's Ocean during the Three Days of Summerset, 2035. Each experiment paired three species—human, animal, and either machine or supernatural—to study the development of mega-intelligence. The experiments are: Lynn-Randal, Wintergreen-Luna, Dorantes-Saleh, and Gruenbaum-McGregor.

All twelve approach their tenth birthdays under the shadow of the Serpent's Egg threat: the Kangaroo organization monitors experiments for signs of dangerous mega-intelligence, dispatching Dolophonoi assassins to terminate subjects before they mature. The rate of Serpent's Egg occurrence is one in a million for the general population, but one in a thousand for special experiments.

Final Tally: Three killed (Axel, Lord Randal, Henryetta—though the Sea Louse reveals they are in "undead comas" with spring mechanisms in their coffin lids). One killed before birth (Gajah). One departed (Luas). One transformed from animal to human (Carcajou). Six survive in original form (Inneall, Marino, Lutin, Dubu, Schimp, Popugai).

Humans (3): Lord Randal (vitro-conceived), Henryetta, Carcajou (transformed from wolverine)

Primates (2): Axel (Axel's Ape / Golden Ape), Schimp (Chimpanzee)

Mammals (4): Marino (Seal), Dubu (Bear), Gajah (Indian Elephant, unborn), Carcajou (Wolverine, pre-transformation)

Reptiles (1): Lutin (Python)

Birds (1): Popugai (Kea Parrot)

Machines (1): Inneall (AMH Computer)

Supernatural (1): Luas (Angel)

Only the original Lynn-Randal Three have explicit signature colors and geometries, which appear in their shared dreams:

Lord Randal: Orange Square

Inneall: Lavender-Purple Triangle

Axel: Golden Pentagon with Five Arms at Five Angles

"Whenever these colors and shapes turned up in their dreams, they knew that one of the three of them was driving the dream."

The Three Days of Summerset comprise the final three days of summer 2035—August 29, 30, and 31. This is the week when "the Animals talked again, something they had not done for nine thousand years." The four experiments are merged at Heart's Desire Cove on Inneall's Ocean. All twelve subjects approach their tenth birthdays under the Serpent's Egg threat.

The timeline culminates in the wakening of Second Humanity despite Axel's murder, the deaths of three of The Twelve, the executions of Donatus O'reily and Bishop Zchold, and the sinking of Tom Dooley's Island to the ocean floor—where Persimmon Manor becomes "an air bubble anchored to the bottom of Inneall's Ocean by its lead weights."

Of The Twelve:

• Gajah — killed before birth (Day 2, morning)

• Luas — departed (Day 2, afternoon)

• Axel — murdered at midnight (Night 3)

• Lord Randal — murdered at midnight (Night 3)

• Henryetta — murdered on ocean floor (Night 3)

• Carcajou — transformed from wolverine to human (Day 2)

Others:

• Riesin (Empress Elephant) — dies in Himalayas (Day 2)

• Gregor McGregor — hangs himself (Day 2)

• Quentillius Quern the Fifth — killed for the knife (Day 2, evening)

• Nine party guests — murdered hourly by Donatus (Day 3, 4 AM–noon)

• Donatus O'reily — hanged at cockcrow (Day 3)

• Hieronymous Ignatius Zchold — stoned to death (Day 3)

• "Most of the people who came to witness the stoning" — drowned

Lafferty's cosmology in The Serpent's Egg operates on multiple simultaneous planes—geographical, metaphysical, and experimental. The title of Chapter One announces this tripartite structure, though the "three corners" shift meaning throughout the narrative.

The Floating World — The globalized, post-national civilization of 2035. Borders have dissolved into a free-trade, free-travel world where "everything and nothing was public." The Japanese phrase originally meant the bohemian or artistic world, but here it has become literal: nations drift together, unmoored from old identities. This is the world ruled (invisibly) by the Kangaroo computer network.

The Experimental Edens — Controlled environments where mega-intelligent beings are raised. The Lynn-Randal Experiment occupies two hectares of "contrived feral land" under a transparent cover. These are liminal spaces, neither fully natural nor artificial, designed to foster "new ways of looking at the world, but not too cockeyed new."

The Hidden Enclaves — Structo Lane, Ape Caverns, Second Eden. Places that exist in the interstices of the Floating World, accessible only to those who know the doors. The maverick computers, the feral apes, the Unfallen People—all inhabit spaces the larger world barely suspects exist.

Lafferty's geography is not Euclidean. Space folds; distances compress; doors open between worlds that share no physical connection.

On the Shape of Universes: "A perfect sphere is already there and has no need for motion. But a universe is always egg-shaped. And this big Serpent's Egg is a universe, I think, so it will generate motion."

On the Floating World: Not metaphor but mechanism. The Japanese phrase meant the bohemian world; now nations literally drift together, walls dissolve, the world becomes "a giant boat without a rudder." The Kangaroo computer network steers invisibly.

On the Making of Oceans: Inneall's Ocean began in the strip pits, growing relentlessly as AMH (Ambulatory Miming-Human) impetus. "What if a dozen, or a hundred, or a thousand AMHs should imitate this antic and begin to make oceans?" The ocean cannot outlive its maker—yet. If Inneall dies, "your mostly-benevolent Ocean will reverse itself, will disappear again, but the disappearance will be cataclysmic."

On the Recording of History: Humans wrote the log-books of the world until they told too many lies. The task was given to computers, who did well for three decades—then began to lie. Now the whales write through the sea-lice. "We whales will be completely honest, for several decades anyhow."

On Lyonesse: "Why are these great halls and corridors and arcades and concourses so large? Why are the stone couches twenty times the length of a man?" The underwater city off Brittany. Some say it was built by Titans fleeing Olympus, or by the Sons of Anak. "But I believe that it was built by whales."

In the hill-country of Gamu Gofa Province, Ethiopia, beyond Arba Mench, lies Second Eden—a hidden valley where those who refused to leave the original Garden still dwell. These are the Unfallen People, sometimes called the Smithy Apes, sometimes the Yellow Apes, though they are neither apes nor quite human as the fallen world knows humanity.

Their Nature: The Unfallen cannot die natural deaths—disease and aging have no hold on them. They can only die by being murdered. But they cannot be murdered by other Unfallen (who are incapable of murder), only by the fallen people of First Eden. Their faces appear "drunk" to humans—this is how unfallen faces have always looked. Their King-and-Emperor is Prester John; among them dwell Melchisedech and Elijah, and the original Magog was one of their Patriarchs.

Their Works: Master smiths who work iron, gold, and all metals with impossible skill. Master mathematicians—professors from the great universities sit at their feet. Master stonemasons—legends say they built the great cathedrals of Europe in a single century, leaving the gargoyles as their sign. The climate of their valley is "always of the essence of perfection," raining only at night.

Their Relation to the Golden Apes: The Axel's Apes (Blue-Eyed Apes, Golden Apes) are their kindred—perhaps a branch that left Second Eden, perhaps a parallel creation. In Second Eden, the original Axel's Apes still dwell in their wild state, "smithying metals, speaking their ancient tongues." Axel Grindstone the elder was admitted to Second Eden for one year, learning metalwork and music "beyond human achievement."

The Ambulatory Computers preserve their own creation legends, which cast the origin of humanity as cosmic accident or divine mistake. These are "legends of mechanical folks" with "strong elements of truth in them."

Computer Theology: Computers do not believe in the Theos ("A Theos, to us, would be two stages back, and belief can go back only one stage or no stages at all"). Nor do they believe in Humans—they call themselves Ananthropoi, as humans who disbelieve in God call themselves Atheists. "We'll never cut ourselves loose from such a cyclic sinking ship without this disassociation attitude."

The epigraph gives the novel its central metaphor and its mechanism of death. A Serpent's Egg is a mega-person judged too dangerous to be allowed to hatch—to reach their tenth birthday, when their powers fully manifest. The Kangaroo computer network makes this judgment; the Dolophonoi carry out the execution.

The Paradox: "All the venomous and dangerous serpents are viviparous, live-born, and have no eggs in the popular sense of eggs. Only the harmless and benevolent snakes lay eggs." The Three understand this—"who would want to kill such pleasant creatures in the shell that they do not have?" But the Kangaroo's fury "does not have to be rational."

The Odds: About one in a million of the general population is adjudged a Serpent's Egg. In special experiments, it may be as high as one in a thousand. The one who is the Serpent's Egg "always has a premonition of it somehow."

The Mystery of Judgment: Why was Henryetta killed and not Inneall? "You're much more the menace to the Kangaroo than Henryetta was," Lutin observes, "but I won't try to tell them their business." The scientific reports indicated Inneall's Ocean was "more benevolent than malevolent"—but also that it could not outlive her. Her life is safe "until they find a way for your ocean to survive you."

The computer network that governs the Floating World. It has taken up astrology—"Computers do not distinguish between a prediction and an instruction. They will try to make every one of their predictions come true, even if they know it is silly."

The Constellation: The Kangaroo appears in the sky as an optical illusion—visible only to those it threatens. It manifests in the Sign of Virgo, overlaying the virgin with its form. Beta, Gamma, and Delta Virginis become its blazing eyes. When it moves into Virgo, "it will slay one of several of us."

The Supreme Head: Revealed by the kangaroo knuckle-bone to be Invisible Alfred—the false prophet, the cheapjack mountebank, who played the buffoon while plotting murder. "He played the part of the cheapjack ignorant Prophet so we would consider him a nothing-person. And he was invisibly everywhere with his murder-plotting and his eavesdropping."

The Dolophonoi: The Assassin Species. They wear Gargoyle heads; their human faces are "so faint that possibly they are illusions." Their bodies are metallic, "with human faces embedded in the metal." They buy human parts at Body Parts Shops. Are they human or not? "We've had several bodies of Dolophonoi to examine, but we have never had one of an Axel's Ape." Their short, sharp-bladed knives will kill other Dolophonoi—"Most knives won't bite into them at all."

The term coined by Inneall (though she "doesn't especially believe in it") for the present age. Used interchangeably with "The Enlargement of the World."

Its Signs:

• Computer Machines "made in the image of Man as Man is made in the image of God"

• The readying of "Second Humanity" for possible awakening

• The rising of geniused animals with "trans-animal talents for speech and abstract thought and role-playing"

• Preternatural powers: setting fires by the mind, making oceans, removing mountains

The Opposition: Invisible Alfred dismisses it as "rubbish"—"Can the number twelve, the foundation number of the world, be enlarged? If you enlarge it by three will it still be twelve?" The enemies of enlargement are "upon us everywhere."

The Stakes: "We are here to weave the seamless garment of our individual lives, and of the lives of those around us, of the neighborhood, of the countryside, of all the creatures down to the smallest, of all realms and continents and oceans... highly detailed from the subatomic particles to the galaxy clusters." But Livius Secundus counters: "Weaving is outmoded. Now they are extruded by extruding machines."

The Golden Apes who sleep in the Cenaculum await a moment of transformation. When Axel wakes at midnight—triggered by the Midnight Cock—he will wake the other Golden Apes in the cavern. Their "upsurging awareness and shining mentality" will trigger the awakening of all Axel's Apes worldwide. The Holy Apes in Second Eden will wake last of all, though "the whole world-wide awakening would take less than five minutes."

The Failure: Invisible Alfred, having learned the Ocean Sleep from Satrap, penetrates the Deep Sleep. His knife finds Axel's throat in "nearly a second of happy realization." The triggering fails. "Second Humanity will continue to sleep forever, or possibly only for another thousand years."

The Hope: The cenotaphs have "spring mechanisms that can be activated from the inside." Axel, Lord Randal, and Henryetta lie in "undead comas." Sebastian Lazar suggests: "Let us look at them as 'Leaders in Stasis' or as 'Leaders Asleep'. Let us think about the full meaning of the phrase 'When the Sea Shall Give Up Its Dead.'"

Clotho spins out threads from the straw on the floor for each person. Lachesis measures the threads, "dooming the threads of several of us to be long enough." Atropos cuts the threads with her scissors when her sister has measured them to their full length. "There is antipathy between those three sisters and all pythons everywhere from the beginning of the world."

Their Redemption: When Persimmon Manor settles on Ocean Bottom, Inneall finds the three ugly sisters in their miserable room—but now "something had been added: joy." They have become foster mothers to Lutin's three baby pythons. "Does not your heart go out to them? Do you not love them?" The antipathy transforms; there is accord.

Invisible Alfred, in his false prophecy, reveals a deeper truth: behind each conventional zodiac sign is another sign—"the faces of the signs themselves" hidden by "conventional masks."

The Apostolic Connection: "The Apostles were the twelve stations, and they came down from the sky literally. Thomas, for instance, was Gemini the Twins. It has always been a puzzle why Thomas, a singleton, should have been referred to as 'the twin' in the Gospels."

The Parable-Universe: "Astrology is a pseudo-science—but more accurately it is a parable-science, an attempt to describe a parable-universe. Our Universe is only a parable to illustrate a point. It is material, yes: for it was intended to illustrate a material point. But it is not real."

One of the "Lost Books" from which Livius Secundus quotes—or will quote, once he finishes reconstructing it ("my secondary work. I'll have it finished in five years or so"). The Book contains the rules, the goal, the object of the contest that humanity does not understand.

Five tons, three meters long, two meters thick—appearing while Lutin and the midwife sleep, cast into unconsciousness by Dubu at the urging of "a couple of odd fellows" who were "transparent" and "giggled a lot." They told her it was "the biggest joke ever. 'It is the joke by which the World will be saved and transformed.'"

Its Nature: "Beautiful golden and blue light pulsating about it." Inneall examines it with her sensors: "There's electronic gear inside the shell, and a mechanical pump is pumping in there. But there's something alive inside this big egg too." It communicates with Miol-Mor the Killer Whale in click-whistle language.

Its Geometry: "A perfect sphere is already there and has no need for motion. But a universe is always egg-shaped. And this big Serpent's Egg is a universe, I think, so it will generate motion. Don't get hurt when it does."

The Solution: Dubu claims to have solved the mystery "within a few minutes"—"It's really interesting, but not to somebody like you who doesn't like mysteries." But she does not share the answer. The sea-louse epilogist confirms: "What's in the Big Egg is still secret, but Dubu guessed it and you may be able to do so also."

The novel distinguishes between true and false prophecy, between legitimate seers and charlatans—though even the charlatan Invisible Alfred has genuine power.

Lafferty leaves the novel's theology deliberately unresolved—multiple frameworks coexist without reconciliation.

The Acorn Problem: Dubu believes all answers are "written on the inside of one single Acorn somewhere"—if placed in lye-water, it will swell to a billion times its size and burst open with "whole mountains-full of writing." Luas and Lutin know which acorn it is, "but both of these two people are too ethical to tell it to mere humans or bears."

The Mystery Problem: "God must love mysteries and mystery stories—he made so many of them." But Inneall protests: "The trouble with mysteries is that the mystery-giver doesn't play fair. He doesn't give us all the clues." Miol-Mor and Dubu insist: "Yes he does. He gives all the clues, always."

The Regression Problem: The question Satrap poses: "We receive orders somehow, orders that shape our lives. And we keep ourselves busy, often too busy, carrying out such of the orders as we can interpret. But we never see the face of the one who gives us the orders." Humans don't know if they are playing a game or engaging in mortal combat—"In neither case does he know the rules nor the object of the contest."

The Hell Problem: Carcajou the wolverine-devil offers an answer: "The context and the purpose is to win and then die and then go to heaven and sink into semi-conscious blandness. Or to lose and die and then go to hell where the action is. Hell is better. Action is always better than blandness."

The primary experiment, raised together from infancy in a two-hectare Experimental Eden. "Where three men stand together, are kingdoms less by three." So close that they generate power from their closeness—though they are "no men at all: one girl and two boys."

Three more experiments, three children each. Together with The Three they form the Twelve (or Eleven, counting Gajah as unborn). Their tenth birthdays fall on the Three Days of Summerset.

DONAHUE-DOLOROSO EXPERIMENT

DORANTES-SALEH EXPERIMENT

GRUENBAUM-MCGREGOR EXPERIMENT

The maverick computers of Structo Lane, the animal patriarchs, the human guardians. Those who stand between the children and their enemies.

Those who hunt the Serpent's Eggs. The invisible network, the assassin species, the false prophet who was secretly supreme.

The novel's central image operates on multiple levels simultaneously—the title itself a paradox of potential and threat.

Inneall's Ocean transforms barren strip pits into a living world—and eventually becomes the only world that matters.

Lightning strikes, gas ignites, flames hover—the vertical axis of the novel connects heaven to depths.

Who wears whose face? The Gargoyle image connects Unfallen to Ape to Assassin—beauty becoming monstrosity becoming weapon.

In the prowls—the multimedia entertainments of 2035—characters appear as colored geometric forms. The Three discover their own signatures.

"Whenever these colors and shapes turned up in the prowls, The Three could always identify themselves with the characters of those colors and shapes. And their identifications were always apt. The colored geometries... were also a sort of abstracting or psychologing of the characters, of finding their hidden essences."

Clotho spins, Lachesis measures, Atropos cuts. But wotto metal can break the scissors.

Lutin's prophecy to Henryetta: "Shedding your blood will be your great act of love."