Cryptonomicon

lawsuits-which they can do at virtually no cost, or risk. We get mired in court in L.A. We have to fly back there and testify and give depositions. We spend a ton of money on lawyers.'

'And we might even lose,' Avi says.

Everyone laughs.

'So we have to stay in,' Randy concludes. 'We have to work with the Dentist whether we want to or not.'

No one says anything.

It's not that they disagree with Randy; on the contrary. It's just that Randy is the guy who's been doing the Philippines stuff, and who is going to end up handling this unfortunate situation. Randy's going to take all the force of this blow personally. It is better that he volunteer than that it be forced on him. He is volunteering now, loudly and publicly, putting on a performance. The other actors in the ensemble are Avi, Beryl, Tom, John, and Eb. The audience consists of Epiphyte Corp.'s minority shareholders, the Dentist, and various yet-to-be-empaneled juries. It is a performance that will never come to light unless someone files a lawsuit against them and brings them all to the witness box to recount it under oath.

John decides to trowel it on a little thicker. 'AVCLA's financing the Philippines on spec, right?'

'Correct,' Avi says authoritatively, playing directly to the hypothetical juries-of-the-future. 'In the old days, cable-layers would sell capacity first to raise capital. AVCLA's building it with their own capital. When it's finished, they'll own it outright, and they'll sell the capacity to the highest bidder.'

'It's not all AVCLA's money-they're not that rich,' Beryl says. 'They got a big wad from NOHGI.'

'Which is?' Eb asks.

'Niigata Overseas Holding Group Inc.,' three people say in unison.

Eb looks baffled.

'NOHGI laid the deep-sea cable from Taiwan to Luzon,' Randy says.

'Anyway,' John says, 'my point is that since the Dentist is wiring the Philippines on spec, he is highly exposed. Anything that delays the completion of that system is going to cause him enormous problems. It behooves us to honor our obligations.'

John is saying to the hypothetical jury in Dentist v. Epiphyte Corp.: we carefully observed the terms of our contract with AVCLA.

But this is not necessarily going to look so good to the hypothetical jury in the otherhypothetical minority shareholder lawsuit, Springboard Group v. Epiphyte Corp. So Avi hastens to add, 'As I think we've established, through a careful discussion of the issues, honoring our obligations to the Dentist is part and parcel of our obligation to our own shareholders. These two goals dovetail.'

Beryl rolls her eyes and heaves a deep sigh of relief.

'Let us therefore go forth and wire the Philippines,' Randy says.

Avi addresses him in formal tones, as if his hand were resting, even now, on a Gideon Bible. 'Randy, do you feel that the resources allotted to you are sufficient for you to meet our contractual obligations to the Dentist?'

'We need to have a meeting about that,' Randy says.

'Can it wait until after tomorrow?' Avi says.

'Of course. Why shouldn't it?'

'I have to use the bathroom,' Avi says.

This is a signal that Avi and Randy have used many times in the past. Avi gets up and goes into the bathroom. A moment later, Randy says, 'Come to think of it . . .' and follows him in there.

He is startled to find that Avi is actually pissing. On the spur of the moment, Randy unzips and starts pissing right along with him. It doesn't occur to him how remarkable this is until he's well into it.

'What's up?' Randy asks.

'I went down to the lobby to change money this morning,' Avi says, 'and guess who came stalking into the hotel, fresh from the airport?'

'Oh, shit,' Randy says.

'The Dentist himself.'

'No yacht?'

'The yacht's following him.'

'Did he have anyone with him?'

'No, but he might later.'

'Why is he here?'

'He must have heard.'

'God. He's the last guy I want to run into tomorrow.'

'Why? Is there a problem?'

'Nothing I can put my finger on,' Randy says. 'Nothing dramatic.'

'Nothing that, if it came to light later, would make you look negligent?'

'I don't think so,' Randy says. 'It's just that this Philippines thing is complicated and we need to talk about it.'

'Well, for God's sake,' Avi says, 'if you run into the Dentist tomorrow, don't say anything about your work. Keep it social.'

'Got it,' Randy says, and zips up. But what he's really thinking is: why did I waste all those years in academia when I could have been doing great shit like this?

Which then reminds him of something: 'Oh, yeah. Got a weird e-mail.'

Avi immediately says 'From Andy?'

'How'd you guess?'

'You said it was weird.Did you really get e-mail from him?'

'I don't really know who it was from. Probably not Andy. It wasn't weird in thatway.'

'Did you respond to it?'

'No. But [email protected] did.'

'Who's that? Siblings.net is the system you used to administer, right?'

'Yeah. I still have some privileges there. I created a new account there, name of dwarf, which can't be traced to me. Sent anonymous e-mail back to this guy telling him that until he proves otherwise, I'm assuming he is an old enemy of mine.'

'Or a new one.'

Chapter 32 SPEARHEAD

The young Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse, visiting his grandparents in Dakota, follows a plow across a field. The diving blades of the plow heave the black soil up out of the furrows and pile it into ridges, rough and jumbled when seen up close but mathematically clean and straight, like the grooves of a phonograph record, when viewed from a distance. A tiny surfboard-shaped object projects from the crest of one of those earthen waves. Young Waterhouse bends down and plucks it out. It is an Indian spearhead neatly chipped out of flint.

U-553 is a black steel spear point thrusting into the air about ten miles north of Qwghlm. The grey rollers pick it up and slam it down, but other than that, it does not move; it is grounded on a submerged out cropping known to the locals as Caesar's Reef, or Viking's Grief, or the Dutch-Hammer.

On the prairie, those flint arrowheads can be found lodged in every sort of natural matrix: soil, sod, the mud of a riverbank, the heartwood of a tree. Waterhouse has a talent for finding them. How can he walk across a field salted, by the retreat of the last glacier, with countless stones, and pick out the arrowheads? Why can the human eye detect a tiny artificial form lost in nature's torn and turbulent cosmos, a needle of data in a haystack of noise? It is a sudden, sparking connection between minds, he supposes. The arrowheads are human things broken loose from humanity, their organic parts perished, their mineral forms enduring-crystals of intention. It is not the