Sam woke up. Filtered sun patterned the sand and the sound of the waves was as calm and soothe as an apology. He'd been watching a crab crawl through the ashes of his dead fire and then try to pick the coloured lights off Ziggy's handlink before he realised what it all meant. He was awake. He was alive. He looked up. Al was lying beside him, chin propped in his hand. He was still wearing his coat but he'd taken the hat off. His hair was mussed up and his eyes were red-rimmed.

Al shook his head and put his hand to his mouth. He seemed surprised to note that there was no cigar in there. 'Do you know what I've been doing for the past two hours?' His voice was hoarse.

'Uh, no.' Sam made his first tentative attempt to stretch. He knew it was going to hurt, he'd been cramped up for so long.

'I've been sitting here watching you breathe.'

'Al that's kind of creepy.' Sam's mouth felt sticky and he was glad Al wasn't really there to experience what he assumed was his very bad breath. His left arm refused to move. It should have moved. He was lying on his right side. He tried to stretch out his left leg.

'I was yelling, trying to get you to wake up. Then the storm turned and the tree came down.'

Sam tried to turn his head but it wouldn't turn. He tried to move his arm and it wouldn't move. He looked to where Al was pointing. The roots of the palm tree were pressed against his shoulder, its trunk held his left leg pinned to the ground.

'I thought you were dead,' Al said.

'How am I going to get out of this?' Sam tried to pull himself out from under the weight of the tree. It shifted and one of the smaller roots dug into his cheek.

'Is there any give?'

Sam pushed again, flexing his shoulders and bracing himself against the tree. A trickle of sand spilled down behind him. His arms were totally numb, he had to just hope that he was moving them. He didn't feel anything until his left arm jerked loose and then hung in the space between the tree and the sand bank behind.

Al made a pained expression and exhaled a sympathetic moan. 'Thaaat's gotta hurt.'

'I can't feel anything.' It wasn't entirely true. Even as he spoke, pins and needles were crawling up his arm and through his hand.

'You're bleeding.'

Sam didn't let it bother him. His hand was coming awake and he needed it to move the tree. He tried pushing, the hand a blunt instrument, fingers still not working properly. The tree was too heavy.

'Can you dig?'

'Well maybe if my arm was about ten feet longer.' He'd have to reach over the trunk of the tree to dig at the sand under his leg. He pushed again, this time trying, not to move the tree but to force himself away from it. Sand gave way behind him and he eased himself onto his back, freeing up his right arm. It was a scary position, the tree was suspended an inch above his chest. He didn't like thinking about the possibility of the sand giving way beneath it, pinning him finally so that Al could watch him breathe his last.

'That's it. Now if you can just turn your hips, you can slide out.'

'I thought my hips were holding the tree up.'

Al leaned across to where the tree was balanced and peered at at it. Crabs scuttled over broken branches, dancing out of Al's way. One of them picked at the toe of Sam's left foot, but he didn't feel it and couldn't even twitch his foot to shoo it away.

'No, you're okay. It'll come down a little when you move, but the branch off this other tree over here'll keep it off you.'

'Are you sure?'

'Of course I'm sure. Come on, you don't want to stay here all day.'

Sam braced himself. The pins and needles in his arms were driving him crazy but he had to get out. He tried to dig the sand under him, to give himself a little more clearance from the tree. His hands were like turtle flippers. 'Al, why am I here?' He leaned over to the left, dug under himself for more clearance, was aware that the tree was dragging at his leg.

'That's it. Keep going. You're nearly over.' Al scrunched up his face in sympathy again. 'That's really gonna hurt.'

It took long moments, but Sam was finally lying on his back, the tree an inch above him. Now all he had to do was drag himself out from under it. Pins and needles spread like a rash of ants up his legs and he bit down on the agony of it.

'You okay?'

'Why am I here?'

Al stared at the handlink, his expression hopeless. 'Been asking that same question all night. Your guess is as good as mine.'

'That's no help.'

'I was quoting Ziggy.' Al shrugged. 'Well don't look at me. You're the one who programmed him.'

The first feeling beyond pain was creeping into Sam's legs. He used his feet to pull and his hands and elbows to push him along the sand and out from under the tree. It only took a moment and he was free. Relief rushed through him and he got to his feet. He made a couple of unsteady steps towards the creek before his still-numb left foot twisted under him and he thudded onto the ground. He pushed up into sitting position and rubbed his legs. There were bloody abrasions on his left thigh as well as his shoulder but they would heal quickly enough, as long as he avoided infection. He watched as one of the crabs crawled along the sand bank and clambered onto the roots of the suspended tree. The sand gave way and the tree crunched down, smashing into the spot where he'd been trapped. He rounded on Al, angry, frightened. 'You said that thing wasn't going to fall on me!'

Al shrugged. 'Well, it didn't.'

'I could've been killed.'

'But you weren't.' Al looked haggard, exhausted.

Al rubbed his hand across his chin and Sam heard the scrape of bristles. He reminded himself that this was probably also the longest that Al had gone without a cigar since, well since he'd started leaping, at least. Probably since they'd known each other. Without Al beside him all the last night, Sam wondered if he would have managed to survive.

'No. I wasn't. Why don't you go get yourself some breakfast while I see about getting my fire relit.'

'Sure.' Al nodded and used the handlink to open the door of the imaging chamber.

'Hey, and Al?'

'What?'

'Thanks for last night.'

A rectangle of light appeared around Al and he paused there, finger poised above the handlink's keypad. 'You know,' he said, 'a lot of women have said that to me, but you're the only guy.' He punched his finger down onto the keypad and vanished.

Sam stepped over fallen trees and branches, gathering fruit that had been torn down by the storm. His small collection of belongings was sheltered by the roots of the fallen tree: the wood from the broken crate, library of pulp novels, the ridiculous hat and underwear the bag of jewellery and the washed-up junk that he'd brought back. Sam dug out one of the books and fanned its pages open in the sun to dry. He hoped this was going to work. He had to have made this leap to save Edwards' life and get him rescued. Who knew? Maybe he did have someone special waiting for him back home. Only Sam wasn't going to get him rescued without a signal fire for some passing ship to see.

He pulled the first dry page out of the book and tore it into strips, settled them on a few shreds of coconut fibre nestled into the cold, damp coals of last night's fire. The brooch had the largest diamond. He held it up, adjusting its height until the rainbow prism vanished and a single blindingly brilliant white dot appeared on the paper. He squinted his eyes, trying to protect them. There was a haze that he thought at first was just his eyes playing tricks and then the smell of smoke. He was doing it!

'Hey, that's really great.'

Al's sudden appearance made Sam jump. The diamond lost focus and the heat dissipated, smoke vanished. 'I wish you wouldn't do that.'

'Well, I'm sorry. Next time I'll have a doorbell installed.'

'I just have to do this. I nearly had the fire going a second ago.'

Al's burning cigar tip hung beside the crumpled paper, decades out of his reach. The smoke began a second time and then a tiny flame erupted. Sam made a nest for it with the paper, fed it with threads of coconut fibre and splinters of wood. It wasn't till after he'd got the fire established, with more wood handy to throw on when he needed to feed it, that Sam realised how tired he was, and cramped from crouching over the blaze. This had to be the most un-relaxing tropical vacation anyone ever had. He eased himself into sitting position and stretched out his back.'

'So, does Ziggy have any clues for me yet?'

'Sorry Sam.'

'Well what am I supposed to do?'

'Maybe you're just here to relax and enjoy yourself.'

Sam got up, stretching his legs, wincing at the painful abrasions of his shoulder and thigh. 'Oh, of course. Because this is such a relaxing, enjoyable place.'

'It is now. Look at it. All this pristine tropical beauty.' Al's hand swept across the vista of shattered trees, smashed foliage and marching crabs, picking at fallen fruit.

'You're saying Time or Fate or God or whoever wants me to have a vacation.'

Al shrugged. 'You've been in stranger places than this.'

'No. It can't be that. It just can't.'

'Why not?'

'Because in order to become fully rested, and I mean fully, I'd have to stop thinking about leaping. I'd have to just want stay here. Then the force that makes me leap would have to take me away from paradise and that would be cruel. And God or Fate or whoever it is, has done a lot of things to me, but it's never been cruel.'

'There's always a first time.' Al bit down on the end of his cigar and the ember end grew bright for a moment.

'I can't believe that, Al.'

'You can't?'

Sam shook his head. 'I can't let myself believe it. I have to have faith.' Sam turned and began walking towards the beach.

'Sure. Faith.' Al followed.

Broken coral littered the sand, and the bodies of fish and seabirds that were being picked to the bone by the scuttling crabs. There was nothing of use. Al grumbled at a beer can and a wine bottle despoiling the beach as Sam picked them up, and then grumbled again because things would get so much worse in the coming decades. Sam bent to watch a pair of crabs duel over the wing of a seagull when he heard a whoosh! coming from the water behind him.

'What was that?' He spun to face the water, searching it for signs of disturbance.