Content Warning: This section depicts suicidal ideation and a suicide attempt.

In Greenland, it is the nesting season of the Arctic terns. Very few terns remain; climate change has caused the mass extinction of most of the world’s animals, with even the oceans fished “almost to extinction” (10). Franny Lynch, born Stone, affixes trackers to the legs of three terns and lets them fly away. She visits a pub in Tasiilaq, where she watches a drunk man jump into a fjord. She dives into the freezing water to save him, only to find out that he was not in any danger. Franny retreats to her hotel room and writes a letter to her husband Niall, in which she admits that she hoped the extreme cold would kill her.

The next day, Franny sets out early to search for Ennis Malone, captain of the fishing vessel Saghani. Although she resents the “merciless vessel” for its impact on the environment, she hopes that Malone will take her onboard to follow the migration of the tracked terns. She returns to the Tasiilaq pub in southeastern Greenland; she meets the drunk man again and learns that he is in fact Ennis Malone.