Dr. John Garrison, a civilian scientist, arrives by landing craft and asks children for Tara Malolo, speaking in Marshallese. He carries three knapsacks and a long-barreled pistol. Sorry and Lokileni meet him and notice the unusual weapon. Garrison explains he studied their language during his journey from Washington and was directed to contact Tara. They lead him to Chief Juda’s house, where they interrupt an argument.

Tara is demanding that Lieutenant Hastings sign a document guaranteeing the villagers can return in two years. Hastings refuses and declares the United States now owns Bikini, which it took from the Japanese, and has come to announce that an LST will soon transport a group of the island’s men, building materials, and equipment to Rongerik to begin constructing the new village. When Tara asks what would happen if they refuse to leave, Hastings says they will be forced onto the LST if necessary. Tara calmly asks if he means at gunpoint.

Garrison interrupts to introduce himself. He is from the National Museum, part of the Smithsonian and will collect specimens of island wildlife to study before and after the bombs go off. His pistol, he explains, is a custom gun for shooting bird specimens, and he is the first of many scientists expected to arrive on the atoll. He plans to return in six months to make health comparisons.

The two atomic bombs have been assembled at Los Alamos and await shipment to Kwajalein.

At twilight, Tara reports news from the radio: protests against the tests are beginning in Honolulu, with people writing to the president and Congress. Some newspapers and atomic scientists are calling for the tests to be canceled. Chief Juda warns Tara not to raise false hopes, and most villagers continue to pray for a miracle.

On February 25, the LST 1108 arrives carrying a month’s food and water along with building materials for the new village. This is the day the villagers finally surrender and accept their fate. Sorry helps load the dismantled church and community buildings onto the ship. In the late afternoon, the LST departs with 22 men who volunteered to help the Seabees with construction.

Sorry and Lokileni become Dr. Garrison’s helpers, touring him around the island and collecting marine specimens. Garrison explains that studying how radioactivity affects living organisms may help answer questions about living with atomic weapons in the future. He describes radiation as an invisible and capable of causing leukemia and other diseases and explains that radioactive fallout can contaminate the food chain, making fish dangerous to eat. Sorry, understanding Abram’s fears, wishes America would not drop the bombs.

Sorry also learns that observers at the first atomic test may not have been harmed at six miles away, that the primary target will be the USS Nevada, and that the bomb will be dropped from about five miles above the target. Sorry realizes the bomber crew will be able to see people on the lagoon below.

The Nevada is being painted bright orange-red and will serve as zeropoint at the center of the target fleet.

Sorry sails Garrison to Nantil Island to collect bird specimens. Over lunch, Garrison explains that since they cannot test on humans, animals will serve as proxies aboard the target ships, taking the place of sailors in battle positions. Pigs will be used because their skin resembles human skin; goats because their body fluids are similar to those of humans. Some animals will be killed instantly by the blast, while others will be radiated and studied afterward. White rats, guinea pigs, and special strains of mice from the National Cancer Institute will also be used, with thousands of animals kept in cages and pens. Sorry is shocked by the plan.

Garrison describes other test technologies, including pilotless planes aircraft that will fly through the radioactive cloud by remote control, and television, which will be used during the tests. When Sorry asks why the world has left the atolls so far behind, Garrison muses that in some ways they have been fortunate, expressing regret over the invention of airplanes, the atom bomb, and possibly television. Sorry finds this strange for a scientist, but Garrison explains that he studies ancient things, not modern ones.

After returning to Bikini, Garrison confirms there will be 90 to 100 target ships anchored in the lagoon, including captured enemy vessels and aircraft carriers. He says no one knows what will happen and that scientists are frightened after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bomb will be dropped from a B-29 Superfortress and detonate 500 feet above the Nevada.

Thousands of letters are being sent to President Truman and Congress expressing fear about the tests, including speculation that the explosion could tear open the earth’s crust or affect the oceans and atmosphere.

A Navy newsreel team films the final Sunday church service, intended to show that the villagers approve of the tests. The villagers dress in their best clothes but appear sad. The film crew repeatedly interrupts Grandfather Jonjen’s sermon, asking him to move, face different directions, and repeat his words until Tara shouts at them in English to stop.

Photojournalists from New York arrive, but when Tara tries to explain how the Navy deceived the villagers, the reporters ask only superficial questions. She tells the villagers that the world media will portray them as simple, trusting people from a tiny village, isolated for decades from civilization, suddenly swept into modern times, ignoring their true story.

On the morning of March 6, the villagers clean the cemetery and decorate the graves with flowers. Jonjen holds a farewell service honoring the dead, especially Abram, while cameras continue filming.

Commodore Wyatt then arrives with Azakel, the governor’s interpreter, and asks Chief Juda to reenact the February 10 meeting for the newsreel cameras. Juda agrees, and a furious Tara walks away. The scene is filmed multiple times, with Azakel urging everyone to smile while most look down at the sand. The cameras also film children laughing and playing in the lagoon so that viewers will think the villagers are content to give up Bikini.

Sorry thinks Abram would have called the filmmakers liars. He shouts the word Letao himself.

The Fifty-third Seabees are scheduled to arrive in early March with bulldozers, dump trucks, and cranes to remake Bikini into an atomic test site.

On the morning of March 7, 1946, Jonjen awakens the family to watch one final sunrise. The rest of the villagers emerge from their dismantled homes to join them in silent observation. Sorry, who once longed to leave the atoll, now desperately wants to stay.

In late morning, they begin loading their belongings onto the LST 1108. Small children laugh as they ride on top of the loads, and Navy newsreel cameras film the entire embarkation. The outrigger canoes are lifted aboard last by a large crane.

Lokileni tells Sorry she wants to leave her childhood rag doll, Leilang, on the island as something of herself to watch over their land. She kisses it goodbye and props it against a house upright in the sand.

As they prepare to board, they realize Grandmother Yolo is missing. After almost an hour of searching, they conclude joined her husband in the ocean grave. When they tell Jonjen, he says a prayer and murmurs that he should have gone with her.

Dr. Garrison arrives to say goodbye and give simple gifts from the ship’s store. When Tara asks him truthfully when they will be able to return, he looks around the island and sadly tells her they may never return. Tara tells Sorry to keep this secret so the others can maintain hope.

After boarding, the LST pulls away. As the ship departs, the villagers line the rail in tears. Jonjen begins singing the hymn “O God, Our Help in Ages Past” (151), and the others join him. Dr. Garrison turns away, unable to watch, as the ship sails past the islands of the atoll and into Enyu Channel. Bikini grows smaller and smaller until it disappears.

That night, the villagers lie on mats on the cold steel deck. Sorry lies beside Lokileni, missing the soft sand of home.

After the villagers’ departure, an airstrip is built on Enyu, and Bikini is transformed and fully Americanized, with recreational facilities including basketball courts, baseball fields, clubs serving beer, and a radio station broadcasting to the world.