In the vast emptiness of the Pacific Ocean, tectonic movements construct or swallow islands following the wrath of the earth or the sea. In the Tonga archipelago, two little-known animals have learned to cope with these ephemeral lands risen from the ocean depth: the sooty tern, a seabird that never dares wet its wings for fear of drowning and the Alvin shrimp, a blind shellfish that can find its way around the abyss. When an underwater volcano becomes an island, the fates of these two extraordinary living paradoxes are linked.