The Fish Merchant is a short story from the collection Tides from New Worlds. Li Hao-Chang struggles to stay one step ahead of starvation or stabbing, selling fish on the brutal docks of Macau. He's too busy to read the headlines in the newspapers that wrap his wares - rumors of non-random signals from deep space. When a gangster named Pepper is gunned down in front of Li's stand, the fish seller finds a computer disk stolen from the Chinese government. Maybe, just maybe, the biggest news in history is enough to make Li's dearest dream a reality: escape to safety in America.