TL: You are quite a small force. How will you face up to the fraudsters?

NR: No doubt we will have a fight in front of us. The good thing is we are ready. We are not going to run away from that. We are ready to fight. We look at the work as national service. We are out there and there is a war going on. There is no alternative.

Sonofusion has already achieved more scientific respectability than cold fusion ever did, with two articles published in major journals.

And unlike cold fusion, sonofusion is based on known science. Scientists have long observed a phenomenon known as sonoluminescence, in which a burst of ultrasound causes a bubble in a liquid to collapse and emit a flash of light; some have speculated that the gases trapped in the collapsing bubbles could be heated to temperatures hot enough for fusion to occur.

"How many do you want?" Mr Overalls replies. About 100. His face takes on a guarded look. I become momentarily hopeful that I have stumbled across a gatekeeper to the hamster-trading netherworld, but instead of inviting me into the pet house for further discussion and the exchange of untraceable small bills, he asks what I want them for.

"There's a business opportunity I saw in the paper today," I say. "I thought I'd get a piece of this action." He looks at me. This is not a bonding moment. Figuring I have nothing to lose, I show him the article. It negates the need for further explanation. "We would only sell them as pets," he says sternly. "We're fully accredited by the Pet Trust, and so will anyone else be if you try them."

When White finally reached Roanoke Island in August 1590, he discovered that something had gone terribly wrong on the sweet-smelling island of fruitful soil. The colony was gone.

The only clue left was the cryptic word "Croatoan" carved on a tree. The word could have been a reference to a tribe of friendly Indians who lived south of Roanoke Island.

Some scholars think Indians may have killed the colonists; others think the English settlers moved farther inland and married into Native American tribes. A third theory says the colonists were killed by Spanish troops who came up from Florida. No one knows for certain what happened to the colonists.