Ice baby
Videos: go full screen for best experience.
Samantha watched the recordings of the disaster on the flyer monitor.
“Look at this,” she said, and showed them the aerial view. A cone of broken trees rose from a field, leaves and branches lifted and held in the air.
“That’s about a hundred metres,” she said. “It’s the uplift tech. Another meltdown. I can’t believe it’s this big.”
The feed changed. Buildings and cars were spinning upward. Whole roads lifted and turned as if caught in a machine. She switched again. The image settled into a white block falling slowly. A data tag read 1,450 kilotons.
There was a fizzing sound. It cut into a screech that filled the cabin. The block struck the ground and spread outward in white light. The tag vanished. The screen went black.
“What was that?” Bork said.
“Ice, maybe,” Peterkin said. “They store glaciers in farside orbit. Thousands of them.”
“That’s why it got cold at the prison,” Samantha said.
“What goes up must come down,” Bork said.
She changed the view. The prison site was raised into a long ridge of broken ground. Lightning was breaking across the top. No one spoke.
“What’s with all the mud outside?” Bork asked.
Peterkin sighed.
“I planted begonias. Now look at it.” He adjusted the flyer ID. “We’d better move.”
Bork went out through the hangar.
“This mud’s warm,” he called. “Not cold. Is it volcanic?”
Peterkin checked the feeds. “Aftershocks. The uplift units are shut down, but no one knows what comes next.”
“Maybe lava,” Bork said.
“Just what we need.” Peterkin powered up the flyer. “Let’s have a look around.”
They lifted off. Peterkin flew in wide spirals. The worst damage lay around the prison. It was flattened into concrete and metal, still burning. The storm above it was small but violent, and he stayed clear. Below, the slopes were still moving. Boulders rolled. Objects slid and fell. Earth and plants and animals had been lifted from far away and dropped in pieces. The debris lay twisted by wind or scattered in long arcs, like something thrown too hard. Rescue flyers were already there. More were coming.
They did not look down for long.
Peterkin turned the flyer and headed back.