23

The pain recedes, and you lurch to your knees amid flame and smoke. Several controllers are down, their brass innards clattering along the deck. A pie-slice has been taken out of the Specular; the people there—mostly scientists—are just gone. As you watch, something like lightning rips into the vessel, blasting a half dozen journalists into nothingness. The Specular starts to break apart as you catch a glimpse of a vast, wild landscape below.

The people you just met are dying all around you. Nearby, the soldier Cyril clings to a broken railing and the scientist Kattan shouts as a console burns around him. On the far side of the Specular, the satirist Meto, writing in his notebook even as the Specular burns, is unaware of a pillar about to fall upon him.