The Stones From Which Meadows Grow

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Trying to stay warm in the cooling nighttime air, Amberle sank into the park bench and crossed her arms. I should have listened to Mom and brought a jacket, she thought.

She stared at the fuzzy glow created by the broad rings of asteroids circling Alpha Mensae. The glow’s bright centerline muted remote planets, and she could just make out the tiny disk of Hercules, the largest sphere in the system.

A flickering trail flashed across her vision. She grinned as she watched the bolide drop low, toward an ocean horizon barely illuminated by billions of distant asteroids. Two lesser streaks followed, one exploding brilliantly and leaving a feathery plume of incandescent smoke.

Too high up to be a “boomer,” she thought disappointedly as the smoke trail faded. And still not close to the big strike two weeks ago.

The early morning meteor had been huge, making a fire trail as wide as the larger of Goliath’s two moons. Casting sharp shadows, the falling iron chunk plunged into the ocean to the northwest, igniting the western sky with a brilliant fireball. A clear boomer, the meteorite’s sonic report rattled the colony arcology. Hours later, a rumbling tsunami ran over the beach and surged around Seaside’s foundation, washing past second story windows, the sight leaving her breathless as she watched from the arcology’s rooftop park.

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