Fine Structure

by qntm

When they reach the coordinates where the enormous granite geodesic dome is supposed to be located, it isn't there. The landscape has changed too much. The building has been carried away by moving ice. But it was always a complete sphere, not a dome, and it floated on the ice, rather than being built on top of it, allowing it to roll and drift with the flow - up to a point, anyway. It has left a trail wide enough to follow from the air. A horizon north they catch up with it. It has fallen into an enormous rocky crevasse, where sharp outcroppings have dented and punctured its roof and destroyed its structural integrity. There's just enough of the granite shell left for Mitch Calrus to be able to see what the machine inside it was supposed to look like - all intricate golden and steel and silicon gears and cylinders, now bent and broken by the drop and impact. There are hexagonal granite pieces weighing tens of tonnes littering the floor of the icy canyon. There are plates of metal punched with holes. There are crushed supercomputers. The half-shell that's left is slowly filling with ice and icy water flowing into the crevasse from the south. It's a trainwreck. It's a broken, drooling egg.