I scanned the area, looking for debris. “There’s no wreckage—which is odd. So I doubt it was a satellite. No; I’m afraid there’s only two possibilities, really. Bomb or meteorite. And I doubt very much it was a bomb.”
“Or is?”
“Or is.”
She didn’t say anything, only continued staring into the dirt.
At last I said, “What is it?”
“Nothing ... it ... it’s nothing.” She seemed dazed, confused. “It’s just that ... it all seems so strange now. I mean—that we ever had use for such things. For bombs. That we could spend so much time and effort and money ... just to kill each other.”
She looked out at the ocean and the billowing clouds, the whirling seabirds, the distant pterodactyls. “That we could make such ugliness and pain—such sheer terror—and in such a beautiful world. I mean, look at it
