In his brief time here Blue had come to appreciate the Scottish landscape, even away from the more spectacular scenery of the Highlands. This land, shaped by the ice sheets and punctuated by stubborn igneous outcrops, was built on a scale that was almost human, a scale that reminded him of Japan, and it seemed to him that the character of the people had been shaped in the same way. Modest. Robust.

But already the landscape was marred by the events of the last few weeks.

That little town was deserted, for instance: no vehicles moved there, no smoke curled into the air, no children played. And the blue sky was overlaid by thick black clouds, ash-laden. The clouds gave the place the tinge of autumn, of decline.

And that was surely appropriate, for winter was drawing close for Scotland now; little of this panorama would survive what was to come.

…The ground shook, subtly.

The catfish was stirring. Blue could smell sulphur, and it seemed to him that the ground under his buttocks was a little warm.

Not long, then.

He unfolded a small package containing smoked salmon sandwiches — his favourite Scottish delicacy — and a bottle of Tennent’s lager, the beer to which he’d taken an unreasonable liking.

ISS, Ishiguro. You’re right at the epicentre, Blue, so far as we can tell.

Blue adjusted his Madonna headset. “Thank you, Sixt. If ‘epicentre’ is the appropriate word.”

We don’t really have the words, I guess, said Sixt Guth, in orbit on the International Space Station. The Moonseed is taking us into new territory.

“I am atop the vent called Dumfoyne,” reported Blue. “I have a good view of the western Campsie Fells from here. I can see how the Clyde Plateau lavas, contemporaneous with this vent, form a steep scarp over Lower Carboniferous sediments, though this is partly obscured by a landslip—”

Fuck the context. You should be getting your sorry ass out of there.

“Watch me run, when it comes.”

But the argument was ritual. Sixt knew Blue wasn’t going to move from this spot.

Radar mounted on the Space Station had shown that the ground was uplifting, slowly but steadily, all across the Midland Valley of Scotland. False colour images showed a bulls-eye shape, ragged circles of increasing altitude. And, as ancient cones belched fire, the deformation was increasing in scale and rate.

And Blue was right at the centre of things, right at the eye of that NASA false colour storm of new contours.

Like most geologists, Blue had often chafed at the absurd rapidity of human attention spans, even lifetimes, compared to the slow grandeur of the geological processes he studied. He’d been attracted to volcanism because at least it enabled him to see things happen.

And today, something strange — even unprecedented — was going to happen. On such a day, with such an event impending, this was the only place to be.