He wasn’t even close to the summit of this sudden bulge, he saw; the glowing flank continued upwards above him to a peak, a new caldera, lost in more layers of steam and mist.

The noise reached a crescendo, then seemed to die away; he kept talking, but he could no longer hear his own voice, still less Sixt’s.

His hearing was gone, then. He doubted it mattered.

It looked as if all of Henry’s predictions were being fulfilled.

The plug of rock he was riding was tilting. Soon, it would tip him off. Even if not, the streams of lava gushing down the wounded flank of the higher hillside would surely overwhelm him soon; it was only the absurd expansion of the mountain which had saved him from that fate so far.

He wondered which peril would administer the final butt-whopping—

Slam.

It felt like a punch from a giant, deep in the base of his spine, and he was flying in the air, literally flying, among fragments of the rock which had, moments before, comprised the modest summit of Dumfoyne.

He couldn’t feel or move his arms or legs. Perhaps his back was broken, or his neck. He couldn’t even tell if he was still breathing.

The human body was, in the end, remarkably fragile.

He seemed to be riding a new fire fountain; without the rock to shield him he was surely burning up, yet he felt nothing.

Perhaps a god was smiling on him, even now, undeservedly sparing him the punishment dished out to others.

And, remarkably, he was still rising, high into the ash clouds, picked up like a rag by some thermal current. Lightning flared above, and the clouds parted.

And, for a brief moment, he saw the stars, so high had he risen.

Just a few seconds more, he thought. Let me see the new mountain from above, the greatest geological formation in a hundred thousand years. Olympus come to Earth.

But now even the gods, at last, failed him.

“…Two hundred feet,” Henry read. “Coming down at three. We’re going to make it. One hundred. Levelling off. Woah. Look at that.”

Suddenly they were kicking up dust, great bright streaks of it, rushing to the horizon over the ground. His view of the surface grew blurred, and he felt a tingle of new alarm. What if Geena couldn’t see the surface? How would she know where to set down the Shoemaker?

“Ninety-six feet, coming down at six. Slowing the descent rate,” Geena said.

He looked around, seeking the Apollo lander. A sheet of dust swept over the boxy LM. He hoped their kicked-up debris wouldn’t mess up the landing site.

Now all Henry could see was a streaked layer of dust, with a few of the taller rocks sticking up here and there, like low mist.

“Fifty feet,” Geena said. “Shit, we’re going backward… Henry, how much fuel do we have left?”