cracks in the surface spread and fractures formed, releasing larger and

larger chunks of molten rock into space. And all the while the planet's

metal core grew with incredible intensity. Then, all at once, it happened.

A massive slab of rock on the side closest to the sun gave way. The poles

shifted one last time and the planet began spinning wildly.

Then she exploded.

Millions of metal orbs flew into space, their molecules rearranging

themselves as they melted like solder under a flame. A lucky few made it

past the gravitational field of the sun. Then they headed on a long journey

into the deep reaches of space.

TENS OF THOUSANDS of years had passed since the unknown planet

exploded, scattering its remains into the universe. From a great distance

the approaching debris appeared blue. One piece became a finely detailed

orb. Many fragments had been sucked toward the surfaces of other planets

in space, but this one traveled farther than the rest and eventually

came to rain down on a planet called Earth.

The single metal orb entered Earth's atmosphere on a low trajectory

from west to east. She split in the ionosphere and calved off a smaller

spherical orb of pure metal. The mother meteor came in along thirtyfive

degrees latitude. At this latitude, it was dry and arid. The baby,

lighter and smaller, was pulled farther northwest, heading toward the

SACRED STONE 7

I

sixty-second degree latitude, where the surface was covered with a layer

of ice and snow.

Two different environments of the same planet brought two different

results.

The mother and her molten metal reformed into a glowing orb after

spitting out her young. She came over a coastline then streaked across a

barren desert in a decaying trajectory. Blasting high above the sand, rocks,

and cactus, .the one-hundred-yard diameter, 63,000-ton nickel-iron projectile

slammed into the earth, carving a one-mile-diameter crater in

the dry soil. Clouds of dust headed skyward, then began encircling Earth.

Months would pass before all the fallout filtered back to the earth.

The baby was pure and silver gray. The action of the initial explosion

and the molecular rearrangement while traveling through space

had formed a perfect sphere that appeared like twin halves of geodesic

domes locked together. Traversing farther along the planet, she slipped

through space quietly, her smooth surface meeting little resistance from

Earth's atmosphere, with none of the anger and rage her mother had

contained. She dropped lower and lower, like a golf ball with a topspin.

Soaring

over the shoreline of an island capped with ice, it was as if

she was being pulled to the earth by a magnet. Her diameter was but

eighteen inches, her weight a hundred pounds. Drifting lower until she

was only ten feet over the snow and ice, she lost her forward speed as

gravity brought her down. Her heated metal surface melted a track in