Page 53 - Demo

Natch!39these browns and blues now beneath them represented. Theymeant that the planet had warmed faster than anyone hadexpected. In warming, many, many species had sufferedcatastrophic declines to their populations. Many had becomeextinct. Each one of these new lakes might as well represent afuneral plot for all who were lost in the Big Melt. Jinx thoughtthese somber thoughts as he watched the monitors record lakeafter lake after lake, well beyond counting.%u201cThey%u2019re not completely gone,%u201d Lucky tried to cheer him up.%u201cYou know Gad, he%u2019s always trying to save the elementalmaterials. Nothing is ever lost for good.%u201d He encouraged Jinx toimagine the landscape after they finished Production. Thesouthern winds would brush across new grasslands nearly aswide as the Asian steppe. New forests would spring from thevolcanic sediment and line the courses of streams and rivers.Joining the resident penguins and seals, new varietals of cranes,herons, and maybe even flamingos would congregate in theshallows. Great herds of some yet to be defined grazers wouldramble across the plains in numbers beyond reckoning. %u201cThink ofall the new four-leggeds%u2014all shapes and sizes%u2014gathering to drinkat the watering holes made by the melting ice.%u201d Jinx thought thatsounded nice. He liked to sit by the lake at night in the summer,watching fireflies glowing in the humid air as they searched forpartners.%u201cHand me the chips,%u201d he said to Lucky. But as he opened thebag and bit into the first crunchy morsel, a loud bang blastedfrom well below. Jinx and Lucky both looked at the chip for asecond, but soon realized that the bang had come from thesurface.%u201cWhat was that?%u201d Lucky shouted up to Chance.%u201cWe just flew over a volcano,%u201d Chance answered. %u201cMust havebeen a mini-eruption.%u201dIt was a mini eruption but an unfortunately ill-timed andtragically aimed mini-eruption. Like a great burp, a volcano hadbelched a lava ball skyward. No larger than a yellow onion, theflaming lava would have normally arched up and downward until