land how

“Land ahoy!” Gazzy shouted from five hundred feet in the air. He pointed into the distance, where I could see a white island sticking up out of the ocean.
Michael Papa squinted at the horizon. “It should be visible pretty soon,” he said. “The air is so clear here that we get great visibility.”
“It’s visible now,” I told him. “We have really good eyesight. Like hawks.”
He nodded, digesting this, and again I saw the look of almost envy that I’d seen on all these scientists’ faces from time to time. No one had ever been truly envious of our abilities before, and it was a cool feeling. The bird kid version of being a football captain or homecoming queen. Sort of.
“I see gray, like rocks,” I told Michael. “I thought everything was covered in snow.”
“Virtually everything is,” he said. “But along the coasts and some of the outer islands, there are thin strips of bare rock where glaciers have broken off. Also, it’s summer here now, since the seasons are reversed, so things aren’t as icy as they can be.”
“I see red buildings.”
“I don’t see a thing yet,” Michael said regretfully. “But, yes, the buildings are usually bright red or bright lime green, to stand out as much as possible.”


The Final Warning Chapter 38