Earth was, of course, completely unrecognizable. From this distance it was about the size of a tangerine held at arm’s length, and about the same color. Formerly a cool blue-and-white lake in the cosmos, it now hung there like a blob of molten steel thrown out by a welder’s torch. In the belt between the tropics, where most of the Hard Rain was falling, it glowed orange. The color faded and reddened to a kind of sullen brown around the poles, and the whole planet continually sparkled with the bluish light of vaporizing and exploding bolides. In a few days it would blot out half of the sky for a hectic few minutes while they slingshotted around it. By that time, they needed to have Ymir ’s main propulsion up and running so that they could execute the huge braking burn that would slow her down to the same velocity as Izzy.