Overnight, the Old Pine Pass Meteorite made Corriman internationally famous in the scientific community, not to mention putting Old Pine Pass on the map for tourists and sightseers.
For one thing, it was huge. At ten feet by ten feet by ten feet, it was larger than even the Hoba meteorite. For another, it was made of some substance that had never been encountered on Earth before. Most meteorites the Old Pine’s size consist of iron or iron alloys, but the Old Pine seemed to be some kind of multicolored crystal or gemstone, which was fortunate: if it had, in fact, been iron, it would have stayed right in Jake Halsey’s north forty. Sixty tons is a lot harder to move than the three the Old Pine actually weighed.
Of no particular scientific interest but certainly helpful for tourism, the thing was breathtakingly beautiful. Instead of being scorched and pitted by atmospheric re-entry, it seemed to have been…polished. What was more, the bands and whorls and patterns of brilliant, gemlike colors – sapphire, ruby, emerald, amethyst, topaz – actually moved. Too slow for the eye to easily follow, to be sure, but quickly enough that you were never looking at the exact same stone any two days in a row. How that was possible for a rock was, of course, a mystery, so perhaps the Old Pine’s beauty was of scientific interest after all.
Other, bigger schools and museums tried to obtain the Old Pine, of course, and the faculty knew that they would probably have to let it go eventually. The money that any one of those schools or museums would “donate” to Corriman in exchange for the Old Pine would be a huge boon, of course, but there was something more important to consider: the Old Pine was just wasted as the primary exhibit of Corriman’s three-room “Hall of Geology”. It belonged in the Smithsonian. But until that day, Corriman and Old Pine Pass would enjoy their claim to fame, and geologists would continue to take samples and make observations and run analyses and perform experiments that always created more questions than they answered.
*
Again, in the normal course of things, that would have been enough to bring Old Pine Pass and Corriman lasting (if rather specialized) fame. But that spring, yet another strange, unprecedented occurrence brought scientific attention to Old Pine Pass. This time, the science in question was entomology.
It was a bright spring day very near to the end of the semester (which was the only time bright spring days really came to Corriman – once, it had snowed on Mother’s Day and the reaction had been annoyed, but not particularly surprised), and the school’s lawns were crowded with students playing Frisbee and classes being held outdoors. Several dorms and frat houses had moved their lounge furniture outside, and the hip hop blasting from the Beta house was blending with Pachelbel’s Canon in D blaring from the Artist Guild to create a surprisingly interesting hybrid. George himself was just out of his last class of the morning, heading to the Student Center for a burger and enjoying his favorite springtime sights (coeds in bikinis sunning themselves) when the Historical Event happened: a cloud of butterflies descended on the Quad.
Even if they’d been ordinary butterflies, that would have been enough to make everyone who hadn’t fallen asleep in the sun pause in what they were doing so they could ooh and aah. George had never seen such a huge swarm of butterflies in his life.
But they weren’t ordinary butterflies. Their wings were iridescent, and the very air seemed to shimmer as they filled the Quad.
“Look! Mommy, Daddy, look!” A little girl cried. Mommy and Daddy no doubt did exactly that. George himself couldn’t help but glance over out of sheer reflex. Larry Cooper from English had his family with him for some reason, and his five-year-old daughter was standing there with a glittering pane of iridescence balanced on her hand. “Look, Daddy!” Little…Jennifer, yes, that’s right, her name was Jennifer…repeated. “I just held out my hand, and one landed right on my finger!”
“Wow, that’s…” Larry’s eyes went very wide. “That’s great honey.” He raised his head, looked around, spotted George standing there, and waved him over. “George!” He whisper-shouted. “Get over here! You need to see this!”
George was already curious, so he hurried over willingly enough. When he got there, he was glad he had.
Little Jennifer thrust her hand out at him, proud to show off her “catch”. The butterfly didn’t seem to mind. It was pretty big as such things go, almost the size of a hummingbird, and its wings – in addition to being iridescent – were a gorgeous fractal pattern.
A pattern that kept changing.
Colors and patterns flowed and wheeled and spiraled across the butterfly’s wings like the northern lights had flowed and wheeled and spiraled across the sky.
“How is it doing that?” Larry asked. “Is it some kind of chameleon thing?”
“Heck if I know,” George answered. “Call Maria over in Biology and get her over here quick. I don’t have my cell phone.”
“I wanna keep it!” Jennifer announced as her father reached into his pocket.
“Oh, honey, I don’t know,” Her mother said. “We don’t know anything about it.”
“But I want it!” Jennifer protested, her whine reminding George why he’d never wanted kids as she cupped her hand over her new pet. “I promise I’ll – ow!”
The butterfly fluttered away as she clutched her hand and wailed.
“Are you okay?” Mommy asked, kneeling to examine her wounded offspring. “What happened?”
“It bit me!” Jennifer shrieked, cradling her hand against her chest.
“Take it easy now, little bear,” her father soothed. “Butterflies don’t – ”
This was, of course, the exact moment that Mommy managed to coax Little Bear’s hand away from her chest and reveal that the finger that had supported the butterfly was bleeding.
“- bite?”
Just then, other shouts and exclamations of pain started to spring up from here and there all over the Quad.
Beautiful as they were, these butterflies were apparently a touch nastier than was strictly standard.
The quad was clear in less than two minutes.
