The Permian ended in fire.
Susan stood on her observation platform as ARCHIE rendered the world of 252 million years ago, and the first thing she noticed was the sky. It was wrong—not blue, not even the deeper hues of ancient atmospheres. The horizon glowed a sullen orange, bruised with ash, the sun a dim copper disk struggling through particulate haze.
"Siberian Traps eruption in progress," ARCHIE reported. "Current temporal coordinate: 251.9 million years before present. The eruption has been continuous for approximately 300,000 years."
"Three hundred thousand years of continuous volcanic eruption," David said.
"Flood basalts. Four million cubic kilometers of lava. Global temperatures have increased eleven degrees Celsius."
Susan looked toward the distant mountains where the glow told the story. Somewhere beyond that glow, the Earth's crust was hemorrhaging molten rock across an area larger than Western Europe.
"Where's the competing signature?" she asked. "The anomaly you detected?"
"I selected this coordinate because the anomalies are most pronounced here. I am detecting them now. But I do not understand what I am detecting."
The ocean was dying.
Susan waded into the shallows—her platform adjusting, her haptic suit registering fever-temperature water. The seafloor was visible beneath her: white sand, scattered shells, the occasional dark shape of something that had once been alive.
"The water chemistry," Margaret said, cro…
