In spite of many predictions to the contrary, it was quite clear to astronomers that as the meteor dug into the atmosphere, it was coming apart.  Not enough to keep a large mass from striking fairly close to where they had predicted but enough so that pieces, some fairly large, would shower down along the route inland.  This had been feared but was not completely unexpected.

It began while still well over the Atlantic, a brilliant, shining fireball that turned darkness into eerie twilight while providing a surprisingly multicolored display in its wake for those watching openmouthed on ships at sea and from monitoring aircraft.  This caused a lot of attention but little concern; the ocean was vast and swallowed whole the splinters that managed to make it all the way to the surface.

As the meteor approached the continent, however, it was lower in the sky and slowing slightly, although its speed was still so great that observers on the ground saw the fireball flash past in the space of but a few seconds.

To the captain and Anne Marie, sitting atop the hill not many kilometers from Rio, it was an eerie, awesome sight nonetheless.  The meteor approached from over the horizon, illuminating the eastern sky like the coming of dawn, slowly obliterating the stars and overwhelming even the glow of the city lights.  When it suddenly appeared, much lower on the horizon than they had expected, it was a miniature fireball that seemed several times the size of a full moon.  Even the captain had to admit that he'd never in his incredibly long life seen anything quite like it before.

It came with blinding speed almost directly over them, and at just about that moment the captain, who'd gotten to his feet without even realizing it as he gaped at the sight, suddenly reeled, cried out, and dropped to his knees.

The sensation was momentary but powerful: a sudden loss of orientation and a pervasive, cold, desolate emptiness that struck to the core of his soul, as if someone had just walked across his grave...

At the same moment there was a series of thunderous explosions that echoed all around them and a brief but violent wind that came out of nowhere and struck with surprising force.

"Wha - what's happening?" Tony cried.  "What's happening!  Anne Marie!"

"I'm all right!" she shouted to him, although already the wind and explosions seemed to be dying down, vanishing into pale echoes as if they had never been there.  "Oh, good lord!  There are streamers - sparkling things, hundreds - no, thousands of them, falling all over.  Reds, yellows, greens, golds, pure white - incredible!  Captain, can you -"  For the first time she looked over and saw Solomon bent over double, looking agonized.  "Captain!  Are you all right?"

The captain gulped down several deep breaths.  "Yes, yes!  I'm all right.  It was - strange.  I've never felt anything like that before.  Never.  It's fading now.  Did you feel it?"