A new landmass appears, with a thump of displaced air that echoes across the ice.

It's small, about fifteen feet across by about fifteen feet long by about ten or fifteen feet high, with a fairly flat grassy top and rough, curved or sloping sides ending in a sort of blunt point at the bottom. The sides are mostly dirt, held together by a tangle of roots, though their grip is imperfect and a few rocky clumps are shaken loose by the shock of arrival.

It floats in the air, its lower part a few feet off the ground. Sails and fins spread around its edge catch the wind, which begins to drive it slowly north.

On the top, the open doorway of a small round hut faces a dense stand of trellised grapevines across a thin, trickling stream of clear water.

A short humanoid figure standing atop the hut lets out a whooping yell of triumph, then jumps off and scampers inside to throw on some warmer clothes.

A somewhat taller figure emerges, fluffy tail lashing behind her, to observe their surroundings and scribble some notes.

The short one dashes out again, winter-clad and sporting a compact backpack, which unfolds into a pair of artificial wings whose gold-edged red-purple feathers don't quite fully conceal the linkages beneath. She takes off to survey the area, in particular looking for any sign of a warmer climate to aim for.

If the short one goes north, then it should be warmer! The supercontinent is crescent shaped, so if she goes in any other direction, she will encounter ice or seawater.

She may notice a tower about two dozen meters tall. It looks like it's been abandoned for hundreds of years (since it has).

After flapping around for a few more minutes to confirm initial impressions, she reports back and takes the helm to steer the islet north, heading for the tower first since it's interesting and might be a good place to moor in bad weather.

A third figure, eight feet tall with feathered wings folded to her back, ducks out of the hut with a blanket to wrap gently around the trellises, protecting the grapes from the cold.

The tower has windows and a six meter long pole attached on top, where six orange flags have been attached. Or what seem to have been orange flags, since they're tattered and discolored. The flags are attached by ropes and linkages to the chamber at the top of the tower, so that they can be controlled there.

The tower has empty crates and a telescope. Near the entrance, there's a metal plaque saying PAXAREMOI GUSNOIBEJDIHU POIHA ZBASU DEHI LI NY SOXAZE GY CI JY RE DY RE. Some of the stones in the masonry of the tower have fallen out, though it (and the wooden stairs inside) still seems to be stable, if they want to enter without levitation or flight. Mooring the island to it may not be advisable – the architects of the tower did not consider the forces that may be exerted on it by moored flying islands.

Rinka diagnoses it "potentially better than pounding stakes into the ice but not by much", then drags Esri out for a second opinion.

Esri carefully copies out the alien symbols into her notebook, then agrees that a crumbling tower without any purpose-built mooring posts is a poor place to tether to if you have better options.

They continue north, gaining altitude as they go once they're no longer investigating a strange ruin.

More tundra and mountains! There's a small forest.

If they continue to travel north, they'll eventually come upon a large, four dozen meter wide geodesic dome made of glass and steel, and what seem to be three to five story tall buildings. Many of the building windows are lit. There's plants growing inside that do not seem to be adapted to living in a very cold habitat. (photo not fully canon and should be treated as flavor)

Lit windows imply residents. The islet drifts gently downward again as it approaches the dome at a sedate jogging pace.

The drone currently doing gardening sees the islet, but 'watching out for flying islets' isn't in its job description, so it ignores it.

Eventually the islet gets close enough that it can no longer ignore it and runs inside to inform people.

Other humanoids come out to look at the islet!

Wow, the drone wasn't hallucinating. There is, in fact, a flying island flying towards them. Okay.

One of them will dictate an email for a drone to transcribe and send.

Attached is my identification and location. There is a flying island flying towards us. Bond offered: two thirds of my total assets.

Raran Batan Somat.

Raran will have his drone take a picture of the island and attach it to the email. Other people send similar emails.

It seems totally unbelievable, but the other people corroborate the accounts and also put up very large bonds. So at the very least, it can be assured that it's in good faith, even though on priors they think that some sort of carbon monoxide leak type incident occurred and all of them are hallucinating.

The Imperium will scramble four interceptors to the Iskar South Pole Dome Habitat. They can travel supersonically — they should arrive in half an hour.

The islet drifts to a halt as soon as it gets within shouting distance of the dome's visible entrance, and the shortest member of the team stands on top of the hut and cups her hands in front of her mouth to yell a greeting in an unfamiliar language.

Sadly, the dome is made of layered reinforced glass with gaps for insulation, so the shouting will not be heard by the people inside. They'll be able to see their mouths opening and closing though! Only some of them are continuing to pay attention — the rest are busy collecting firearms and whatever they could scrounge up to function as armor.

None of them go outside to meet the islet or the ?people? on the islet.

The entrance is a thick metal door with a keyboard and screen on the side.

They wait around for a few minutes to see if anyone wants to say hello, then steer to the side and continue north, giving the dome a wide berth.

It's moving, it's moving! Oh, it's moving away. That's a relief...well, for them, at least. They will send further emails to the Imperial Emergency Hotline about the fact that the islet is moving away to the north.

Thank you, we've updated the interceptors of this. Their radar ranges go up to one gross kilometers, and they've established radar contact with the islet. They may be able to sense the radar if they have radio sensing capabilities.

They will try hailing it in the standard frequencies. Does it pick up? Is the islet transmitting? They will try a bunch of the other frequencies to be sure.

They adjust their flight and split up, aiming for two of them to approach head on and the other two to fly east and west so as to approach at the sides.

The islet produces no detectable transmissions, and does not react to hails. It continues to be quite slow compared to a modern aircraft, and when the interceptors show up it drifts to a halt again and the short one gets on top of the hut to wait and see if they come close enough to talk to.

Nope! They continue to stay at least a kilometer away from it, circling. They repeat their transmissions over and over and in different frequencies and encoding, and also continue to attempt detecting any transmissions from the islet.

Eventually, one of them is ordered to land a kilometer in front of the islet, in the direction of its travel. A humanoid emerges from the cockpit wearing a heavy hooded coat, and alights. They stand to the side of the interceptor, looking at the islet, standing still.

The other interceptors continue to circle, though they start to fly farther away and higher up.

The islet waits for the humanoid to emerge from the landed interceptor, then starts moving in that direction again, slowly and with frequent adjustments to maintain a predictable course despite shifting winds. When it reaches the same shouting distance as before with the dome, Rinka climbs on top of the hut and tries yelling another hello.