Ally Olsen

The ghosts and oracles of rare earth

Nuutti exhaled hotly onto the window and began urging it to transparency with the rough cuff of his jumper sleeve. Beyond, through the thick and yellowing plastic-glass composite, he could just make out the stiff, grey slopes of Kvanefjeld rising from the dark mirror of the Tunulliarfik Fjord. Nuutti squinted suddenly, thinking he saw movement at the base of one of the hills. No, not movement. It was a slip of some fluorescent mineral, probably tugtupite or chkalovite, reflected in the beam of the surveyor’s searchlight as it made its morning scan of the landscape surrounding the mine's entrance.