The terrain had changed an hour out of Ukai. The canopy thinned, then broke apart, then disappeared. What replaced it was open ground - flat, dry, cracked clay stretching in every direction under the pale gray afternoon sky. No shade. The sun sat behind the permanent cloud cover at about three o'clock, painting everything the same washed-out grey-white. Heat came off the ground in visible ripples.
The lead car braked hard.
Raizen saw it through the windshield before the driver announced it. A ravine - cutting across the road from left to right, forty meters wide at least, the edges sharp where the ground dropped away. The far side was visible: same flat clay, same cracked surface, the road continuing as if nothing had interrupted it.
Between the two sides, the bridge was destroyed.
