Flash raised his binoculars to his eyes to determine exactly what was out there. At first glance, it looked like a boulder, but it was moving. When he brought the image into focus, he could hardly believe what he saw.
Moving slowly across the ice floe, waving its trunk in the air, Flash saw a wooly mammoth. If this planet truly was like Earth, it was like Earth 10,000 to 150,000 years ago. If natural selection had produced the specimen that stood before him, Flash wondered what other life forms he might encounter here.
Even as this thought crossed his mind, he saw something else moving in contrast to the expanse of white. The second form moved faster than the first, and seemed to be stalking it. It fell beyond the rise of a drift before Flash could get a good look at it, and so he lowered the glasses and scanned the area.
It reappeared much closer to the pachyderm, and Flash prepared himself to observe an attack. No person alive had seen an actual living mammoth, and now it seemed unlikely that this one would be alive for long. Flash pressed the record button on his binoculars in order to capture the events that were about to unfold.
The saber-toothed tiger, which Flash could see clearly now, was enormous. It was almost the size of the mammoth, which Flash now surmised to be a calf. How could this be? The creature had enormous, curving tusks.
The great cat leapt into the air and came down on its prey. Flash watched in fascinated horror, observing the primal laws of nature play out before him.
No blood stained the pristine landscape. As He watched, the ancient elephant rose and charged the tiger. As the two circled each other, Flash Meridian realized, among paw and trunk slaps, head butts and posturing, that these were animals at play. Their actions were much like those of a basket of puppies. 
At last, the cat sat, panting as the mammoth gently stroked its side with its powerful trunk.
Flash found it difficult to pull himself away from this scene, but he had no wooly coat to protect him from the frigid temperature. The wind was picking up again, and so he reluctantly turned and went back to his ship.
He boarded the TNI2, replaying the playful hunt over and over in his mind. And then he had an idea.
While it was light out, he could survey the area from above.
In the warmth and safety of the craft, Flash levitated and swung the ship around in the ample underground passageway.
He burst out into the bright light, hovering between sky blue and uninterrupted white.
He crested the highest peaks, and followed their tapering slopes to the west. Deep chasms split the frozen surface in places, revealing deep blue openings, but most of the vista was smooth white.
This exhilarating experience stood in stark contrast to the oppressive darkness of the cave the night before.