Ice Giant
Key art
Filed beside the screening
The picture is Ice Giant.
Scenario
2:57 · 16:9
The station's largest window opens on a dark depth. The ice beyond the glass does not return a horizon. Instruments along the wall give small steady ticks and no alarm. A pale crystal hangs in that depth, far off, turning by degrees no wind inside could explain. Each turn shows a new edge and then the same edge again, slower than a breath. Controls along the sill are quiet. Their lamps are dark. Heat stays on this side of the glass. A vent breathes warm air across the sill and fogs nothing yet.
A suited figure stands outside at the station glass and does not wave. The suit is a pale bulk against darker ice. The helmet does not turn toward the room. Inside, a person sits by a smaller porthole. The dark there is the same body of ice. The seated person's hands rest on the knees and stay. A pencil on the ledge does not roll.
The crystal drifts closer and turns. One facet aligns with the round window so the two circles share a center. The turn pauses on that alignment and does not continue. Fog on the inside glass retreats from that shared center and leaves a clear disc. The retreat is slow. Moisture beads at the disc's edge and does not cross back in. The suited figure turns the helmet toward the crystal, not toward the station, and still does not wave. The visor takes the pale facet and not the room. A control on the sill blinks once, a weak amber, and returns to dark. No hand goes to it.
The seated person does not stand. The chair keeps its small creak and then is quiet. A silhouette remains at the large glass, heat on the inside, cold unmeasured beyond it. The crystal holds its alignment. The clear disc tries to close from one side and fails. The fog stops at the same circle it left.
The round window stays a window onto ice and onto that one pale face of crystal. No horizon appears. The controls stay idle. The pencil stays where it was. The clear disc in the fog does not close, and the suited figure outside keeps the helmet turned toward the crystal while the seated person remains at the smaller porthole, both of them held on either side of glass that heat does not cross.
Minutes pass as the crystal's pause continues. The seated person's breath clouds once on the smaller porthole and fades. The large window's clear disc stays the size of the shared center. Heat from the vent keeps the inside air warm and does not reach the suit beyond the glass. The suited figure's glove lifts a little, not a wave, and lowers again without touching the station. No horizon writes itself on the ice. The idle controls do not wake. The alignment holds, round window and pale facet sharing one center, while neither person closes the distance the glass has set between them.