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massive, pointed iron mask and running lights that swept side to side and low to the ground. From the heavy rumble I realized that it was a truck.
    Not just one truck: it was the leader of a convoy coming into the city. A huge steel nose, half battering ram and half plow, jutted up front. Iron wings rode just off the concrete, and sparked down at times like an electric welder with irregular power. All that iron was to knock away debris or roadblocks thrown up by bandits. The trucks also wore metal wheel skirts that reached nearly to the pavement, these to prevent anyone from shooting out the tires. The lead truck swung a spotlight on us, and I could see the glint of a gun barrel in its light. But we were breaking no law, and the convoy rumbled on in a tumbling whirlwind of dust. Maybe its drivers thought the Ali Princess was a hallucination.
    Along about four in the morning we reached open fields. The wind blew stronger and steadier here, and the Princess picked up speed. My mother (I made sure she was strapped in) was asleep in the cargo bay; Sarah was a dark lump of luggage. The freeway ran straight north now, and my father had to hold the boom hard to the right side in the stronger wind. The wheels hissed and kicked up dust like a garden hose spraying whitewater. To keep his balance and get maximum wind, my father hung out horizontally—barely inches above the pavement. I caught my breath; concrete was not water, and he should at least be wearing a helmet and skateboarding elbows. But then again, he was doing fine. The image of him hanging out there was better than any photo I’d seen in any of his old sailing magazines. I wished that my mother and Sarah were awake to see him. I wished that I could just tell him how cool he looked right now, but I had all I could do to keep the front wheel steady.
    Toward dawn the wind faded as if chased by the light. The gray sky leaked blue, then yellow, then pink, then an orange that looked fluorescent, or else like a huge cone of molten lava pushing up from the fields and trees. Then the big moment: the rim of the sun broke above the horizon line like a giant asteroid rising, not falling—and when it hit the giant, pale lake of the sky, ripples of intense color spread in slow-motion waves. Like rainbows, the extra color at sunrise and sunset had a scientific explanation. Sulfur dioxide, the main gas emitted by the volcanoes, combined with oxygen and water to form sulfuric acid gas, which then condensed into fine droplets, or aerosols, which then hung in the air and made haze. Still, it was damn beautiful.
    â€œHuh? What?” Sarah said with alarm. She started awake, blinking, confused; then her eyes widened as she saw the sunrise.
    â€œPretty, yes?” I said softly.
    â€œWow,” she murmured in her little-girl voice.
    My mother was stirring too. She smiled at the sunrise, then turned quickly to me. “You want me to take the driver’s seat for a while? I could steer.”
    My fingers ached from clenching the wheel, and I suddenly was tired in a major way. “Sure,” I answered. Carefully, by inching along on opposite sides of the main frame, we changed positions. In the rear, my father remained at his post. He was ghostly gray from dust, an ancient sailor from another time.
    â€œYou need a break, Dad?” I asked him.
    â€œNo, I’m good. The wind’s flattening out. Doesn’t take so much work now.”
    Our speed had dropped considerably, but we still rolled along at a good leg-kick, skateboarding pace. “Why don’t you get some shut-eye, Miles?” he said. His voice sounded momentarily like it used to. In the good old days.
    I didn’t have to be asked twice. Sarah, without complaint, actually took a bicycle seat so I could stretch out in the luggage bay. My mother’s little wireless television/radio came on at low volume. Like most adults, she obsessed on the news—especially nowadays. News was like a