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told O’Toole as he slid into the number two seat. “Lift! And lift now!”
    So, they did.
    Both boats reached the stratosphere ahead of the advancing storm front. Lightning crackled below them. Yet part of the storm had broken through the tropopause—dour thunderheads looking for all the world like billowing giants made of smoke. A tremendous bolt arced upward into space. O’Toole cursed.
    “Climb, Slugger,” January told the pilot. “Climb as fast as you can. Climb, even if you dry-tank the gig. Annie will pick us up in the lighter if she has to.”
    “Aye, Cap’n.” Sweat was pouring off the man. His fingers might leave dents in the pilot’s yoke. “We’re heading east to west, an’ that’s a bad climb f’shure; but we’re stayin’ ahead o’ those sand clouds. ’T isn’t ourselves I’m worrying over, y’ follow, but what that jolly-boat is a slow climber.”
    “Where are they now?”
    “So far, so good.” O’Toole gusted a sigh and seemed to relax microscopically. “But that’s what Wheezer Hottlemeyer said whan he was after passin’ the second floor, and him falling out av a noine-story buildin’ at th’ toime.”
    And a skybolt turned the viewports blue . The gig shuddered, and one of the panels sparked and died.
    “Are we hit?” January cried, half rising in the two gees. “Did it get us?”
    O’Toole laid a beefy hand on January’s wrist, touching the sandstone as he did. “Don’t ye be worryin’, Cap’n darlin’.” And January relaxed, weirdly comforted, confident now in the pilot’s abilities to see them through. “Aye, an’ there’s the jolly-boat, too!” the pilot cried, a triumphant shout, finger stabbing the 360-sensor display, piercing its ghostly green wireframe images. “Hoígh, th’ Roger. All bristol, down there?”
    “Hoígh, Aloe, ” Maggie replied. “Skin of the teeth here, Slugger. There was one bolt, I thought it was gonna peel the paint right off the skin, and leave its autograph. Hell, mebbe it did. Storm’s well below us now. Looks like we made it, you damned Paddy! Now we gotta find the Angel. ”
    “Shure,” said O’Toole, “an’ ut’ll be a story for to tell our grandkids.”
    “I don’t even have kids yet,” Maggie said.
    “Well, then, let’s you an’ me make some while there’s still time!”
    The pilot and the astrogator instructed their respective boats to lock on to the New Angeles, plot a suite of orbits, and report back with projected transit times and air and fuel usage. When the engines cut out and the gig entered low orbit, O’Toole grinned and turned about to face January.
    And the smile faded. Slugger clasped his fists together into a ball and shuddered. “ She can joke, but I know how close that was.” He sucked in a deep breath. “It weren’t normal, Cap’n. That storm. It was coming at us east t’ west, an’ that’s aginst th’ prevailin’ winds. Yessir, ’t was, and I nivver heard tell uv a storrum doin’ that. An’ maybe a planet dry like that an’ all can work up a monster static charge, but, Jaysus, Cap’n, that storrum was bigger’n the planet, I’m thinkin’.”
    January glanced at the prehuman artifact in his hand. It was twisted along its length like a screw. He had ordered the others to abandon backhoe and molecular sieve, but he had hung on to this. It really was quite pretty when you got used to it.
    “I’m guessin’ th’ toorist attraction notion is off th’ table now.”
    January laughed with nervous release. “By the gods, yes. But, maybe we can sell this…this dancing rock for enough to replace the gear we abandoned. Looks like Hogan’ll have to cannibalize the ship after all. I don’t think we should go back and try to salvage the equipment.”
    “Jaysus, no! I’d ruther be back home on New Eireann awaitin’ for th’ Big Blow. Our equipment’d be all lightning’ed over by now, anyways, the backhoe and Bill’s toy. Nothing lift uv thim but slag. But I shure hope the