She still wasn’t sure how it had happened. Now that they had penetrated the upper atmosphere there was a heavy rime of frost on the windows, so there was nothing much to see. There was certainly more than enough to feel. Ysaye found herself wondering if there was supposed to be this much turbulence; she was strapped tightly into her seat, but the small craft was buffeted around by the unexpectedly heavy winds, and she was grateful that Ralph MacAran, the Second Officer, at the controls of the shuttle, was their best atmospheric pilot. Judging by the expressions of the rest of the crew on this first landing, she wasn’t the only one. The atmosphere of this planet was giving them a pretty heavy introduction to its climate. “Is this—normal?” she finally asked, leaning forward so that MacAran could hear her. “Well—candidly, no. This is really heavy weather, and we’re hardly down into it yet. But then, with all these mountains, we never expected it would be a fine holiday resort,”
