What the hell?! She dared not imitate that. Abruptly Fraq banked back toward her and zipped across, well ahead of her. She could swear she saw his eyes glitter, the mouth pucker.

If we two hit, what—

Fraq abruptly shot across her again and hovered, golden eyes glaring.

Some kind of challenge?

He came so close, she could see his face flared red. He folded his wing-arms in and fanned his legs. Hanging only a meter away, he reached over and touched her shoulder. Fear flooded through her.

Rachel made herself stretch out her own arm toward the alien. Fraq did a somersault, windmilling arms. Then he plunged away from her, arrowing toward the brilliant clouds below.

He’s playing with me. Just relax….

No time to think. Her head snapped back. Pulses sounded through her—buffeting. She checked her data disk; she was moving faster than sound. Her cowling held off shock waves, but a thousand small hammers found nooks to rattle and hurt.

Not relaxed anymore. A warning clang jolted her ears.

Her thermal shedders were laboring, but she felt prickly heat seep into her skin. Breath was a labor. Heat rising. A deep clank.

The drogue signal. About to deploy.

She turned to see if her backpack was clear. A sharp jolt wrenched her sideways. Spinning—

Sky. Boots. Sky. Boots.

She was tumbling. She forced her arms out the way Fraq had. Wind tore at her arms. They strained in their sockets.

If her drogue parachute popped out while she tumbled, the shrouds could tangle. The chute would not open right.

She forced her arms in the odd gestures Fraq had made. Wind howled around her. She opened her legs to get drag and that brought her around, facing down again. But she was at an angle, getting forced back into a rotation.

She windmilled her arms. That brought her right again, facing down. But she overshot. She reversed the windmill, eased back into position, facing down.

Bang—the drogue chute peeled away and slammed her hard.

Air rushed from her lungs. She fought the huge hand trying to crush her chest and sucked in a little air. She was losing speed fast.

But the drogue was deployed right, pulling hard at her.

Below, all was blue-black.

She blinked and took a deep breath. The darkness drew back. She had nearly blacked out.

An enormous cloud towered over the puffy white cumulus near it, stretching up from an anvil-shaped base to a massive head. And she was falling into it.

They were. She looked for Fraq. There he was, well ahead of her now, drogue bright orange.

She closeupped the cloud base and saw lightning fork in quick, raging stabs. Her inboards told her the cloud bank was twice as high as Everest.

Wispy ice clouds slipped by her. She looked toward her feet. She was white.

Ice caked her now.

And here came the billowy head of the big cloud. Fronds of vapor enveloped her as she shot through layers of cloud decks, shocks slamming through her. Like being shaken by a giant. And cold… Her teeth chattered. But only her head was chilled. So much for thermal overload. Was that only minutes ago?