I flashed the thunderhead a look of pure hatred. Its billowing, breadloaf-shaped head smiled serenely back at me, unmoved by the destruction it was causing. I knew it was enjoying itself immensely and my only revenge was the knowledge that it would fall apart in mere hours, disintegrating back into its own primordial chaos just like my ship was doing. Okay, so I was being anthropomorphic, but under the circumstances I felt justified. I had to blame something, after all...

I fought to bring the ship down before it disappeared altogether but it resisted every inch of the way, struggling to push itself into the thunderstorm, to merge with the violent energy that reared above the helpless, rolling farmlands below - far below - like a rampaging lion. It didn't help that I had modified the ship's external appearance into that of a terran speedboat - well, aquatic speedboat, anyway, if one wanted to quibble; basically just a hull and a place to sit within it. It had been fun soaring through the various aerial heavens in its simple, streamlined framework shaped like an arrowhead, but when it came to crashing it didn't offer much protection to whomever was unfortunate enough to be aboard.

And me without a parachute, I thought grimly.

Ignoring the wind whistling around my head and the constant, bass rumbling of exultant thunder in the background, I tried to relax, thrusting my consciousness into what remained of the ship's mental structure. It wasn't the best of circumstances for a telepathic trance, but after a moment of chaos I manages to find it - a faint, fragmented stream of consciousness that faded in and out like a cheap radio.

Trying not to think about the considerable distance between me and the ground, I sought to harmonize the structures, to restore the integrity of the ship's personality, but it was too late. If it had any thoughts left at all they were of resignation, even exaltation as it surrendered itself to its own destruction. I materialized myself on the plane of what remained of its consciousness and reached out to grasp its shadowy human-form, struggling to hold it back as it was sucked toward the black, fire-edged maw of death, but the image disintegrated in my hands.

Deep in trance, I could nevertheless feel my body in total free fall, pitching head over heels through the sunshine just beyond the thunderstorm's reach. Just for an instant, before I felt a sudden burst of - what - sympathy? compassion? affection? emanating from the ghostly remains of the ship's psyche. The sensation materialized in my arms into a limp human form, little more than a boneless scarecrow, and my falling halted with a lurch. Or not halted, but at least it slowed. I felt myself shifting into a steep, fast glide, braking roughly against the now-cold air.

I slammed into a sheet of water and was jerked from my trance. To my dismay, I found that I had drifted into the chaos directly beneath the thunderstorm, into the fierce winds, torrents of ice-cold rain, and even squalls of small, rock-hard hail as they plunged toward the earth, carrying me along with them.

The ship was gone, disintegrated into vague thoughts, yearnings, the aching desire for flight, the freedom to GO, from which it had come, but a limp, balloon-like humanoid rag-doll form remained in my arms, invisible to the eye but somehow still holding together. Its buoyancy half-sustained me, my weight bearing it down as it fought to rise.

Clinging for all I was worth, I plummeted toward the earth in the heart of the hailstorm. My vision was a tangle of fields and squares of forest below, blazing flashes of sunshine to one side and the intense blackness of the thunderhead above me.

I probably should have closed my eyes to concentrate more fully on sustaining the ghost of the ship, but somehow I didn't want to die without seeing it happen. Not that there was really time to think it through. It all happened too quickly for that. Though I must have fallen from the very outer edges of the atmosphere, in no time at all I was crashing through the crowns of wind-tossed trees. They scratched and snapped under my weight, slapping me violently in the face as I fell heavily through them. A thick limb knocked me to one side, slamming painfully against my ribs. I felt myself bouncing and then once again dropping, spinning now like a pinwheel. My left heel struck a sudden resistance and I slammed into something as hard as a fist. The ground.

Made it, I thought with a certain satisfaction as I dropped into unconsciousness.

I couldn't have been out for more than a few minutes, but by the time I woke the storm was already past, stomping violently off to the northeast, rumbling and grumbling sourly as it faded into the distance. I found myself drenched and chilled, lying on a bed of long, wet grass.

It took only an instant for me to remember what had happened and bounce to my feet, looking around wildly around me. I found that I was standing on the boundary between a grassy pasture and a sparse forest that thickened rapidly to the north. Fields stretched off to the south, coming finally to a small rise with a collection of farm buildings and a white farmhouse perhaps a quarter mile away. To the northeast, the pasture-forest boundary slanted upward to a hill, not high but higher than any of the other land that I could see.

I took in my surroundings at a glance, for I had more important things to concern myself with, just then. What had become of my ship? Undoubtedly the storm had swallowed a major part of it, but surely not all of its aspects would fit into a thunderhead's definitions of reality. Or maybe it would (I knew very little of the psychological makeup of a thunderstorm, assuming it had one) but surely there must be SOMETHING left. If there weren't, I was stuck there forever. Or until I died of old age, whichever came first.

Moaning softly with desperation, I padded back and forth through the ankle-high spring grass, looking for fragments. At first I found nothing at all that looked like they might be the remains of my ship. But then suddenly I stepped on something sharp that jabbed up through the toe of my shoe, just grazing my big toe and causing me to yelp with pain. Struggling to pull free, I looked down to see a jagged black spike sticking up from the ground. I realized, then, that the pasture was studded with the sharp little spikes - jagged, black, fanged iron spurs shaped exactly like the stylized stereotype of lightning bolts. Half-hidden by the long grass, they were stuck nose-down into the ground and bounced back and forth in the breeze.

It wasn't the most promising of relics, but they were all I could see that looked even faintly like it might be the remains of the ship, I hastened to gather them, wincing slightly at the hot-cold touch of barbed metal as I pulled them from the ground.

When I had all I could carry I looked around for a safe place to pile my booty. For the first time, I noticed a small sand hill nearby. The grass grew poorly there, so that one side was bare as a sand trap in a golf course and slightly recessed where the wind had blown away the earth.

It wasn't much, but at least the small hill stood out enough that I'd know the spot when I saw it again. So I carefully placed the small pile of metal barbs on the bare, wet sand and stepped back anxiously. But they just lay there, smoking slightly in the dampness, so it looked like they weren't going to disappear on me. Breathing a sigh of relief, I left them there and went out to gather more.

When my arms were nearly full with my second load of the jagged spears I stepped unevenly on something in the long grass and fell. The barbs went flying, clattering together like cold steel.

Cursing, I struggled back to my feet but then caught a glimpse of what had tripped me. My eyes widening with surprise, I pushed aside the wet grass to find a small wooden pig perhaps six inches long, heavily varnished and painted brightly with stylistic abandon. In itself odd enough, but folded pigeon-like wings had been carved into its sides.

I'm not saying I was wild about it, but obviously the little figurine was part of the remains of the ship, and at least it wasn't crummy make-believe thunderbolts. So I pulled it carefully from the sod and tucked it under my shirt, flinching slightly at the contact of my bare skin with its cold, wet surface. Then I started to gather up the metal bolts I had scattered.

But when I took my booty back to the small hill to put them with the others I halted in dismay. The sand was bare and unmarked. The first pile had vanished clean away.

Dropping my load of thunderbolts, I fell to my knees and pawed frantically through the wet, sticky earth. Of the jagged iron there was no sign, but about an inch below the surface my fingers made contact with something cold, metallic, and round. A ring.

Only half-sure what I was doing, I grasped the ring with both hands and pulled. A smooth, perfectly circular plug of fused sand came up on a hidden hinge. Beneath was hard earthen staircase angling sharply downward.

I stared dumbly for a moment until I realized what had happened. The shattered remains of the ship had somehow pulled itself together, reforming the hill into a caricature of it's hull. Or trying to. Or into something, anyway.

It didn't pay to trust psychic remnants too much, but what was I going to do? Stand there in the meadow staring down into the hole for the rest of my shipwrecked life? That didn't seem an especially viable option. So I gathered the rest of the black spears under my elbow and started down the earthen staircase, stepping carefully into the gloom.

I had gone only a couple of yards when I heard a sudden movement behind me and I was plunged into darkness. My heart leapt into my throat until I realized that the door had swung shut. No big deal. Unless, of course, it wouldn't open again... But one problem at a time. Just then I needed to do something about the darkness, if I wanted to do any exploring.

But if that much of the ship had survived maybe some of the controls had, too. Reaching out carefully, I gave a mental command and instantly the hall was flooded with light. Not brilliant light, not great light, but at least enough to see where I was going as I followed the staircase downward. Thank goodness for small favors.

The steps were so steep and short it was hard to keep my balance. But the staircase ran only a few dozen yards before it turned sharply to the left and came to a sudden end at a crude ladder sticking up through a crude, earthen hole.

Shrugging fatalistically, I adjusted my weight of barbs and swung out onto the ladder to climb down into the darkness.

I descended perhaps ten feet before I came out at a small room. It was lit by a small desk lamp on a nightstand next to a cot-like bed along one wall. Above the bed, the wall was lined with bookshelves groaning with large volumes bound in maroon, blue, and fragrant black leather. The floor was highly polished wood, with a Turkish rug in the center with a stylized pattern that may have been intended to be a bird in flight woven into it. A desk rested against another wall, complete with computer, monitor, and keyboard. A large-screen TV (or something) no thicker than a painting was hanging on the wall over the foot of the bed, showing a peaceful ocean surf to the accompaniment of some soft gentle New Age-style melody. A doorway led into what was clearly a kitchenette. Another, half-open doorway revealed a small but obviously functional bathroom, complete with all the facilities in tasteful aquamarine porcelain.

All in all a pleasant little apartment, and not bad for maybe thirty feet under a sandhill. I could feel a certain uncertainty in the scene, as if it were still in the process of jelling, and the iron barbs under my elbow grew warm and squirmed like a pack of oversized worms just coming to life. But I didn't want them to waste themselves on spontaneously adding to the functionally immobile scenery so I hurriedly rushed over to the refrigerator, gave it a mental command to expand and deepen further into the wall, and shoved the barbs as far into it as I could reach. I felt them immediately drop into a half-frozen stupor.

Sighing with relief, I turned back to the room and gave a critical nod of approval. It was a place to stay, good enough for an any port in a storm kind of thing. Obviously there was no way I could activate it enough to cause it to once more transform into a ship, but in the meantime...

Or could I? With hands trembling with anxiety, I reached into my shirt and brought out the little carving of the winged pig, setting it on the desk next to the computer. Wings were for flying, after all, and while a pig probably wasn't the best means of transportation I supposed you could ride one if you really had to - was I really in any position to be fussy?

But the little wooden image remained cold and impassive under my mental probing. If it was the transportation aspect of the ship in symbolic form, it appeared to have reverted so far that it would take a full-fledged adept to bring it back to active life. That or a prodigy, and I was neither one. So unless I could find some more useful surviving fragment of the ship I was stuck there in that hideout in the sand hill for the rest of my natural life. Not a pleasant outlook.

I sat down on a remarkably comfortable sort of easychair I hadn't noticed earlier - apparently the place was still in the process of redesigning the details more to its liking - and thought things through. Okay, so these remnants were no longer a ship in any feasible sense - no matter how I tried I couldn't imagine how you could interpret a hideout in the bottom of a sandhill as any sort of functional vehicle - it wasn't going to actually GO anyplace... but there was travelling and then there was travelling. If I couldn't do one maybe I could do a little of the other...

Springing up with an energy born of desperation more than hope, I began to search through the small den-with-kitchenette looking for a telephone, a walkie-talkie, shortwave, CB, tin can on a string - anything I could use to communicate back home. Or with someplace similar. Anyplace. Right then I would have been willing to talk with just about anyone or anything who might get me out of that godforsaken (to all appearances, though one never really knew when it came to divinities) wasteland in the middle of nowhere.

But after an exhausting and exhaustive search on every tabletop, countertop, cubbyhole and closet, I collapsed back into the chair, utterly defeated. As far as I could tell not one glimmer - not a sentence, word, or syllable - of the ship's communication system had survived. Unless it was one of the barbs shut away in the freezer, and I really didn't know how to go about finding that out without thawing each one of them and letting them transform themselves into whatever they wanted. And I might really need some of those parts later. So...

Of course I was being illogical - I mean, what was the use of just sitting on the shards (in a manner of speaking, of course) when I already really needed them about as bad as you could need anything? I mean, if this wasn't an emergency, then what sort of situation was I saving them for? Could things be much worse? But I wasn't thinking all that clearly right then, after crashlanding in a thunderstorm and losing my ship and everything. I was in a state of shock.

Presumably if I had been able to think things through right then, I wouldn't have needed to, since by definition I wouldn't have been shock. Or whatever. At any rate, I did manage to realize, however vaguely, that I wasn't at my best and decided the time had come for a short nap.

Some slightly more logical part of my mind was chattering away in the background, reminding me that I hadn't searched the meadow and forest all that thoroughly, that there might still be other, more important fragments of the ship just waiting to be found out there, but I chose not to listen. And anyway, if any fragments hadn't already disappeared or transformed themselves into something totally unrecognizable a few more minutes weren't going to make that much difference. Or at least so I told myself. Not that it was true, or even very logical. But it was a good excuse for taking a nap, which is what I really intended to do no matter what any stupid overly intelligent part of my mind wanted to tell me.

So I stretched out on the narrow, comfortable cot-like bed and shut my eyes. I was just going to rest for a few minutes but I went out like a light. When finally I woke with a start the clock over the television (which I hadn't noticed when I lie down) read almost midnight. Or it may have been almost noon, down there in the bottom of a sandhill who could tell? But somehow it felt more midnightish to me. I was willing to admit that I might be mistaken, but not without some evidence to the contrary.

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