It was useless information, but suddenly I understood exactly what had killed the signal beacon from Jan and Sven’s pod without also killing them. Before the displays in front of me died, the electric and magnetic field strengths had risen to an impossible level. Even with partial shielding from the pod’s hull, their intensity was enough to wipe magnetic storage — that took care of computers, communications equipment, displays, and suit controls. If the suits hadn’t been designed with manual overrides for certain essentials so that Jan and Sven could control their air supply, that would have been the end.

Now our pod had the same problem as theirs. We hadn’t been pelted with boulders, as they had when they were sitting on the surface of Vandell, but we had no computer control of our flight and we were being whipped around the sky by the changing magnetic fields.

It wasn’t necessary for me to change to manual control. When the computer died, it dumped everything in my lap automatically. I gritted my teeth, tried to keep us heading straight up (not easy, the way we were being tilted and rocked) and refused to decrease thrust even though the pod shuddered as though it was getting ready to disintegrate.

I’m blessed with an iron stomach, one that doesn’t get sick no matter how much lurching and spinning it takes. McAndrew isn’t, and Jan takes after him. They couldn’t communicate with me, but I could take their misery for granted.

It was worth the discomfort. We were getting there, rising steadily, while the pink glow around the pod’s ports faded towards black. As our altitude increased I looked at the internal pressure gauge — thank God for a simple mechanical gadget. It was showing normal pressure, which meant that the hull hadn’t been breached on our ascent. I allowed myself the luxury of a quick look around me.

McAndrew was slumped forward in his straps, head down as low as he could get it. Sven and Jan were both leaning back, arms linked. All the faceplates were clear, so that I knew none of them had vomited in their suit — no joke, since the internal cleaning systems that would usually handle the mess were out of action.

The turbulence around the pod grew less. Stars were coming into view outside the ports as I turned us into an orbit that spiralled outward away from Vandell. I was looking for Hoatzin. Our orbit was clumsy and wasteful of fuel compared with what the navigation computer would have provided. But give me some credit, I was receiving no reference signals from the ship. All I had was instinct and experience.

Scooting along over the clouds I could now see a pattern to the lightning. It moved in great waves over the surface, reaching peaks in places, fading elsewhere. We had lifted from a point where all the peaks had converged, but now it was fading to look no different from the rest. Or almost so; the faint shadow of the black funnel still dipped down into the murk.

I felt a tap on my shoulder. Mac was gesturing at me, then at the helmet of his suit. I nodded and broke the seal on my own helmet. We were outside the danger zone, and it was important to reestablish contact among the group. The search for Hoatzin and Merganser might take hours, with no assistance from automated scan instruments or radio receipt of homing signals. Meanwhile, I wanted some explanations. It was clear that McAndrew and Wicklund between them had more idea than I did what had been happening.

Three miserable, greenish-yellow faces emerged from the helmets. No one had thrown up, but from the look of them it had been a close thing.

“I thought it was bad when the storm hit us on the surface,” said Jan. “But that was even worse. What did you do to us, Jeanie? I thought the pod was coming apart.”

“So did I.” Suit helmet off, I reached back to massage the aching muscles in my neck and shoulders. “It almost did. We lost the computers, the communications, the displays — everything. What is this crazy planet, anyway? I thought the laws of nature were supposed to be the same all over the universe, but Vandell seems to have a special exemption. What in hell did you two do to the place, Jan? It was quiet as a grave until you got at it.”

“It damn near was one,” said McAndrew. “If you hadn’t…”

He paused and swallowed. “We know what’s going on. That’s what we were talking about before you shook us to pieces. If we’d been a bit smarter, we could have inferred it ahead of time and none of this would have happened. How much did you hear on the way up?”

I shook my head. “I tuned you out. I had other things on my mind. Are you telling me you understand that mess down there? I thought you said it made no sense at all.”

While we spoke I had taken us up to the correct height above Vandell for rendezvous with Hoatzin. Now it would need a steady and simple sweep to find our ship.

McAndrew wiped his hand across his pale, sweating forehead. He was looking awful, but less like a dying pickle as the minutes passed. “It didn’t make sense,” he said huskily. “Nothing ever does before you understand it, and then it seems obvious. I noticed something odd just before we left Hoatzin to go into the pod — Sven had wondered about the same thing, but neither of us gave it enough significance. Remember the list of physical variables that they recorded for Vandell when they first arrived here? No electric and magnetic fields, negligible rotation rate, no atmosphere, and cold as the pit. Does any one of those observations suggest anything to you?”

I leaned against the padded seat back. My physical exertions over the past half hour had been negligible, but tension had exhausted me totally. I looked across at him.

“Mac, I’m in no condition for guessing games. I’m too tired. For God’s sake, get on with it.”

He peered at me sympathetically. “Aye, you’re right. Let me begin at the beginning, and keep it simple. We know that Vandell was quiet until Merganser’s pod landed on its surface. Within minutes of that, there was massive seismic activity and terrific electric and magnetic disturbances. We watched it, there were waves of activity over the whole planet — but they all had one focus, and one point of origin: where the pod landed.” As McAndrew spoke his voice became firmer, strengthening now that he was back on the familiar ground of scientific explanation. “Remember the dark cone that we followed in to the surface? It was the only anomaly visible over the whole surface of the planet. So it was obvious. The impact of the pod caused the trouble, it was the trigger that set off Vandell’s eruption.”

I looked around at the others. They all seemed happy with the explanation, but to me it said absolutely nothing. I shook my head. “Mac, I’ve landed on fifty planets and asteroids through the System and the Halo. Never once has one shaken apart when I tried to set foot on it. So why? Why did it happen to Vandell?”

“Because—”

“Because Vandell is a rogue world,” interrupted Sven Wicklund. We all stared at him in amazement. Sven usually never said a word about anything (except of course physics) unless he was asked a direct question. He was too shy. Now his blond hair was wet with perspiration, and there was still that distant, mystic look on his face, the look that vanished only when he laughed. But his voice was forceful. Vandell had done something to him, too.

“A rogue world,” he went on. “And one that does not rotate on its axis. That is the crux of this whole affair. Vandell rotates too slowly for us to measure it. McAndrew and I noticed that, but we thought it no more than a point of academic interest. As Eddington pointed out centuries ago, almost everything in the Universe seems to rotate — atoms, molecules, planets, stars, galaxies. But there is no law of nature that obliges a body to rotate relative to the stars. Vandell did not, but we thought it only a curious accident.”