The voice of the on-the-spot reporter cruising over Nantucket Sound started to range up from awestruck to hysterical.

They're really sounding sort of worried, there, he thought. I wonder what's going-

White light flashed, stronger than lightning, lances of pain into his eyes, like red-hot spikes of ice. Havel tasted acid at the back of his throat as he jerked up his hands with a strangled shout. Vision vanished in a universe of shattered light, then returned. Returned without even afterimages, as if something had been switched off with a click. The pain was gone too, instantly.

Voices screamed behind him. He could hear them well…

Because the engines are out, he realized. Every fucking thing is out! She's dead. And I'm a smear on a mountain unless I get this thing flying again.

That brought complete calm.

"Shut up!" he snapped, working the yoke and pedals, seizing control from the threatening dive and spin. "Keep quiet and let me work!"

Sound died to somebody's low whimper and the cat's muted yowls of terror. Over that he could hear the cloven air whistling by. They had six thousand feet above ground level, and the surface below was as unforgiving as any on earth. He gave a quick glance to either side, but the ridgetops nearby were impossible, far too steep and none of them bare of trees. It was a good thing he knew where all the controls were, because the cabin lights were dead, and the nav lights too; not a single circuit working.

Not good, he thought. Not good. Not… fucking… good.

He ran through the starting procedure, one step and another and hit the button…