Pascal knew that each station was stabilized to stay at a particular latitude. They maintained their track by manipulating huge drogues—bucketlike sea anchors—to maintain a constant and predictable velocity as they were blown along the belts by the winds of Jupiter. The floating and stationary hub stations were the only stability a sailor had in the maelstrom that raged at this level of the atmosphere.

For the first five days they had hoped to intercept Charlie Sierra Twelve as she followed the steady fifteen meter per second track in the data bank. Now it appeared that they would not intercept it as planned. They were falling farther and farther behind with each passing hour.

Primrose lumbered heavily with Thorn under tow: Louella could only bring her to within sixty degrees of the wind. What made it even more difficult to keep to the schedule they had set was that Primrose showed a definite tendency to try to turn downwind every time attention flagged. As a result they were moving slower than planned. According to Rams’ careful calculations they would miss the station by two days, and possibly more. So close and yet so far. It was frustrating.

Pascal and Louella constantly fought the ship’s desire to reach. If she did so they would slow to wind speed. Such a turn could easily spell disaster. With Thorn tied to Primrose’s side the force of the wind could easily smash the two ships against one another and cause extensive damage to both.

It wouldn’t take much damage to an outer pressure envelope to send them to their doom in the endless drop below. A rupture of either ship would drag the other down.

So they had to fight the weather and their own ship. They had to hold to a line that held a possibility of finding refuge and aid. They had to try for the next station in line.