And it worked swell, most of the time. Oh, every year a few ships would get theirs—would blow out in a blue wreath of coruscating flame—but for the most part the trip was safe enough. Except, of course, when a condenser was in bad condition. Which was why I was giving ours a check and double check.
Still, I could never rid myself of a queasy moment when we hit that blanket of spark-happy ionization. Particularly when a planet was at aphelion as Earth was now. Because at such times the H-layer was more highly activated than usual.
And to tell the truth, I wasn't satisfied with the way my work was going. First I hit my thumb with a monkey-wrench. It didn't hurt the wrench, but the thumb turned pale mauve and throbbed like a sixteen-year-old kid's pulse on his first hayride.
Then I lost a
