Evolution by Greg Chase

the moon’s energy beaming down on the oceans.”
    They’d been three months getting to Earth, and Sam had no idea how much longer Persephone had been in space before that. “Have you made this landing recently?”
    Larry laughed as he tilted the craft down toward the environmental maelstrom. “Not to worry. I’ve landed in much worse.”
    Sam clutched the armrests as Larry dodged shuttles large and small. Lines of lights appeared on the main view screen. Faces—Sam assumed them to be Tobes—flashed in the four corners along with instructions. Larry’s eyes darted about the screen, picking out paths and information at a speed that made Sam dizzy. He had flashbacks to his time working on Leviathan ’s central computer. So much information hitting the human brain that fast couldn’t be healthy.
    But the time in space paled in comparison to maneuvering around the hurricanes. Rain lashed the view screen, turning it white with water. Larry’s eyes and hands activated controls to diminish the water’s effects on visibility. No sooner had he made the compensations than a new weather event dominated the screen. Lightning, hail, dense black clouds that threatened with their fury—Sam longed to close his eyes but dared not.
    Then—as though they’d passed through a doorway—the storm vanished. Blue sky showed above sparkling seas. Larry banked the shuttle into a tight spin. “We can ride down the eye of the hurricane. It’ll be bumpier once we’re out, but there aren’t as many shuttles down low. The little spaceport crafts stay as high as they can for as long as they can. Once we’re below the cloud cover, we’ll be fine. Just hang onto something.”
    Living so many years in the zero gravity of Leviathan —and then the low gravity of Chariklo—Sam hadn’t experienced vertigo in many years. But as Larry pitched the shuttle into a sharp downward spiral, mimicking the direction of the storm, Sam thought he was about to lose his breakfast. “What about them?” He nodded toward the rear cabin.
    “Don’t worry about your family. Gravitational dampeners make it so they’re experiencing a nice summer’s day.”
    Sam found that hard to believe. He also wondered why Larry felt it necessary to subject him to this test of manhood. “Why me?” was the only question he could shout above the noise.
    Larry looked like a maniacal shuttle racer as he banked the craft back into the wall of the storm. Sam could make out one word: “Lud.”
    Red flashing lights filled the view screens as walls of pitch-black clouds gave way to hard-driving rain. Bursts of lightning lit up the control bridge, enhancing the image of Larry as a pilot possessed by demons.
    A hard thrust from the shuttle’s engines shot the craft beyond the reach of the monster storm. Larry eased off the control levers. “That’s one. Three more before we hit New York. With any luck, the tropical storm over the Rendition Building will have cleared by the time we land. I’ll try to circle these next big boys. From down here, we should be able to work around the central funnels.”
    In the distance, Sam could make out the dark cloud that pointed down to the water—and beyond that lay two more just waiting for their chance to batter the relatively tiny shuttle. Bad as Earth’s weather had been, he couldn’t ever recall so many hurricanes hitting at once.
    Larry aimed the shuttle at the monster column of wind and water. As the ship began to shake, he banked so that the storm funnel rotated above with the ocean out the side view screen. Hurling around one mass of energy, the ship took aim at the gap between the remaining two hurricanes. The break between the storms diminished. Larry spun the ship like a bullet out of a rifle.
    Wind and rain battered the craft from all sides. Up and down lost meaning to Sam as the ocean and storm swung round and round in the view screen. Green lights lit up between the red lines, though how Larry found any of that information