Year 4, Day 295

ThunderstormNote to myself: never fly in a thunderstorm without setting up the parameters for an emergency teleport!

In fact, never fly in a thunderstorm, period. And check the weather at the spot you’re aiming for in a teleport!

I knew I was getting far enough north that I was getting into the fringe of the winter rain belt, but between sand and dead grass I hadn’t paid much attention. I followed the coast northward until it turned back toward the west, noting only vaguely that the shoreline was steadily getting not only more mountainous, but greener. The coastlines I’ve been passing must have owed part of their condition to drought, because when I aimed a teleport at where I’d been the day before, over the coast but far enough in the air to have a good view, I landed smack in the middle of a violent updraft, surrounded by roiling clouds and lightning.

Lucky for me that it was an updraft! If I had arrived in a rain shaft, I would have been smashed into the ground before I had time to react. As it was, I spent several minutes frantically deflecting lightning and keeping myself aloft, too busy even to notice that I was soaked through. Then I was suddenly being pelted by hail. By that time I had recovered enough to realize I’d hit a downdraft and remember the “home” coordinates to get out of there!

I’d known that there was probably a winter-wet zone north of the desert; I just didn’t realize that once I followed the coast northward I’d be in the heart of it. As a result, I totally forgot that at least in theory, it is possible to check the weather at any point for which one has memorized the teleport coordinates. It wasn’t something I’m particularly practiced at, after all I hardly ever teleported at home. But I’d better see what’s in the computer and relearn that particular aspect of teleportation. I don’t want to land in another thundercloud!

Jarn’s Journal is the fictional journal of a fictional human-like alien stranded in Africa 125,000 years ago (early penultimate interglacial.) This is part of the remote prehistory of my novels Homecoming and Tourist Trap. The journal to date is at my author site.