The cloud deck still spread out just below them, to the horizon as far as they could tell, white and ghostly in the crescent moon and the stars strewn thickly across the sky to either side. Just before them, however, towered a gigantic column limned in stark light and shadow that, invisible beyond the tapered nose of the envelope, spread into an anvil shape somewhere high above. Lightning raced up and down its breadth, accompanying thunder now clearly audible even through the complaints of ship and crew alike. The first spatters of windblown precipitation, frozen at this height and temperature, presaged the gauntlet yet to come.