We'd been underway for nearly an hour when the turbulence began in earnest, and I started to appreciate anew the limitations of neoscopolamine. The Merlin started surging up and down in hundred-meter bounds like some kind of chipped-up roller coaster, and if I'd thought the engines had been straining before, I hadn't heard anything yet. Over the mechanical screaming, now I could hear the rattle of the rain against the airframe, driven by mighty gusts of wind. (Or frag, maybe it was hail. Whatever, it sounded like rock salt shot from a Roomsweeper.)