Hail could be dodged, though, if you stayed out from under the mass of the storm and kept a wary eye on the radar. Lightning was different. There was no dodging lightning; lightning was roll-of-the-dice. In her pre-Troupe days, Jane had heard the usual pious civil-defense nonsense about staying away from exposed heights and throwing yourself flat if you felt your hair start to crackle, but she had seen plenty of no-kidding lightning since, and she had a firm grasp of its essential nature. Lightning was a highly nonlinear phenomenon. Most lightning sizzled along pretending to obey the standard laws of physics, but Jane had often seen even quite minor storms suddenly whip out a great crackling lick of eccentric fury that blasted the hell out of some little remote patch of ground that had absolutely nothing to do with anything. Lightning was crazy stuff, basically, and if it happened to hit you, there was damn-all you could do about it.