Car Sinister

by Robert Silverberg

  With a giant’s roar from the exhaust he passed a clutch of sports cars as though they were standing still and swung out into a long bend of the road. The rain was clearing and on a ridge high above he could see the outlines of the Castello Prestezza and he waved his hand in a warrior’s salute.

  “Thank you, Bellini!” he shouted into the wind. “Thank you!”

  The was the best part, the important part for him.

  Not only would he be making the finest car in the world, but he would be making the old man’s dream come true!

  THE ROADS, THE ROADS,

  THE BEAUTIFUL ROADS

  By Avram Davidson

  The Interstate Highway Act of 1956 resulted in the construction of more than 41,000 miles of modern, multilane highways, all toll-free, that helped to revolutionize the traveling habits of millions of Americans. Including those built by local and state governments, the bill for road and highway construction in the United States since the end of World War II is something like $270,000,000,000!

  This great effort has produced masterpieces of the engineer’s art, paved over some very valuable and irreplaceable land, and in urban areas, destroyed the cohesiveness of neighborhoods (usually—in fact, almost always, poor neighborhoods). In a few cases, such as Miami, communities have been created in shantytowns under the cloverleafs of highway systems.

  In this story, Avram Davidson, one of the finest short-story writers in science fiction, shows us one individual’s very personal reaction to the highway.

  The rumor that the already controversial new doublespeed thruway would be closed to motorcycles was just that: a rumor: and it had already been officially denied—twice. Craig Burns thought now that perhaps it had been a mistake to deny it at all. Gave the rumor dignity . . . his mind absently sought a better word as he slipped through the milling crowd (crowd? almost a mob) on the steps and in the corridors of the new State Capitol Building. Currency! That was the word.

  . . . gave the rumor currency . . .

  Because, besides the usual knots of little old ladies with their Trees, Yes! Thruway, No! buttons, besides the inevitable delegations of hayseeds from Nowhere Flats who were either complaining that the thruway was scheduled to go too near their town or complaining that it wasn’t scheduled to go near enough, besides the representatives of the rival guild—the urban planners—with their other ideas and their briefcases and their indoor-pale skins (so different from the ruddy glow or tan of a real out-in-all-weather man; besides all these (and including as always some Hire More Minority protestors), today it seemed as though all the motorcycle freaks in the state were on hand. On hand, and out for blood. Well, well, what the hell. It added a little color to the scene. And wouldn’t make any difference at all, in the end: Gypsy Jokers with long hair, Hell’s Angels who were merely shaggy, Brave Bulls in their Viking-horned crash helmets, and the Gentlemen of the Road, so super-groomed and—

  With the blank face and absent-minded slouch he had learned to be the best thing for slipping through angry crowds, Craig managed to get almost to the door of the Committee Room without being recognized. And even then, with a pleasant smile, he succeeded in getting inside before the reporters and cameramen got to him. With an apologetic gesture. No point in antagonizing Media, generally so helpful in picking out and publicizing the more outstanding of the anti-highways people and thus showing them up for the nuts and oddballs that they really were. But it made little sense to stop in the middle of them just to grant an on-the-spot interview.

  In fact, Burns thought, taking one last look, head halfturned, it made no sense at all.

  Horns on their crash helmets, for God’s sake!

  Just as some composers’ never tire of playing their own music, so Craig Bums never tired of driving over the beautiful highways he—well . . . he and his Department—had created. It had been a labor of love building them, seeing each one through from the preliminary survey through actual construction to the time he liked best of all. When the roads were ready to go but not yet open to the public. When he could drive along and drive alone for miles . . . and miles . . . sometimes for hundreds of miles. Just Highway Chief Craig Burns and his car and his beautiful roads, with their lovely and intricate bypasses and cloverleafs and underpasses, slow and steady when he felt like it, rewing it up and gauging the niceties of the straight stretches or the delightfully calculated curves when he felt like it. Over and under and around and across and back and under and—

  —nobody on the whole highway but him.

  It was better than a woman. It was better even than the power of office. It was just about the best thing there was.

  Sometimes, smiling to himself, he wondered if he really didn’t sometimes push through new road plans just for the sheer pleasure of this, even if the new roads weren’t really needed. But the smile was for the joke, the secret, private little joke, for there was really no such thing as a new road which wasn’t needed. And as for the things which weren’t so nice . . . the stupid, stupid, jackass things which people did with the beautiful roads . . . crowding and packing and jamming them with their cars and trucks and motorcycles and station wagons . . . stupid people, stupid jerks, jackasses!—so that all kinds of things had to be done, afterwards, to the sweet and clean and lovely new roads—

  As for that, Craig didn’t care to think about that, much. It made him get that hot feeling in the skin of his face, that surging, raging feeling around his heart. That sort of thing, he left mostly to the others in the Department. And everybody else in the Department was the others. He’d created. Let them mar it, since it had to be marred. Changing routes, adding, subtracting, closing down, chopping and changing—let them do it. It wasn’t his fault.

  Probably the hearing had taken more out of him than he’d realized. And so damned unnecessary. Legislative hearings! After all, what did the legislature have to do with it? The very state constitution granted the Highways Department all the authority it needed. It could condemn property and pay what it knew to be right and reasonable. It could say where the roads would go and where they wouldn’t go. What shape they’d take. How to design and how to build. The roads, the roads were engineered beautifully. It was the stupid bastard people who were engineered wrong. Tiring him out and confusing him with their hearings and demonstrations. No wonder he’d missed the Hadley turnoff. That is, well, yeah, sure, he must have missed it. This cloverleaf was after the Hadley turnoff. Well, nothing to do but turn around and go back. The afternoon had yeah, you bet, upset him. But what in hell did the rest of the people have to be upset about? All that crap about highways dehumanizing, for Christ’s sake.—Take this next turn.

  No!

  Well, had no choice, stupid jerk back there zooming along and forcing him—All that crap about highways exhausting, hypnotizing, confusing . . . All that crap. Look at this lovely cloverleaf. And this neat tunnel, here. No, but it wasn’t the highway, for God’s sake, it was just that stupid—

  Okay, then, he just couldn’t remember this tunnel. So what? All the highways in the state—Okay, that was that, out of the tunnel! Nothing hard about that! And back on the cloverleaf again.

  Cloverleaf? There wasn’t supposed to be—And hadn’t he had a clear glimpse, in the shadows and the blinking lights (make mental note: report defective lights) of another tunnel branching off back—Hadley turnoff. Great. Just tired out after that damned hearing, crowd, mob, reporters, motorcycle gangs, what the hell. What the hell! Cloverleaf! Tunnel! Tunnel branching off, no he didn’t want it, well for God’s sake! Here he was. Lights bad, lights very bad, lights worse. No lights. No traffic, either, for that matter. Must be, yes, certainly: was: a discontinued branch tunnel. Vague recollection. Bad drainage. Turned out not to fit in with new, unforeseen traffic pattern subsequently developed. Bad air. Bad smell. Car gone dead! Flip on the radio, signal for the Department’s very own high-speed tow-car and ever-ready private Departmental emergency limousine. Radio dead. Of course. Tunnel. Okay. Okay. Okay. Get out, walk.

/>   Seemed, it seemed to Craig that it was, must, had to be shorter going ahead than going back. A car. Stopped. He waited for the head to be stuck out of the window, the smashed and dusty window. Motorcycle on its side. Station wagon almost a third of the way up the ramp. What crazy—Of course. Word had gotten around, sure. And those in the know had taken their old hulks and abandoned them here. Oh boy. Thought they’d save money, avoid tickets, ah. Another think coming. Look at them all! And what a stink, what—

  Definitely, someone, something, was moving up ahead there. Half in the shadows cast by strange, dim light. A man, sure enough. Black leather jacket, filthy jeans, obscene feet, and—

  Craig Burns turned and fled, his screams echoing, echoing.

  Behind him, unhurried, assured, horns jutting from the helmet on his head, the newest minotaur followed upon his newest victim.

  THE EXIT TO SAN BRETA

  By George R.R. Martin

  Old cars in good condition can be worth a lot of money to some people. The nostalgia craze presently sweeping the country has driven up the value of many items that at first glance (and at second, third, and fourth) appear to be simply junk. So hang on to your Farrah Fawcett-Majors T-shirts, fellas, and don’t throw those pet rocks away.

  Here George R. R. Martin, who is one of SF’s brightest young stars and whose nickname is “Railroad,” recaptures the past through the future and recreates the thrill of seeing the rare and elusive Edsel.

  It was the highway that first caught my attention. Up to that night, it had been a perfectly normal trip. It was my vacation, and I was driving to L.A. through the Southwest, taking my own sweet time about it. That was nothing new. I’d done it several times before.

  Driving is my hobby. Or cars in general, to be precise. Not many people take the time to drive anymore. It’s just too slow for most. The automobile’s been pretty much obsolete since they started mass producing cheap copters back in ’93. And whatever life it had left in it was knocked out by the invention of the personal gravpak.

  But it was different when I was a kid. Back then, everybody had a car, and you were considered some sort of a social freak if you didn’t get your driver’s license as soon as you were old enough. I got interested in cars when I was in my late teens, and stayed interested ever since.

  Anyway, when my vacation rolled around, I figured it was a chance to try out my latest find. It was a great car, an English sports model from the late 70s. Jaguar XKL.

  Not one of the classics, true, but a nice car all the same. It handled beautifully.

  I was doing most of my traveling at night, as usual. There’s something special about night driving. The old, deserted highways have an atmosphere about them in the starlight, and you can almost see them as they once were—vital and crowded and full of life, with cars jammed bumper to bumper as far as the eye could see.

  Today, there’s none of that. Only the roads themselves are left, and most of them are cracked and overgrown with weeds. The states can’t bother taking care of them anymore—too many people objected to the waste of tax money. But ripping them up would be too expensive. So they just sit, year after year, slowly falling apart. Most of them are still driveable, though; they built their roads well back in the old days.

  There’s still some traffic. Car nuts like me, of course. And the hovertrucks. They can ride over just about anything, but they can go faster over flat surfaces. So they stick to the old highways pretty much. .

  It’s kind of awesome whenever a hovertruck passes you at night. They do about two hundred or so, and no sooner do you spot one in your rearview mirror than it’s on top of you. You don’t see much—just a long silver blur, and a shriek as it goes by. And then you’re alone again.

  Anyway, I was in the middle of Arizona, just outside San Breta, when I first noticed the highway. I didn’t think much of it then. Oh, it was unusual all right, but not that unusual.

  The highway itself was quite ordinary. It was an eight-lane freeway, with a good, fast surface, and it ran straight from horizon to horizon. At night, it was like a gleaming black ribbon running across the white sands of the desert.

  No, it wasn’t the highway that was unusual. It was its condition. At first, I didn’t really notice. I was enjoying myself too much. It was a clear, cold night, and the stars were out, and the Jag was riding beautifully.

  Riding too beautifully. That’s when it first dawned on me. There were no bumps, no cracks, no potholes. The road was in prime condition, almost as if it had just been built. Oh, I’d been on good roads before. Some of them just stood up better than others. There’s a section outside

  Baltimore that’s superb, and parts of the LA. freeway system are quite good.

  But I’d never been on one this good. It was hard to believe a road could be in such good shape, after all those years without repair.

  And then there were the lights. They were all on, all bright and clear. None of them were busted. None of them were out, or blinking. Hell, none of them were even dim. The road was beautifully lighted.

  After that, I began to notice other things. Like the traffic signs. Most places, the traffic signs are long gone, removed by souvenir hunters or antique collectors as a reminder of an older, slower America. No one replaces them—they aren’t needed. Once in a while you’ll come across one that’s been missed, but there’s never anything left but an oddly shaped, rusted hunk of metal.

  But this highway had traffic signs. Real traffic signs. I mean, ones you could read. Speed limit signs, when no one’s observed a speed limit in years. Yield signs, when there’s seldom any other traffic to yield to. Turn signs, exit signs, caution signs—all kinds of signs. And all as good as new.

  But the biggest shock was the lines. Paint fades fast, and I doubt that there’s a highway in America where you could still make out the white lines in a speeding car. But you could on this one. The lines were sharp and clear, the paint fresh, the eight lanes clearly marked.

  Oh, it was a beautiful highway all right. The kind they had back in the old days. But it didn’t make sense. No road could stay in this condition all these years. Which meant someone had to be maintaining it. But who? Who would bother to maintain a highway that only a handful of people used each year? The cost would be enormous, with no return at all.

  I was still trying to puzzle it out when I saw the other car.

  I had just flashed by a big red sign marking Exit 76, the exit to San Breta, when I saw it. Just a white speck on the horizon, but I knew it had to be another motorist. It couldn’t be a hovertruck, since I was plainly gaining on it. And that meant another car, and a fellow aficionado.

  It was a rare occasion. It’s damn seldom you meet another car on the open road. Oh, there are regular conventions, like the Fresno Festival on Wheels and the American Motoring Association’s Annual Trafficjam. But they’re too artificial for my tastes. Coming across another motorist on the highway is something else indeed.

  I hit the gas, and speeded up to about one-twenty. The Jag could do better, but I’m not a nut on speed like some of my fellow drivers. And I was picking up ground fast. From the way I was gaining, the other car couldn’t have been doing better than seventy.

  When I got within range, I let go with a blast on my horn, trying to attract his attention. But he didn’t seem to hear me. Or at least he didn’t show any sign. I honked again.

  And then, suddenly, I recognized the make.

  It was an Edsel.

  I could hardly believe it. The Edsel is one of the real classics, right up there with the Stanley Steamer and the Model T. The few that are left sell for a rather large fortune nowadays.

  And this was one of the rarest, one of those original models with the funny noses. There were only three or four like it left in the world, and those were not for sale at any price. An automotive legend, and here it was on the highway in front of me, as classically ugly as the day it came off the Ford assembly line.

  I pulled alongside, and slowed down to keep even with i
t. I couldn’t say that I thought much of the way the thing had been kept up. The white paint was chipped, the car was dirty, and there were signs of body rust on the lower part of the doors. But it was still an Edsel, and it could easily be restored.

  I honked again to get the attention of the driver, but he ignored me. There were five people in the car from what I could see, evidently a family on an outing. In the back, a heavy-set woman was trying to control two small kids who seemed to be fighting. Her husband appeared to be soundly asleep in the front seat, while a younger man, probably his son, was behind the wheel.

  That burned me. The driver was very young, probably only in his late teens, and it irked me that a kid that age should have the chance to drive such a treasure. I wanted to be in his place.

  I had read a lot about the Edsel; books of auto lore were full of it. There was never anything quite like it. It was the greatest disaster the field had ever known. The myths and legends that had grown up around its name were beyond number.

  All over the nation, in the scattered dingy garages and gas depots where car nuts gather to tinker and talk, the tales of the Edsel are told to this day. They say they built the car too big to fit in most garages. They say it was all horsepower, and no brake. They call it the ugliest machine ever designed by man. They retell the old jokes about its name. And there’s one famous legend that when you got it going fast enough, the wind made a funny whistling noise as it rushed around that hood.

  All the romance and mystery and tragedy of the old automobile was wrapped up in the Edsel. And the stories about it are remembered and retold long after its glittering contemporaries are so much scrap metal in the junkyards.

  As I drove along beside it, all the old legends about the Edsel came flooding back to me, and I was lost in my own nostalgia. I tried a few more blasts on my horn, but the driver seemed intent on ignoring me, so I soon gave up. Besides, I was listening to see if the hood really did whistle in the wind.