Cardan said, “Stick together out there. Don’t get separated. We don’t know yet what it may be like.”
Carl said, “If we split up, we could cover ground twice as fast.”
“Sure,” said Cardan, “but my idea was to get you both back afterwards.”
“I don’t think there’d be any trouble,” Carl said. “At least, not yet.”
“How are you going to get around?”
Brian said, “That’s right. If electricity is knocked out, there goes the ignition system of cars.”
“Yeah,” Carl agreed. “But I know a place where we can rent bicycles.”
Cardan said, “Assuming cars are stopped, and the view out the window over there looks like it, there are going to be a lot of people on foot, and some of them aren’t going to like it.”
“Hm,” said Carl. “Yes, I see what you mean. Maybe the two of us had better stick together.”
“I think so. And keep your eyes open.” He smiled. “Good luck.”
“Thanks, Chief.” They turned, nodded to a wiry man with black hair combed straight back, and went out. Behind them, they could hear Cardan say exasperatedly, “Smitty, do I look like an Indian, or the head of a fire department?” “I don’t know, Chief,” said Smitty. “Why do you ask?”
Carl and Brian glanced at each other and grinned. But in the dim hall, lit only by the light coming from the open doors of occasional labs, their faces had a shadowy, sinister look. It occurred to Brian that the situation wasn’t yet real to either of them. As they walked by the closed door of the lab where he and Anne worked, it occurred to Brian that if electricity was gone, so was his job. So much of the work done by Research East involved electronics that, without that work, the company couldn’t survive.
And then Brian realized that it was a lot worse than that, that this thought only began to scratch the surface. It was with a vague feeling of dread that he followed Carl into the dark interior of the elevator.
Carl stopped abruptly. “My mistake.” The elevator, being electric, obviously could no longer run.
Brian said, ‘Let’s try it anyway.”
Carl felt through his pockets, found a book of matches, and struck a light. Brian held his breath, and punched the button to take them to the ground floor.
Nothing happened.
Carl shrugged. “Worth a try.”
“Yeah. Well, the stairs are around the comer there.”
They walked around the bend in the hall; the box over the door that usually glowed red, spelling “Exit,” was dark now. Carl pulled open the door and Brian followed him quickly down the steps. At the ground floor, where the door opened out into the parking lot, Carl hesitated.
“Somehow, I’m not anxious to go out there,” he said, his usually pugnacious face bleak.
Brian paused before the closed door. “By the time we get back, things may seem a lot different.”
For a moment they both stood silent, then Brian said, “But things are going to change whether we go out there or not.”
“I suppose so.”
Then, as if by common consent, they pushed open the door.
Chapter 3
Cool spring air' chilled their faces as they stepped out onto the parking lot. A gust of wind blew several pages of a newspaper, folding and unfolding, across the blacktop, to press them flat against the link fence. Then they were out of the shadow of the building and the sun was warm as they walked toward the gate.
Donovan’s voice came to them from a car backed part way out in the lot. “Mind trying your cars before you leave?”
Brian thought for an instant that perhaps they’d been mistaken, and it was only a local power failure. Then he saw the puff of steam blow away in the cool air as the car glided forward. That was the experimental steam car, and all it used electricity for was lights, accessories, and a device that could be used to ignite the pilot which, in turn, lit the main burner. But a match would do the job just as well.
Carl and Brian waved their assent to Donovan and split up to go to their own cars.
Brian slid into his car, put the key in the ignition and turned it. Ordinarily there was a faint clunk noise from somewhere in the machinery as he turned on the ignition. But now there was silence.
Brian turned the key further, to switch on the starting motor. The only sound was of the wind blowing past. The car remained silent.
Brian tried again, and then once more. Nothing happened.
He looked at the clock on the dashboard, stopped at nineteen after eight. He tried the dome light without success, then glanced at the ammeter and turned the headlight switch on. The ammeter needle stayed dead on zero. He snapped on the radio and the only sound was the click of the push-button. Habit led him to turn off the useless switches before he got out. Then he stood, one hand on the door, the cold wind whipping his trouser legs about his ankles, and abruptly he asked himself: How could all these things stop working? The car battery was separate from any other source of electric power. The car was self-contained, and as long as the generator kept the battery charged, it, in turn, would supply current to start the motor and run all the car’s accessories. How could anything affect this self-contained power supply?
Scowling, Brian opened the hood and checked the connections of the battery cables. They were tight and clean. He got out a pair of pliers, spread their handles wide, wrapped his handkerchief around the wide-open jaws, and pressed the end of one handle to the positive terminal of the battery. Cautiously, he swung the pliers to touch the tip of the other handle to the battery’s negative terminal.
Nothing happened.
Brian rubbed and pressed the bare metal against the battery terminals. There was no spark, no sign of life from the battery.
He put the pliers away, took a last look under the hood, lowered it, and locked the car door.
Across the lot, Carl slammed down the hood of his car, tossed about eight feet of cable with clamps on both ends into the trunk, and crossed the lot, the sun glinting on his blond hair, his pale blue eyes narrowed in exasperation.
“Any luck?” he called.
“All bad,” said Brian.
Carl nodded dispiritedly.
Donovan was just climbing out of another car. He called to them, “How did it go?”
Carl held both hands up with his thumbs down.
Donovan waved his hand in thanks. Brian and Carl headed toward the gate.
“It acts,” said Carl, “exactly like a dead battery. The question is, is it a dead battery?”
“I couldn’t raise a spark,” said Brian.
“Me either. But what could make the charge leak away that fast?”
“Ionized air?”
“Maybe. Or a conducting surface layer on the battery. But where would that come from?”
“According to the news—what was it?—a law of nature can be changed.”
Carl’s lips tightened. “Something like that. I think he said, ‘We have here the key to lead nature to do things another way, in a limited region of space.’ That was the sense of it.”
“Yes,” said Brian. '‘There was more, too. Something about, if you could break the wires that carry electricity to factories, and keep the wires broken, the factories would be just as useless as if you blew them up with an H-bomb.”
“Break the wires,” said Carl. “Did he mean make actual breaks in the wires, or was it just a figure of speech?”
“The trouble is,” Brian said, “we don’t have enough to go on.”
They were through the gate now, on the sidewalk. In front of them, in the street, opposite the entrance to the parking lot, sat a motionless car. About twenty feet behind it was another motionless car, its hood raised. Both vehicles were empty. People were hurrying along the sidewalk, their faces baffled or angry. At a curbside phone booth, a well-dressed man irritably jiggled the hook of the dead phone. “Hello? Hello! Operator!” The traffic light over the intersection ahead swayed in the wind, its three lenses dark.
Snat
ches of conversation flew past like the bits of paper that blew along the sidewalk.
“. . . have to get there by ten, but am I going to do it?”
“. . . place is going to be a disaster area by this time tomorrow if this goes on . . .”
“. . . So? It’s a vacation. How could I get to work? I’ll watch TV . . .”
At the corner, two lines of cars, headed in opposite direction's, were drawn up as if waiting for the light. On the intersecting street, the cars were spread out, one halfway through the intersection, another making a right turn, just outside the crosswalk, as if waiting for a pedestrian. Most of the cars were empty, but here and there stood one with its hood up, the exasperated owner leaning in to check connections or tighten wires.
Carl led the way around the comer and they walked up a few blocks, through a district of small stores. Here the owners, wearing aprons or suit-coats, stood in the doorways of the darkened shops. Outside a small tavern, a burly bartender was frowning heavily and talking with several customers sipping beer.
“Sure,” he was saying, as Brian and Dave passed. “This isn’t the first time the lights went out on me. Or the TV. *But what about the traffic? How do you explain that?”
A few doors away they sighted a store with new bicycles out on the sidewalk.
Carl said, “Here we are,” and they went inside. A thin, gray-haired man joked with Carl for a few minutes, then agreed to rent them two bicycles for seventy-five cents each, till early afternoon. The owner grinned. “Seeing it’s you, Carl. For anyone else, I’d charge a buck and a half, at least. I’ve got the only wheels in town that work.”
“Better not charge me a buck and a half,” said Carl. “Or the next time your TV quits—” He drew a finger across his throat.
The proprietor laughed. “Okay, Bring them back in good shape. Speaking of TV, have you got any idea what’s wrong?”
“Beyond me. Maybe a sudden ionization of the air let the charge flash out of car batteries and grounded a lot of wires.” He glanced at the battered bicycles. “What do you mean, bring them back in good shape? You want us to do a repair job?”
The proprietor responded with a cheerful insult and then they were out in the street.
The scene, as they pedaled toward the river and the bridge leading out of town, remained about the same; but, seen on a larger scale, because they were going faster, it became alarming. Endlessly, they raced past cars to their left, while to their right the people mingled on the sidewalks, some hurriedly trying to keep appointments, others milling aimlessly. As they passed through the main shopping district, pedestrians overflowed the sidewalks, and Brian and Carl swerved to flash down the white line in the center, passing stalled cars and trucks on either side of them. Then they were pedaling up the gently arching bridge over the river.
Brian had let Carl lead the way, but now he pedaled harder and pulled up beside him.
“North Hill?”
Carl thought a moment, then nodded. “Good view from there.”
They shot down a little-traveled side street and raced down comparatively deserted roads where only a few cars were stalled, and only a few puzzled people walked, frowning, beside low buildings and wooden fences. Then they were on a road that led into town from the hills outside.
Carl, leaning forward, his blond hair blown back by the wind, big hands gripping the handle bars, grinned at Brian suddenly.
“Race?” he challenged.
Something about the fresh country air, the brisk wind, the bright sun, and invigorating exercise after the tensions of the morning, gave Brian a sense of boyish pleasure.
“Why not?”
“To the overpass.”
“Okay.”
Carl spurted forward. Brian, grinning, raced after him. Using a trick that had served him well in the past, Brian began to breathe hard, well before he needed to.
Carl glanced back over his shoulder. “What’s the matter, Grandpop? Out of shape?”
Brian, the exhilarating extra oxygen pouring through his system, began to pedal harder. Carl glanced ahead, then glanced back, surprised. Brian was edging up on him. Already the front wheel of Brian’s bicycle was level with the rear wheel of Carl’s.
Carl fixed his gaze on the bridge coming into view a half mile up the road, and pedaled mercilessly.
Brian, his attention fastened on the front wheel of Carl’s bike, willed the distance to shorten, then focused his thoughts on the rhythm of his legs and lungs. For a moment he was conscious of nothing but the wind hard on his face, then vaguely conscious that he was drawing forward, moving slowly and steadily ahead of the man and the bicycle beside him. Carl became aware of this, too, and for a moment he began to pull away.
It seemed to Brian that there was nothing more he could do, but from somewhere inside him came an unexpected determination that brought him forward again, and then side by side, the two of them flashed over the overpass and up the first rise of the road that branched off to lead up the side of North Hill.
After a hard uphill climb, Brian and Carl, breathing heavily, leaned the bicycles against two trees at the edge of a graveled parking place where in the summer cars often stopped to look south over the city. Among the trees were green-painted picnic benches and stone fireplaces, and Brian and Carl, each casting secret yearning glances at the benches, yet neither willing to admit to the other how worn, weak, and tired he felt, walked unsteadily through the picnic grounds, past occasional patches of grainy snow that lay in hollows and behind fallen logs, where the sun couldn’t reach till it rose so high that the branches of the thick hemlocks no longer intervened. Underfoot, the ground felt soft and springy, and Brian was afraid that if he stepped a little too abruptly, both knees might give way and he would land flat in the snow.
“Ah,” said Carl, his mouth opened only slightly in order to disguise the sound of heavy breathing, “here we are.”
Brian made his own voice as steady as he could. “Yes. Here we are.”
Spread out below them was a wide, clear view of the city, the highway curving into view from the side, sweeping across in front of them, then swinging away in a wide, gentle circle to disappear on the other side. The scene was clear, and so plainly different from what either of them had ever seen from this vantage point, they both forgot the need to appear invincible, and sank down on a large, gently sloping granite rock on the edge of the hill.
From here they could see the city, the river curving through it, shining here and there in the bright sun, and the railroad tracks between road and river.
This much, they’d both seen before.
But the motionless cars and trucks dotted endlessly along the highways, the people trudging along the side of the road, the long freight train dead still on the tracks, the thick pall of smoke pouring from the factory chimneys", the tail of of a crashed plane just visible in the wreckage of a burning house near the edge of town—all this was different.
After a few minutes Brian and Carl had both recovered their breath, and they were both still staring at the scene. All through town, and as far as the eye could see, no single car or truck, large or small, was moving.
Brian said, “There’s nothing local about this.”
“No. And seeing it all at once, it looks worse.”
Brian glanced at the smoke pouring from the factory chimneys.
“Why so much smoke?”
“They use electric precipitators to collect the smoke particles. With the electricity out, the precipitators don’t work.”
Brian looked from the chimneys to the highway. Unlike the situation in a traffic jam, the cars were well spread out. Some few were pulled to the side, but most were still in the traffic lanes.
Carl got to his feet a trifle unsteadily.
“Well, we’ve seen what we came for.”
“Wait a minute,” said Brian. “Let’s be sure we understand what we see.”
“The main thing is, nothing’s moving. No motors work. That’s what the chief wanted to kn
ow.”
“Maybe,” said Brian, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, “you can see and digest the whole thing without thinking it over, but I can’t.”
“What is it,” said Carl, sarcasm creeping into his voice, “that you’d like explained to you?”
“To begin with,” said Brian, “that train—” He paused, startled, as he saw something out of the comer of his eye.
Down on the highway, at the extreme right, something large was moving. “Forget the train. Take that for a starter. Explain that to me.”
Carl, on his feet a few paces back from Brian, stepped forward and bent to see under the low limb of a nearby hemlock.
“I don’t see—” He paused, blank-faced.
Down on the highway, a huge truck was steadily weaving its way in and out amongst the stalled cars. It slowed, edged up to two cars abreast, shoved the left-hand one well forward out of the way, then backed and came ahead again to weave through between them. A puff of black smoke drifted up from its vertical exhaust. The sun shone in a brief flash on the lettering giving the trucking company’s name.
The truck slowed, stopped, and one of the drivers jumped out to take the wheel of a car slewed across the road. The grind of gears was plainly audible as the truck eased forward, pushed the car to the edge of the road, backed and filled, picked up the driver who’d gotten out, then eased ahead again.
Carl nodded slowly. “It’s a diesel. That explains it.” Brian said, “The compression of the fuel and air fires it, and they don’t use spark plugs?”
“Right. I think some of them use a spark at the beginning, when the engine’s cold, but after it heats up they don’t need that. And, of course, the engine’s hot now.”
The truck was creeping past. People at the side of the road were shouting to the driver, apparently asking for rides to the nearest town, but the driver shook his head and kept going down the highway.
“How,” said Brian, puzzled, “do they start those things?” Carl thought for a moment. “I think they start the same as any other car, with an electric starting motor.”
“In that case, as long as the engine runs, they’re all right. But if they turn it off, it’s dead, and that’s the end of it?” Carl ran a hand through his yellow hair. It was plain from his look of chagrin that Carl was remembering his own confident statement that they’d seen everything they needed to know.
The Day the Machines Stopped Page 3
