Norris grunted. “Leave it for investigation. But I can guess pretty well. That’s atomic power. That stuff to the left—that’s a neat little thing for doing what men have been trying to do with 100-ton cyclotrons and so forth. It separates neutrons from heavy water, which he was getting from the surrounding ice.”
“Where did he get all—oh. Of course. A monster couldn’t be locked in—or out. He’s been through the apparatus caches.” McReady stared at the apparatus. “Lord, what minds that race must have—”
“The shimmery sphere—I think it’s a sphere of pure force. Neutrons can pass through any matter, and he wanted a supply reservoir of neutrons. Just project neutrons against silica—calcium—beryl—Hum—almost anything, and the atomic energy is released. That thing is the atomic generator.”
McReady plucked a thermometer from his coat. “It’s 120° in here, despite the open door. Our clothes have kept the heat out to an extent, but I’m sweating now.”
Norris nodded. “The light’s cold. I found that. But it gives off heat to warm the place through that coil. He had all the power in the world. He could keep it warm and pleasant, as his race thought of warmth and pleasantness. Did you notice the light, the color of it?”
McReady nodded. “Beyond the stars is the answer. From beyond the stars. From a hotter planet that circled a brighter, bluer sun they came.”
McReady glanced out the door toward the blasted, smoke-stained trail that flopped and wandered blindly off across the drift. “There won’t be any more coming, I guess. Sheer accident it landed here, and that was twenty million years ago. What did it do all that for?” He nodded toward the apparatus.
Barclay laughed softly. “Did you notice what it was working on when we came? Look.” He pointed toward the ceiling of the shack.
Like a knapsack made of flattened coffee-tins, with dangling cloth straps and leather belts, the mechanism clung to the ceiling. A tiny, glaring heart of supernal flame burned in it, yet burned through the ceiling’s wood without scorching it. Barclay walked over to it, grasped two of the dangling straps in his hands, and pulled it down with an effort. He strapped it about his body. A slight jump carried him in a weirdly slow arc across the room.
“Anti-gravity,” said McReady softly.
“Anti-gravity,” Norris nodded. “Yes, we had ’em stopped, with no planes, and no birds. The birds hadn’t come—but they had coffee-tins and radio parts, and glass and the machine shop at night. And a week—a whole week—all to itself. America in a single jump—with anti-gravity powered by the atomic energy of matter.
“We had ’em stopped. Another half hour—it was just tightening these straps on the device so it could wear it—and we’d have stayed in Antarctica, and shot down any moving thing that came from the rest of the world.”
“The albatross—” McReady said softly. “Do you suppose—”
“With this thing almost finished? With that death weapon it held in its hand?
“No, by the grace of God, who evidently does hear very well, even down here, and the margin of half an hour, we keep our world, and the planets of the system too. Anti-gravity, you know, and atomic power. Because They came from another sun, a star beyond the stars. They came from a world with a bluer sun.”
THE ROADS MUST ROLL
Robert A. Heinlein
As an industrial civilization expands, its complexity multiplies. With each new development the web of interlocking units becomes more tangled. Each small unit grows more important, more susceptible to shock, more liable to halt the entire organism with its own individual breakdown. Take traffic, for example. The failure of a single traffic light can stop the busy movement of an entire city. And even if vehicles are eliminated and the roads themselves roll, still the individual man or machine is the vital part—the all-important part—that makes the whole stop or go.
* * *
“Who makes the roads roll?”
The speaker stood still on the rostrum and waited for his audience to answer him. The reply came in scattered shouts that cut through the ominous, discontented murmur of the crowd.
“We do!”— “We do!”— “Damn right!”
“Who does the dirty work ‘down inside’—so that Joe Public can ride at his ease?”
This time it was a single roar, “We do!”
The speaker pressed his advantage, his words tumbling out in a rasping torrent. He leaned toward the crowd, his eyes picking out individuals at whom to fling his words. “What makes business? The roads! How do they move the food they eat? The roads! How do they get to work? The roads! How do they get home to their wives? The roads!” He paused for effect, then lowered his voice. “Where would the public be if you boys didn’t keep them roads rolling? Behind the eight ball and everybody knows it. But do they appreciate it? Pfui! Did we ask for too much? Were our demands unreasonable? ‘The right to resign whenever we want to.’ Every working stiff in other lines of work has that. ‘The same pay as the engineers.’ Why not? Who are the real engineers around here? D’yuh have to be a cadet in a funny little hat before you can learn to wipe a bearing, or jack down a rotor? Who earns his keep: The ‘gentlemen’ in the control offices, or the boys ‘down inside’? What else do we ask? ‘The right to elect our own engineers.’ Why the hell not? Who’s competent to pick engineers? The technicians?—or some damn, dumb examining board that’s never been ‘down inside’, and couldn’t tell a rotor bearing from a field coil?”
He changed his pace with natural art, and lowered his voice still further. “I tell you, brother, it’s time we quit fiddlin’ around with petitions to the Transport Commission, and use a little direct action. Let ’em yammer about democracy; that’s a lot of eye wash, we’ve got the power, and we’re the men that count!”
A man had risen in the back of the hall while the speaker was haranguing. He spoke up as the speaker paused. “Brother Chairman,” he drawled, “may I stick in a couple of words?”
“You are recognized, Brother Harvey.”
“What I ask is, what’s all the shootin’ for? We’ve got the highest hourly rate of pay of any mechanical guild, full insurance and retirement, and safe working conditions, barring the chance of going deaf.” He pushed his anti-noise helmet further back from his ears. He was still in dungarees, apparently just up from standing watch. “Of course we have to give ninety days notice to quit a job, but, cripes, we knew that when we signed up. The roads have got to roll—they can’t stop every time some lazy punk gets bored with his billet.
“And now Soapy—” The crack of the gavel cut him short. “Pardon me, I mean Brother Soapy—tells us how powerful we are, and how we should go in for direct action. Rats! Sure we could tie up the roads, and play hell with the whole community, but so could any screwball with a can of nitroglycerine, and he wouldn’t have to be a technician to do it, neither.
“We aren’t the only frogs in the puddle. Our jobs are important, sure, but where would we be without the farmers—or the steel workers—or a dozen other trades and professions?”
He was interrupted by a sallow little man with protruding upper teeth, who said, “Just a minute, Brother Chairman, I’d like to ask Brother Harvey a question,” then turned to Harvey and inquired in a sly voice, “Are you speaking for the guild, Brother, or just for yourself? Maybe you don’t believe in the guild? You wouldn’t by any chance be”—he stopped and slid his eyes up and down Harvey’s lank frame— “a spotter, would you?”
Harvey looked over his questioner as if he had found something filthy in a plate of food. “Sikes,” he told him, “if you weren’t a runt, I’d stuff your store teeth down your throat. I helped found this guild. I was on strike in ‘sixty-six. Where were you in ‘sixty-six? With the finks?”
The chairman’s gavel pounded. “There’s been enough of this,” he said. “Nobody who knows anything about the history
of this guild doubts the loyalty of Brother Harvey. We’ll continue with the regular order of business.” He stopped to clear his throat. “Ordinarily we don’t open our floor to outsiders, and some of you boys have expressed a distaste for some of the engineers we work under, but there is one engineer we always like to listen to whenever he can get away from his pressing duties. I guess maybe it’s because he’s had dirt under his nails the same as us. Anyhow, I present at this time Mr. Shorty Van Kleeck—”
A shout from the floor stopped him. “Brother Van Kleeck!”
“O.K. Brother Van Kleeck, Chief Deputy Engineer of this road-town.”
“Thanks, Brother Chairman.” The guest speaker came briskly forward, and grinned expansively at the crowd, seeming to swell under their approval. “Thanks, Brothers. I guess our chairman is right. I always feel more comfortable here in the Guild Hall of the Sacramento Sector—or any guild hall, for that matter—than I do in the engineers’ clubhouse. Those young punk cadet engineers get in my hair. Maybe I should have gone to one of the fancy technical institutes, so I’d have the proper point of view, instead of coming up from ‘down inside’.
“Now about those demands of yours that the Transport Commission just threw back in your face—Can I speak freely?”
“Sure you can, Shorty!”— “You can trust us!”
“Well, of course I shouldn’t say anything, but I can’t help but understand how you feel. The roads are the big show these days, and you are the men that make them roll. It’s the natural order of things that your opinions should be listened to, and your desires met. One would think that even politicians would be bright enough to see that. Sometimes, lying awake at night, I wonder why we technicians don’t just take things over, and—”
“Your wife is calling, Mr. Gaines.” “Very well.” He picked up the handset and turned to the visor screen.
“Yes, darling, I know I promised, but…You’re perfectly right, darling, but Washington has especially requested that we show Mr. Blekinsop anything be wants to see. I didn’t know he was arriving today…No, I can’t turn him over to a subordinate. It wouldn’t be courteous. He’s Minister of Transport for Australia. I told you that…Yes, darling, I know that courtesy begins at home, but the roads must roll. It’s my job; you knew that when you married me. And this is part of my job. That’s a good girl. We’ll positively have breakfast together. Tell you what, order horses and a breakfast pack and we’ll make it a picnic. I’ll meet you in Bakersfield—usual place…Goodbye, darling. Kiss Junior goodnight for me.”
He replaced the handset on the desk whereupon the pretty, but indignant, features of his wife faded from the visor screen. A young woman came into his office. As she opened the door she exposed momentarily the words printed on its outer side; “DIEGO-RENO ROADTOWN, Office of the Chief Engineer.” He gave her a harassed glance.
“Oh, it’s you. Don’t marry an engineer, Dolores, marry an artist. They have more home life.”
“Yes, Mr. Gaines. Mr. Blekinsop is here, Mr. Gaines.”
“Already? I didn’t expect him so soon. The Antipodes ship must have grounded early.”
“Yes, Mr. Gaines.”
“Dolores, don’t you ever have any emotions?”
“Yes, Mr. Gaines.”
“Hmmm, it seems incredible, but you are never mistaken. Show Mr. Blekinsop in.”
“Very good, Mr. Gaines.”
Larry Gaines got up to greet his visitor. Not a particularly impressive little guy, he thought, as they shook hands and exchanged formal amenities. The rolled umbrella, the bowler hat were almost too good to be true.
An Oxford accent partially masked the underlying clipped, flat, nasal twang of the native Australian. “It’s a pleasure to have you here, Mr. Blekinsop, and I hope we can make your stay enjoyable.”
The little man smiled. “I’m sure it will be. This is my first visit to your wonderful country. I feel at home already. The eucalyptus trees, you know, and the brown hills—”
“But your trip is primarily business?”
“Yes, yes. My primary purpose is to study your roadcities, and report to my government on the advisability of trying to adapt your startling American methods to our social problems Down Under. I thought you understood that such was the reason I was sent to you.”
“Yes, I did, in a general way. I don’t know just what it is that you wish to find out. I suppose that you have heard about our road towns, how they came about, how they operate, and so forth.”
“I’ve read a good bit, true, but I am not a technical man, Mr. Gaines, not an engineer. My field is social and political. I want to see how this remarkable technical change has affected your people. Suppose you tell me about the roads as if I were entirely ignorant. And I will ask questions.”
“That seems a practical plan. By the way, how many are there in your party?”
“Just myself. I sent my secretary on to Washington.”
“I see.” Gaines glanced at his wrist watch. “It’s nearly dinner time. Suppose we run up to the Stockton strip for dinner. There is a good Chinese restaurant up there that I’m partial to. It will take us about an hour and you can see the ways in operation while we ride.”
“Excellent.”
Gaines pressed a button on his desk, and a picture formed on a large visor screen mounted on the opposite wall. It showed a strong-boned, angular young man seated at a semi-circular control desk, which was backed by a complex instrument board. A cigarette was tucked in one corner of his mouth.
The young man glanced up, grinned, and waved from the screen. “Greetings and salutations, Chief. What can I do for you?”
“Hi, Dave. You’ve got the evening watch, eh? I’m running up to the Stockton sector for dinner. Where’s Van Kleeck?”
“Gone to a meeting somewhere. He didn’t say.”
“Anything to report?”
“No, sir. The roads are rolling, and all the little people are going ridey-ridey home to their dinners.”
“O.K., keep ’em rolling.”
“They’ll roll, Chief.”
Gaines snapped off the connection and turned to Blekinsop. “Van Kleeck is my chief deputy. I wish he’d spend more time on the road and less on politics. Davidson can handle things, however. Shall we go?”
They glided down an electric staircase, and debauched on the walkway which bordered the northbound five mile-an-hour strip. After skirting a stairway trunk marked OVERPASS TO SOUTHBOUND ROAD, they paused at the edge of the first strip. “Have you ever ridden a conveyor strip before?” Gaines inquired. “It’s quite simple. Just remember to face against the motion of the strip as you get on.”
They threaded their way through homeward-bound throngs, passing from strip to strip. Down the center of the twenty-mile-an-hour strip ran a glassite partition which reached nearly to the spreading roof. The Honorable Mister Blekinsop raised his eyebrows inquiringly as he looked at it.
“Oh, that?” Gaines answered the unspoken inquiry as he slid back a panel door and ushered his guest through.
“That’s a wind break. If we didn’t have some way of separating the air currents over the strips of different speeds, the wind would tear our clothes off on the hundred-mile-an-hour strip.” He bent his head to Blekinsop’s as he spoke, in order to cut through the rush of air against the road surfaces, the noise of the crowd, and the muted roar of the driving mechanism concealed beneath the moving strips. The combination of noises inhibited further conversation as they proceeded toward the middle of the roadway. After passing through three more wind screens located at the forty, sixty, and eighty-mile-an-hour strips respectively, they finally reached the maximum speed strip, the hundred-mile-an-hour strip, which made the round trip, San Diego to Reno and back, in twelve hours.
Blekinsop found himself on a walkway twenty feet wide facing another partition. Immediately opposite him an illuminated show window proclaimed:
JAKE’S STEAK HOUSE No. 4
The Fa
stest Meal on the Fastest Road!
“To dine on the fly makes the miles roll by!!”
“Amazing!” said Mr. Blekinsop. “It would be like dining in a tram. Is this really a proper restaurant?”
“One of the best. Not fancy, but sound.”
“Oh, I say, could we—”
Gaines smiled at him. “You’d like to try it, wouldn’t you, sir?”
“I don’t wish to interfere with your plans—”
“Quite all right. I’m hungry myself, and Stockton is a long hour away. Let’s go in.”
Gaines greeted the manageress as an old friend. “Hello, Mrs. McCoy. How are you tonight?”
“If it isn’t the chief himself! It’s a long time since we’ve had the pleasure of seeing your face.” She led them to a booth somewhat detached from the crowd of dining commuters. “And will you and your friend be having dinner?”
“Yes, Mrs. McCoy—suppose you order for us—but be sure it includes one of your steaks.”
“Two inches thick, from a steer that died happy.” She glided away, moving her fat frame with surprising grace.
With sophisticated foreknowledge of the chief engineer’s needs, Mrs. McCoy had left a portable telephone at the table. Gaines plugged it in to an accommodation jack at the side of the booth, and dialed a number.
“Hello, Davidson? Dave, this is the chief. I’m in Jake’s beanery number four for supper. You can reach me by calling ten-six-six.”
He replaced the handset, and Blekinsop inquired politely, “Is it necessary for you to be available at all times?”
“Not strictly necessary,” Gaines told him, “but I feel safer when I am in touch. Either Van Kleeck, or myself, should be where the senior engineer of the watch—that’s Davidson this shift—can get hold of us in a pinch. If it’s a real emergency, I want to be there, naturally.”
“What would constitute a real emergency?”
Adventures in Time and Space Page 72
