by Rick Raphael
Patrol Trooper Clay Ferguson hummed happily to himself and eyed the chronometer in the center of the instrument panel. The night sky thirty miles ahead glowed with the lights of San Francisco and it was just a little past midnight. If they could only have a few more hours of relatively quiet traffic, they'd hit Los Angeles Barracks about daylight and a five-day rest before the start of the next leg of the patrol. To either side of the bubble canopy that covered the cab of North American Thruway Patrol Car 56, two rivers of moving lights flowed with the police vehicle in the four variable speed lanes of the superhighway. But traffic densities were relatively light on all four of the southbound lanes. This was NAT 99-S—North American Thruway 99-South—stretching from Fairbanks, Alaska to San Diego. A half mile east of the high-speed southbound yellow lane was NAT 99-N, four identical half-mile-wide lanes of northbound traffic plus the northbound police lane.
In the left-hand bucket seat of Car 56—"Beulah" to her three-member crew—Patrol Sergeant Ben Martin relaxed with a cigarette. The lights of the much heavier northbound traffic silhouetted Martin's crop-haired head.
The sixty-foot-long police cruiser glided smoothly down the center red emergency lane of the thruway at a steady hundred miles an hour, just keeping pace with the slowest vehicles in the slow white lane a mile to the right.
"What's 'fleshpot' mean, Ben?" the Canadian asked.
The senior officer turned his broad-planed face and grinned. "You planning on finding one when we hit L.A.?"
Clay shrugged. "I've heard the expression and it sounds interesting. Only trouble is that I've never been able to find out exactly what it means. But after ten days in this oversized sardine can, almost anything would sound interesting."
Below the chronometer, the big radiometer clicked off another mile marker as Car 56 rolled past the beamed signal from the automatic radio marker posts that lined the thruways from one terminal point to another. Beulah's crew was now two thousand nine hundred four miles and nine and a half days out of Fairbanks with a half a day and a little more than four hundred miles to go to the end of this patrol.
Clay reached up to fiddle with the focus knob on one of the four video screens on his control panel. The screens transmitted views of each lane from tower cameras mounted above the lanes at every ten-mile interval.
"Anyone who takes a girl for an aircar ride in the middle of an Alaskan summer and then parks on the edge of a lake in the center of a swarm of mosquitoes," Ben said, "has a built-in fleshpot."
Clay grinned sheepishly, "Cut it out, pop. I still itch every time I think about it."
Car 56 started a gentle climb into the hills to the north of the Golden Gate and the tracks rumbled slightly as the roadway passed over a high culvert. Ahead, wisps of fog drifted into the great white beam from the three-foot wide variable intensity headlight strip across the cruiser's bow. Ben reached forward and shifted the light color spectrum into the yellow range.
A bank of speakers above their heads came to life. "Frisco Control to Car Nine One One." Car 911 came back with a "go ahead." Frisco Control continued. "You've got a bad one at Marker 3112. Cargo carrier took out a passenger vehicle in the blue. Take it Code Three. And watch the fog."
"Car 911 on the way," came the reply. Fifty miles ahead of Martin and Ferguson another Nor-Com police cruiser slammed forward, lifting from the roadway and its tracks
Illustrated by John Schoenherr
•
as its fan drive impellers roared into action. Riding on an air pad, the cruiser's twin jets kicked to near full power under the drive of the pair of one hundred and fifty thousand pound thrust engines.
The radio continued: "Frisco Control to all cars on 99 north and south from Markers 2900 to 3100. Heavy fog conditions now exist. Yellow lanes closing in two minutes. Speed reductions in force throughout designated area. Observe caution."
The last transmission was broadcast on standard, all-vehicle frequency and was received by all cars and cargo carriers as well as Nor-Com police cruisers and work vehicles.
The fog was getting thicker and Ben again shifted the spectrum of the headlight deeper into the yellow. Car 56 topped the hill and the sky ahead was a solid glow of light from the buildings of Bahgdad-By-The-Bay. But the fog obscured any details beyond the limits of the brilliant headlight. On either side of the police cruiser, only the lights of vehicles running close to the east and west edges of the green and blue lanes could be detected.
The white lane traffic, with its 100-mile-an-hour speed limit, was lost in the fog as was most of the traffic in the green 100-to-150 mile an hour lane. To the left, the 300-mile-an-hour blue lane still carried its previous loads. Out beyond the vision of the police cruiser, huge flashing amber and then amber-and-red lights were in action in the ultra high speed yellow lane, warning drivers to slow down and shift back to the blue. Barriers had risen out of the crossovers to prevent any further traffic from moving into the yellow lane.
Again Frisco Control came on the air on police frequency. "All cars on 99 north and south. Additional information last broadcast. Video monitors to infra in one minute. Repeating, video monitors to infra in one minute."
Ben and Clay reached for their work helmets beside their seats and pulled them over their heads. Each officer flipped down the infra-red filter mask and Ben flicked a switch on the arm control panel of his seat. Above the regular headlight strip on Beulah's bow another strip, black to the naked eye, came to life and a brilliant band of infra-red light now cut through the night and fog. At the same instant, the video monitors shifted into the infra spectrum and the officers again had "eyeball" contact with the traffic.
"This is going to slow things down for a while," Ben said. "You go hit the sack, kid, and I'll take it until three."
Clay nodded and climbed out of his seat, first racking his work helmet back into place beside the seat. "Want a cup of coffee before I turn in?" he asked.
"I could use one," Ben replied.
The younger trooper turned to the door at the rear of the cab. He thumbed a switch killing the lights in the little galley just behind the cab before opening the door, then slid the door open and shut behind him before turning the lights back on.
Designed for long patrols on the thruways, that spanned the North American Continent from Mexico to the Arctic Circle, the thruway patrol cruisers were virtually self-sustaining units for their three-member crews while on the road. The tiny galley contained built-in range and oven, freezer locker and pull-down tables. Dishes, glasses and eating utensils were all of disposable plastic, eliminating the need for washing up after meals. Aft of the galley were the male crew quarters and then the huge engine room with its big Diesels for track drive and the jet and air-drive assemblies. Heading farther astern was a small but complete machine shop, while the last compartment contained the dispensary. This was headquarters for the third crew member, Medical-Surgical Officer Kelly Light-foot, combination doctor, surgeon and nurse—and delightfully feminine.
Ferguson turned up the heat under the coffee flask racked on the range, then opened the door to the crew quarters. Double bunks were built into one wall and across the narrow passageway was the latrine and shower they shared with Kelly. During patrol, Kelly used one of the six hospital bunks in the dispensary for sleeping but the toilet and shower facilities were on a "knock before entering" basis. Clay tugged off his boots and then padded back in stocking feet to the galley to pour his partner a cup of now-hot coffee. Again he flicked off the lights in the galley before opening the door to the control cab. The glow of the city lights dimly illuminated the cab enough for Clay to make out the helmeted figure of the sergeant. He eased into the cab and set the coffee down in a recess in the arm of the senior o
fficer's control seat. "Watch it, Ben," he warned, "it's hot."
"Thanks, Clay," Ben said. "See you at three."
Clay slid back out of the darkened cab and closed the galley door behind him. In the crew quarters, he dropped onto the lower bunk, reached up and set the alarm chrono mounted in the bottom of the overhead bunk to awaken him for his next watch at 0300, then rolled over and shut his eyes.
The muted throb of the big Diesels that drove Beulah's track assembly at speeds up to two hundred miles an hour echoed faintly through the insulated walls of the bulkhead separating the engine room from the crew quarters. The sound lulled Clay to sleep in less than a minute.
Car 56 rounded a sweeping curve in the hills and a blaze of light struck the gun-metal blue hull as the lights of the Golden Gate Causeway came into view. Ben flipped up the infra-red filters. Solid banks of mercury tubes lined the length of the Causeway, cutting through the fog and turning night into day. The great bridge was in reality a roof over the bay, five miles wide. It was lighted underneath as well as above for surface shipping that sailed under its protective cover for miles around the old Embarcadero to South Bay. NAT 99 north and south soared across the bay and sped high above the eastern fringes of the great city, angling southeasterly towards the peninsula where it once again dropped down to the surface of the land. Although it was unseen from the heights of the thruway, Ben knew that a maze of lesser elevated highways crisscrossed the city fifty feet below, carrying local traffic to interchanges leading to the thruways north, south and east out of the city. Another belt of light to the east was the five-mile swath of NAT 50, entering the city from across the continent.
He held Beulah at a steady hundred as she glided along the edges of the bay. The radio sounded briefly as Car 911 called for a wrecker and ambulance. Traffic densities continued to rise in the southbound lanes as Ben knew they would. At this time of night, traffic would be leaving the city, heading for the bedroom communities to the north and south. Traffic had been light coming into San Francisco from the Marin side. Now it would increase, and with the densities would come the problems.
The fog hung like a porous pillow over the city, muffling sounds and grudgingly giving way only to the banks of mercury tubes that lined the thruway and the city express. ways and streets below. The intensities of light would hold the length of the peninsula to the southern limits of the city in the San Jose residential district. Then it would be infra driving until the fog lifted. The thruway curved gently to the right around the backwaters of the bay. Ahead, Ben saw the sweeping arches of the interchange that switched traffic from NAT 50 to NAT 99. He eased off power and let Beulah drop to a snail's pace as she approached the interchange.
Just past the merger lanes, Ben pulled the cruiser off to the left-hand service strip and stopped. Since only police and other emergency vehicles were allowed in the red lane, there was no worry about other traffic. He pulled the work helmet from his head and ran his fingers over his crew-cut hair, then fished for a cigarette.
He thumbed the transmit button on his arm panel. "Car 56 to Frisco Control."
"This is Frisco Control. Go ahead Five Six."
"I'm taking five at the 50 dash 99 interchange," Ben said. "Looks like a lot of traffic coming from across the bay so I thought I'd watch it here for a while."
"Affirmative, Five Six," the Frisco controller said. "South Frisco Check estimates white density seven hundred; green, nine fifty; blue, five hundred; yellow is closed to Gilroy. Report when you're rolling again."
"Affirmative," Ben replied. He jotted the densities on his log. The estimates meant an average of seven hundred vehicles for every ten miles of roadway in the white lane, nine hundred and fifty vehicles for each ten miles of the green for the next hundred-mile stretch, and five hundred per ten miles of road in the blue. That meant more than twenty-one thousand vehicles moving south in the next hundred miles of NAT 99; more than fourteen thousand of them traveling at speeds between one and three hundred miles an hour. Each lane was a half-mile wide with sweep-
Bing crossovers to the next speed lane. Ben wasn't too concerned about the green and white but a five hundred density in the blue on a foggy night could mean possible trouble. At least the ultra-high yellow, with its 500-mile-an-hour limit, was closed. He leaned back in his control seat and smoked quietly, keeping his eyes on the video monitors. Each screen had individual controls so that the patrol officer could monitor the ten-mile stretch of roadways he was in, or switch either to the next ten-mile block ahead or the block to his rear. Ben flicked the blue monitor to the block ahead, put the green and white on his own block. He started to cut out the yellow since that lane was closed but decided to leave it on, set for the present block.
Moisture from the fog-wet night beaded the plastic canopy of the cruiser and glistened on the roadway twelve feet beneath Ben's feet. His eyes flicked from the monitors to the racing bands of lights on either side of the police vehicle. The brilliant lights of passenger cars and cargo carriers whipped past, leaving glowing dots of reddish light from their exhausts. Amber lights flashed up from the rear in the blue lane and the massive bulk of a 500-ton cargo carrier whipped by at a steady 250 miles an hour. In the instant it vanished, the driver of the carrier must have caught a glimpse of the patrol cruiser's bulk parked beside the roadway. He flicked his running lights in a brief "hello" as he passed.
When he had finished his cigarette and coffee, Ben eased Beulah back into the police lane and called Frisco Control. "Car 56 to Frisco Control. We're rolling."
"Affirmative, Five Six," Frisco acknowledged. "The fog's getting thicker. Keep alert for any shipping that might wander off the bay. Frisco out."
Ben grinned and settled comfortably into the control seat. His fingers rested lightly on the twin control panels that lined the arms of the seat. All essential vehicle controls were mounted for fingertip use with the exception of acceleration and braking controls that were in footrest bars beneath his feet. On emergency runs at speeds in excess of 200 miles an hour, safety cocoons snapped out of the seat backs and locked both driver and assistant driver into their seats, leaving only their hands, feet and face clear. A band across the forehead kept their heads locked against the cushioned seat back. Other cocoons were located throughout the sixty-foot length of the cruiser in case a crew member was away from his or her regular station when sudden acceleration was needed.
Ben pushed Beulah up to a leisurely 75 and eased into the center of the police lane. He glanced over at the radiometer as it clicked to mile marker 2944. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash on his yellow lane monitor. By the time he turned to look at the screen, the flash was gone. The senior patrolman started doing several things at once. Beulah surged forward under Diesel drive to 150 miles an hour while Ben reached over and switched the yellow monitor to the next ten-mile scanning block and, at the same time, called Frisco Control. The screen showed a lone vehicle barreling down the yellow lane, ignoring the flashing amber and red lights and arrows indicating the lane was to be vacated.
"Frisco Control, this is Car 56. I have a vehicle in the yellow," Ben called.
"This is Frisco. The yellow is closed, Five Six. That car has no business in there. What's the location?"
Ben glanced at the radiometer. "He's past 2950 and he looks like he's wide open; probably near 2960 now."
"Get him outta there Five Six," the Frisco controller yelled. "We've been routing into the yellow around 3112 to clear traffic for 911's accident. That idiot may plow right into them."
Ben slammed into high. A bullhorn began blaring throughout the vehicle and Ben's safety cocoon snapped shut, locking him into his seat. In both the crew quarters and dispensary, similar horizontal cocoons slapped down on the sleeping forms of Clay Ferguson and Kelly Lightfoot. Car 56 lifted from the roadway on its airpad as synchromechanisms meshed both the impeller and ramjet thrusts. In five seconds Beulah was hitting three hundred fifty miles an hour and still accelerating. From the bow, piercing red emergen
cy lights were flashing and both an outside and radio broadcast siren screamed. Beulah came roaring into the crossover to the blue lane as vehicles scattered to give her room. Still holding at close to four hundred, Ben sailed across the two-foot rounded curbing between the blue and yellow lanes and straightened out in pursuit of the racing vehicle. Ahead, the exhausts of the speeding car were visible to his naked eye. "I've got him in sight," Ben reported. "He's on air-jet lift and he's weaving all over the road. Looks like a drunk."
"Get him, Five Six," Frisco exhorted. "You can't herd him into the blue either. That's where the mess is now. Car 911, Car Nine One One, this is Frisco Control."
"Car 911 affirmative," came the reply. "We hear. We're trying to get these vehicles outta here but I've got this wrecker and a pile of junk halfway across the lane. We'll try. But stop him if you can, Five Six."
"Affirmative," Ben replied. His foot jammed to the floor and Beulah rammed towards peak speed. In seconds the cruiser was less than two hundred yards behind the speeder. Ben opened his mike on standard frequency. "You are directed to stop immediately. This is a Thruway Patrol order," Ben said. He peered at the weaving vehicle. "I repeat, you in the Cadillaire. This is a Patrol vehicle. Stop immediately."
The speeding car veered off to the right but didn't slow its speed. Ben glanced up at the blue and yellow monitors. The lights of the accident scene ahead and the shifting traffic were just coming into view on the screens.
The patrolman whipped the cruiser abreast of the speeder and then pulled ahead. Beulah was hitting 590. Ben fingered the emergency after-burner and the cruiser jumped ahead. When Beulah was one hundred yards in front of the Cadillaire, Ben touched another switch. Twin ports in Beulah's stern snapped open and a pair of flared nozzles popped out. Like a giant squid spewing inky secretion to blind its foe, a dense black cloud sprayed from the twin nozzles. Thousands of tiny, dark plastic flakes shot out under high pressure into the night air, and into the path of the speeding Cadillaire. The car plunged into the cloud and the impact-adhesive plastic slammed against the friction-heated face of the vehicle. The flakes were designed for adhesion only under heat and impact. The hurtling car created both forces and the plastic welded to the entire front surface of the vehicle, covering the driver's canopy, lights and prow, building up in a distorted mass around the nose of the car. Thousands more particles were sucked into the impeller air intake to adhere to the balanced fan blades and turn them into wildly vibrating clubs. The car veered and lost speed as the air-pad system fouled and then failed. Inside the now-blinded bubble, the driver panicked and hit the brakes the instant the wheels were back to the surface. Brake locks and bearings glowed red under the sudden friction and more of the plastic particles built up along the underside of the Cadillaire. coating the wheels and wheel-wells in a steady built-up mass of welded plastic until the wheels could no longer turn. A rear tire smoked and then blew. A second later the car rocked to a halt.
