To The Stars

He had not been out of his clothes since they had started the job; his skin was smeared and black, his eyes red-rimmed and sore. Alzbeta gasped when she saw him — when he looked in the mirror and saw why, he had to smile, himself.

“If you make some coffee I’ll wash up and change. That was not a job I would like to do again.”

“It’s all finished then?”

“All except getting the trains over. I’ve emptied everyone out of the first one and as soon as I finish this I’ll take it through.”

“Couldn’t someone else drive it? Why does it have to be you?”

Jan drank his coffee in silence, then put down the empty cup and stood. “You know why. Ride in the second train and I’ll see you on the other side.”

There was fear in her tight-clamped arms, but she said nothing more as she kissed him, then watched him leave. She wanted to ride with him, but knew what his answer would be without asking. He would do this alone.

With the automatic guidance disconnected the train turned away from the center of the Road toward the raw gash that had been slashed through the burnt jungle. The engine left the smooth Road surface and rose and fell as it ground along. Obediently, one by one, the cars tracked behind it, following in its deep-cut wheel tracks.

“So far no problems,” Jan said into the microphone. “Bumpy but not bad at all. I’m holding at five K’s all the way. I want the other drivers to do the same.”

He didn’t stop when he came to the filled-in fissure but ground steadily forward out onto its surface. Under the pressure of the engine’s weight, stones and gravel cracked free from the sides of the embankment and rattled into the depths. On both sides the tank drivers watched in tense silence. Jan looked down from the height of the engine and could see the far edge approaching slowly; on either side there was only emptiness. He kept his eyes fixed on the edge and the engine centered in the very middle of the dike.

“He’s over!” Otakar shouted into his radio. “All cars tracking well. No subsidence visible.”

Reaching the Road again was an easy task, once the tension of the crossing was behind. He pulled the train to the far side and ran forward until all of the cars were in the clear. Only then did he pull on his coldsuit and change over to the tank that had followed him.

“Let’s get back to the gap,” he ordered, then turned to the radio. “We’re going to bring the trains over one at a time, slowly. I want only one train at a time on the new sections so we can reach it easily in case of difficulties. All right — start the second one now.”

He was waiting at the edge of the chasm when the train appeared, clouds of dust and smoke billowing out from under its wheels. The driver kept his engine centered on the wheel marks of Jan’s train on the embankment and crossed without difficulty and went on. The next train and the next crossed, and they came in a steady stream after that.

It was the thirteenth train that ran into trouble.

“Lucky thirteen,” Jan said to himself as it appeared on the far edge. He rubbed his sore eyes and yawned.

The engine came on and was halfway over when it started to tilt. Jan grabbed for the microphone, but before he could say anything there was a subsidence, and the engine tilted more and more in massive slow motion.

Then it was gone, suddenly. Over the edge and down, with the cars hurtling after it one after another in a string of death, crashing to the bottom in an immense bursting cloud of debris with car after car folded one after the other in a crushed mass of destruction.

No one came out of the wreck alive. Jan was one of the first who was lowered down at the end of a cable to search among the horribly twisted metal. Others joined him, and they searched in silence under the unending glare of the sun, but found nothing. In the end they abandoned the search, leaving the dead men entombed in the ruins. The embankment was repaired, strengthened, compacted. The other trains crossed without trouble and, once they were assembled on the Road, the return trek began.

No one spoke the thought aloud, but they all felt it. It had to be worth it, the corn, bringing it from pole to pole of the planet. The men’s deaths had to mean something. The ships had to come. They were late — but they had to come.

They were familiar with the Road now, weary of it. The water crossing was made, the kilometers rolled by steadily, the sun shone through unending heat, and the trip went on. There were delays, breakdowns, and two cars were cannibalized for parts and left behind. And one more tank. The output of all the engines was dropping steadily so that they had to run at slower speed than usual.

It was not joy that possessed them when they came out of sunshine into the twilight, but rather more the end of a great weariness and the desire to rest at last. They were no more than ten hours away from their destination when Jan called a halt.

“Food and drinks,” he said. “We need some kind of celebration.”