To The Stars

“Right. Leave the specs here, Emo, and get back to your engine. We’ll be hitting the slope soon.”

Jan slid into the driver’s seat and saw the sharp peaks of the mountains ahead, stretching away, unbroken, on both sides. This was the range that kept the interior of the continent a desert, holding all the storms and rain on the far side. Once through the range they would find weather again. The Road ahead began to rise as they entered the foothills. Jan kept the autopilot on steer, but released the other controls. As the slope grew steeper he let up on the accelerator and dropped into the central gear range. He could see the Road rising up ahead and there, above, the dark mouth of a tunnel. He switched on his microphone.

“All drivers. The tunnel is coming up in a few minutes. Headlights on as soon as you spot it.”

He switched on his own lights as he said this and the Road ahead sprang into harsh clarity.

The engineers who had built the Road, centuries earlier, had had almost unlimited energy at their disposal. They could raise islands from the ocean — or lower them beneath the surface, level mountains and melt solid rock. To them, the easiest way to pass the mountain range was by boring straight through it. They were proud of this, too, for the only decoration or non-functioning bit of the entire Road was above the tunnel entrance. Jan saw it now, cut into the solid rock, as the dark mouth loomed closer. A hundred-meter-high shield. The headlights caught it as the Road straightened for the Final approach. A shield with a symbol on it that must be as ancient as mankind; a hand holding a short and solid hammer. This was clear, growing larger, until it swept by above and they were inside the tunnel.

Rough stone wall flashed by gray and empty. Other than the occasional stream of water that crossed the Road, the tunnel was featureless. Jan watched his tachometer and speedometer and left the steering to the autopilot. Almost a half an hour passed before a tiny light appeared ahead, grew to a disk, then a great burning doorway.

They had gone far enough south, and risen high enough, to have driven into the dawn.

The massive engine tore out of the tunnel and into searing sunlight. The windshield darkened automatically at the actinic onslaught, opaquing completely before the sun. Beta Aurigae was blue-white and searingly hot, even at this northern latitude. Then it was obscured by clouds and a moment later dense rain crashed down on the train. Jan started the windshield wipers and switched on his nose radar. The Road was empty ahead. As quickly as it had begun, the storm was over and, as the Road wound down out of the mountains, he had his first view of the acid green jungle with the blue of the ocean beyond.

“That’s quite a sight,” Jan said, hardly aware he had spoken aloud.

“It means trouble. I prefer the inland driving,” the co-driver, Otakar, said.

“You’re a machine without a soul, Otakar. Doesn’t all that twilight monotony get you down at times?”

“No.”

“Message from the forward Road crew,” Ryzo called out. They’ve got a problem.”

Otakar nodded gloomily. “I told you, trouble.”

Six

“What’s happening,” Jan said into the microphone.

“Lajos here. No big problems clearing the Road until now. Earthquake, at least a couple of years ago. About a hundred meters of Road missing.”

“Can’t you fill it in?”

“Negative. We can’t even see the bottom.”

“What about going around it?”

“That’s what we’re trying to do. But it means blasting a new road out of the cliff. It’s going to take at least a half day.”

Jan cursed silently to himself; this was not going to be an easy trip at all if it continued this way. “Where are you?” he asked.

“About a six hour drive from the tunnel.”

“We’ll join you. Keep the work going. Out.”

Six hours. That would mean a shorter day than planned. But they had work to do on the brakes. And there were sure to be other problems as people settled down. Get the brakes fixed, get around the collapsed bit of Road, and press on in the morning. Everyone could use a night’s sleep.