Wheelworld

by Harry Harrison

  “Good.” Jan had been thinking about this and he knew what had to be done. There would be protests, but they would follow his orders. His own crew were predictably the first.

  “You’ll need an engineer for this job,” Eino said. “I promise not to sleep.”

  “I will not need one. The engines will be dead slow all the way, so they can do without your attention for a few minutes. Nor will I need a co-driver or a communications officer for that short a time. Clear the driving compartment. Once we’re past this you’ll learn the job, Alzbeta.” He guided her towards the hatch with his hand on her elbow, ignoring the gasps and raised knitting needles of her chaperone. “Don’t worry.”

  There were more protests from the passengers as they were unloaded but, in a few minutes, Jan was alone in the train. If anything happened he would be the only one to suffer. They could not afford to waste more time here; they must press on.

  “All clear,” Otakar called from the open hatch. “I can still come along.”

  “See you on the other side. Clear the train, I’m starting.”

  He touched lightly on the accelerator and, at absolutely minimum speed, the engine crawled forward. As soon as it was moving he set the autopilot and took his hands from the wheel. He was committed. The engine would take itself across in a far more controlled manner than he himself could. As the train crept forward he went to the open hatch and looked at the edge of the Road. If there were trouble, it would be there. Centimeter by centimeter they crawled through the newly-burned section of Road, closer and closer to the far end.

  The sound was a grinding rumble, easily heard above the drone of the engine, and as the noise began cracks appeared in the hard surface of the stone. Jan started to turn to the controls, then realized he could do nothing. He stood, his fingers tight-clamped to the edge of the hatch, as a great section of Road broke away and vanished with a roar toward the valley floor, far below. Cracks spread like deadly fingers across the surface, reaching for the train.

  Then stopped.

  There was a great gap now, a chunk bitten out of the solid rock of the Road. But it ended short of the engine. The powerful machine lumbered past the opening and Jan sprang back to the controls, frantically switching from camera to camera to get a view of the following car. Now the engine was through safely, past the gap.

  However, the cars it pulled were almost three times wider.

  His foot was a fraction of a centimeter above the brake pedal, his fingers resting on the autopilot, his eyes fixed on the screen.

  The wheels of the first car crept toward the gap, the outer, double wheel apparently aimed directly at it. It would never get by. He was about to stamp on the brakes when he looked closer. Just possibly.

  The wheel rolled to the edge of the gap and dropped over the lip.

  The outer tire of the two. It turned slowly in the air, blue sky showing under it. All of the weight of the overloaded car came onto the inner wheel.

  As the tire skirted the very edge of the drop it compressed under the weight, flattening to an oval. Then the other tire hit the far edge of the gap and the car was safe on the other side. The radio bleeped in Jan’s ear and he switched it on.

  “Did you see that?” Otakar asked, in a very weak voice.

  “I did. Stay close by and report on the broken area. I’m going to take the rest of the train across. If it stays this way it will be fine. But tell me instantly if there are any more falls.”

  “I’ll do that, you can be sure.”

  At minimum crawling speed the cars followed, one by one, until the entire train was safely across the gap. As soon as the last car was reported safely past Jan killed the engine, jammed on the brakes——and let out a deep sigh. He felt as though every muscle in his body had been worked over with a heavy hammer. To relieve the tension he jogged back to the new section of Road to join Otakar.

  “No more falls, none at all,” the co-driver reported.

  “Then we should be able to get the other trains through.” The passengers were crossing on foot now, pressed as close to the inside wall as they could, looking with frightened eyes at the cliff edge and the gaping crevice. “Take the first engine and keep going. Half speed until all the trains are over. It should go well now. When they are through I’ll catch up on the cycle. Any questions?”

  “Nothing I can put into words. This is your show, Jan. Good luck.”

  It was hours before the last train was past, but they all made it safely. There were no more rock falls. As Jan sped along beside the slow-moving trains he wondered what the next emergency would be.

  Happily, it was a long time coming. The Road crossed the coastal ranges and cut across the alluvial coastal plain that fringed the continent. This was an almost entirely flat and featureless swamp, formerly the coastal banks, shoal water, lifted up by the engineers. The Road was on a raised dike for the most part, cutting straight as a ruled line through the reeds and tree-grown hassocks. All that the maintenance tanks had to do, for the most part, was burn off intruding vegetable life and repair the occasional crack caused by subsidence. They moved faster than the heavy-laden trains and were drawing farther and farther ahead, making up most of the two-day lead they had lost. The nights had been growing shorter until the day when the sun did not set at all. It dropped to the southern horizon, a burning blue ball of fire, then moved into the sky again soon afterwards. After this it was always above their heads, its intensity increasing as they headed south. The temperature outside had been rising steadily and now stood at well past 150 degrees. When there had still been a night, many people had emerged from the cramped, boring quarters to move about on the Road despite the breathless heat. With the sun now in the sky constantly this could not be done, and morale was being strained to the breaking point. And there were still 18,000 kilometers to go.

  They were driving a full nineteen hours every day now, and the new co-drivers were proving their worth. There had been some grumbling among the men at first about women out of their natural place, but this had stopped as fatigue had taken over. The extra help was needed. Some of the women had not been able to learn the work, or had not the stamina for it, but there were more than enough new volunteers to take their places.

  Jan was happier than he had remembered he had been for years. The fat chaperone had complained about the climb up to the driving compartment and, when the heat had increased, it had been impossible to find a coldsuit big enough for her. A married cousin of Alzbeta’s had taken the watchdog role for one day, but said she was bored by it and had her children to take care of and refused to come back the following day. Her absence had not been reported at once to The Hradil and by the time she had learned about it the damage—or lack of damage—had been done. Alzbeta had survived a day alone with three men and was none the worse for the experience. By unspoken agreement the chaperone’s role was dropped.

  Alzbeta sat in the co-driver’s seat while Jan drove. Otakar would sleep on the cot in the engine room, or play cards with Eino. Hyzo found it easy to get permission to join the games—Jan cheerfully stood radio watch for him—and though the hatch behind them was open, Jan and Alzbeta were alone for the first time since they had met.

  At the very first it was embarrassing. Not for Jan. It was Alzbeta who would blush and hang her head when he talked and forget her job as co-driver. Her lifetime of training was fighting her intelligence. Jan ignored this for one shift, not even making small talk, thinking she would be over it by the second day. When she was not, he lost his temper.

  “I’ve asked you for that reading twice now. That’s too much. You are here to aid me, not make my job more difficult”

  “I—I’m sorry. I’ll try not to do it again.”

  She lowered her head and blushed even more, and Jan felt like a swine. Which he was. You don’t break the conditioning of years in a moment. The Road was clear ahead and dead straight, nothing on the nose radar. The trains rolled at a steady 110 KPH and the wheel could be left unattended, for perhaps a
moment. He rose and went to Alzbeta and stood behind her, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders. Like a frightened animal’s, her body quivered beneath his touch.

  “I’m the one who should be sorry,” he said. “I’ll drag Hyzo away from the poker game, it’s time for a driver check in any case.”

  “No, not yet. It is not that I don’t like being alone with you, the other way around. I have known that I have loved you for a very long time, but only now am I finding out what that really means.”

  She put her hands up to her shoulders to cover his, turned her face to look up at him. When he bent his head to kiss her, her mouth came up to meet his. When his hands slid down to cup her full breasts her hands held them tight, pulling him to her. It was he who broke away first, knowing this was neither the time nor the place.

  “See, The Hradil was right,” he said, trying to make light of it.

  “No! She was wrong in every way. She will not keep us apart, and I will marry you. She cannot stop … .”

  The flashing red light on the radio console and the rapid beeping sent him leaping to the driver’s chair, thumbing on the radio. Behind him Hyzo shot up from the engine room as though he had been propelled from a cannon.

  “Trainmaster here.”

  “Jan, Lajos here with the tanks. We’ve hit something too big to handle. It looks like we’ve lost one tank, though no one injured.”

  “What is it?”

  “Water, just water. The Road’s gone. I can’t describe it, you’ll have to see for yourself.”

  There were complaints, but Jan kept the trains rolling until they caught up with the maintenance tanks. He was asleep when they picked up the first blip on the nose radar. He awoke at once and slid into the driver’s seat as Otakar vacated it.

  As it had for days, the Road still traversed the coastal swamps. Continually different, yet always the same, the haze-shrouded wastes of reed and water had been changing imperceptibly. The ratio of open water to swamp was growing until, most suddenly, the swamps were gone and there was only water on both sides of the causeway. Jan slowed the train, and the others behind automatically followed. First the radar picked out the individual specks of the vehicles, then he could make them out by sight.

  It was frightening. The Road dropped lower and lower below the surrounding water until, a little past the tanks, it vanished completely. Beyond them there was just water, no sign of the Road at all. Just a calm ocean stretching away on all sides.

  Jan shouted to Otakar to finish the shutdown procedures since, the instant the brakes were set, he was at the exit hatch, pulling on a coldsuit. Lajos was waiting below when he dropped onto the Road.

  “We’ve no idea how far it goes,” he said. “I tried to get across with a tank; you can see the turret of it about two kilometers out. It’s deeper there, flooded me suddenly. I just had time to hit the dampers and get out. The next tank threw me a rope, pulled me free.”

  “What happened?”

  “Just a guess. It looks like there was a general subsidence of the land here. Since it was all under water once, maybe it’s just dropping back where it came from.”

  “Any idea how wide this thing is?”

  “None. Radar won’t reach, and the telescopes just show more haze. It may end in a few kilometers. Or go on until it drops down to the ocean bottom.”

  “You’re optimistic.”

  “I was in that water—and it’s hot. And I can’t swim.”

  “Sorry. I’ll go take a look myself.”

  “The Road cable is still in place. You can’t see anything but the instruments can track it.”

  Jan clumped around to the rear of the engine, his movements hampered by the thick coldsuit. The suit was lined with a network of tubes filled with cold water. A compact refrigeration unit on his belt hummed industriously and expelled the heated exhaust air to the rear. Cooled air was also blown across his face under the transparent helmet. The suit was tiring to wear after a few hours—but it made life possible. The outside air temperature now stood near 180 degrees. Jan thumbed on the built-in intercom at the rear of the engine.

  “Otakar, can you hear me?”

  “Green.”

  “Set the interlocks to the cars, then disconnect the engine coupling. I’ll disconnect the cables back here.”

  “Are we going for a ride?”

  “You might say that.”

  There was a whirr and a clatter as the metal jaws of the coupling slowly opened. Jan pushed the heavy tongue aside, then unplugged all the cable connectors. There were loud thuds under the car behind him as the beta safety brakes were actuated. The cables retracted like snakes into a hole, and he climbed back up to the driving compartment.

  “I need three volunteers,” he told the waiting crew members as he pulled off the coldsuit. “You, you and you. Alzbeta, take this suit and get back into the train. What we have to do may take a while.”

  She did not protest, but her eyes were on him as she pulled on the suit slowly and left. Otakar dogged the hatch shut after her. Jan studied the glimmering expanse of water ahead. “Eino,” he said, “just how waterproof are we?”

  The engineer did not answer at once. He scratched at his ear in thought as he looked around slowly, looking through the steel walls and floor with a mechanic’s eye, seeing all the joints, seals and hatches.

  “Not bad at all,” he said, finally. “We’re made for a certain amount of water, drive trains and bearings, access ports and hatches, all with gaskets. Higher up, all right too, at least for a while. I really think we could submerge right up to the roof without getting into trouble. Higher than that and we could short out the cooling fins on top. Up that far I would say we’re waterproof.”

  “Then I think we better go before we change our minds.” He dropped into the driver’s chair. “Get on the engine—I may need a lot of power. Hyzo, keep the radio open and keep a report going back. If there is any trouble I want the others to know what happened. Otakar, stand by if I need you.”

  “Going for a swim?” the co-driver asked calmly, flipping on switches.

  “I hope not. But we have to find out if the Road is still there. We can’t turn back and we can’t stay here. And this is the only Road. This engine stands more than twice as high as the tank. It all depends on the depth of the water. Power.”

  “Full.”

  The tanks scuttled aside as the hulking engine ground forward. Straight toward the water until the front wheels sent out the first ripples. Then straight in.

  “It’s like being in a ship …” Otakar said, almost under his breath. With the slight difference, Jan thought, that this engine doesn’t float. He did not say it aloud.

  All about them was water of unknown depth. They knew the Road was still beneath them, for the water had not yet reached the hubs of the great wheels. And the cable blip was high and centered, being followed automatically. But a bow wave was pushed up by the moving engine, and they could have been in a ship for all the apparent connection they had with land—or even with the Road now falling back behind them.

  The turret of the tank ahead was a solid reference point that they approached cautiously. As they came close, the water rose steadily. Jan stopped a good twenty meters from the drowned vehicle.

  “Water doesn’t quite cover our wheels yet, plenty to go,” Otakar said, looking out of the side window. He tried to speak calmly but his voice was strained.

  “How wide would you say the Road is here?” Jan asked.

  “One hundred meters, as always, like most of the rest of the Road.”

  “Is it? You don’t think this water may have undercut it?”

  “I hadn’t thought … .”

  “I had. We’ll go around the tank, as close as we can. And hope that it is solid enough under the wheels.”

  He flipped off the autopilot as he spoke and turned the wheel slowly as they moved forward under complete manual. The high white blip of the central cable drifted across the screen until it vanished. It had been thei
r only guide. Higher and still higher the water rose.

  “I hope you’re staying close to the tank,” Hyzo called out. He may have meant it as a joke. It had not sounded like one.

  Jan tried to remember just how big the tank was under the water. He wanted to remain as near to it as possible without running into it. Passing as close as he could. Water, nothing but water on all sides, the only sound the rumble of the engines and drive and the hoarse breathing of the men.

  “I can’t see it any more,” Jan called out suddenly. “Cameras are dead. Otakar!”

  The co-driver had already jumped to the rear window.

  “Easy on, almost past, falling slightly behind, you can turn sharp … now!”

  Jan obeyed blindly. He could do nothing else. He was in the midst of an ocean, turning a wheel, with no reference marks at all. Not too much, straight, he should be past it now. Or was he going in the wrong direction? He would be off the edge of the Road soon. He was unaware of the sweat standing out on his face and dampening his palms.

  The tiniest of blips on the cable screen.

  “I have it again!”

  He centered the wheel, then turned it gradually as the blip slowly moved across the screen to align itself. When it did so he flipped on the autopilot and leaned back.

  “So much for that; now let’s see how far this goes on.”

  He kept the speed controls to himself but allowed the autopilot to track the cable. The Road was still beneath them, impossible as it seemed. They watched as a rainstorm blew towards them and washed over the engine, blanketing vision in all directions. Jan turned on the wipers and the headlights. There was a clatter of relays from the engine room.

  “You’ve lost about half your lights,” Eino reported. “Shorted out, circuit breakers kicked out.”

  “Will it mean trouble? What about the rest of the lights?”

  “Should be all right. All the circuits are isolated.”

  They went on. Rain on all sides and just the spattered surface of the water ahead. Water that rose higher and higher, slowly and surely. There was a sudden ascending whine from the engine room and the engine shuddered, lurching sideways.