A voice from within him screamed, "Get off, Krenner, get off! This is a
one way road--" He climbed quickly to the top of the car, to find a
place to jump, and turned back, suddenly sick with fear.
The car was going too fast.
The first car had moved with its load to a high point on the elevated
road. A thundering crash came to Krenner's ears as its bottom opened to
dislodge its contents. Without stopping. Without men. Automatically.
From below he could hear a rushing, roaring sound, and the air was
suddenly warmer than before--
The next car followed the first. And the next. Krenner scrambled to the
top of the car in rising horror as the car ahead moved serenely, jerked
suddenly, and jolted loose its load with a crash of coal against steel.
Twenty tons of coal hurtled down a chute into roaring redness--
Twenty-seven years had changed things. He hadn't heard men, for there
were no men. No men to tend the fires. Glowing, white-hot furnaces,
Markson's furnaces, which were fed on a regular, unerring, merciless
consignment belt, running directly from the Roads. Efficient,
economical, completely automatic.
Krenner's car gave a jolt that threw his head against the side and shook
him down onto the coal load like a bag of potatoes. He clawed
desperately for a grip on the side, clawed and missed. The bottom of the
car opened, and the load fell through with a roar, and the roar drowned
his feeble scream as Krenner fell with the coal.
The last thing he saw below, rushing up, was the glowing, blistering,
white-hot maw of the blast furnace.