They were sick of my face and already considering me a candidate for the
paranoid ward. All I would have to do is go roaring into the station to
tell them that I had uncovered some deep plot where the underground was
using ornamental road signs to conceal their own network of roads and
directions, and that the disappearance of Catherine Lewis, Dr. Thorndyke
and the removal of the Harrisons were all tied together.
Instead, I closed my apartment and told everyone that I was going to
take a long, rambling tourist jaunt to settle my nerves; that I thought
getting away from the scene might finish the job that time and rest had
started.
Then I started to drive. I drove for several days, not attempting to
pace off miles, but covering a lot of aimless-direction territory. I was
just as likely to spend four hours going North on one highway, and then
take the next four coming back South on a parallel highway, and
sometimes I even came back to the original starting place. After a week
I had come no farther West than across that sliver of West Virginia into
Eastern Ohio. And in Eastern Ohio I saw some more of the now familiar
and suspicious road signs.
The emblem was right side up, and the signs looked as though they had
not been up long.
I followed that road for seventy-five miles, and as I went the signs
kept getting newer and newer until I finally came to a truck loaded with
pipe, hardware, and ornamental ironwork. Leading the truck was one of
those iron mole things.
I watched the automatic gear hoist one of the old pipe and white and
black enamel roadsigns up by its roots, and place it on a truck full of
discards. I watched the mole drive a corkscrew blade into the ground
with a roaring of engine and bucking of the truck. It paused, pulled
upward to bring out the screw and its load of dirt, stones and gravel.
The crew placed one of the new signs in the cradle and I watched the
machine set the sign upright, pour the concrete, tamp down the earth,
and then move along down the road.
There was little point in asking questions of the crew, so I just took
off and drove to Columbus as hard as I could make it.
* * * * *
Shined, cleaned, polished, and very conservatively dressed, I presented
myself to the State Commissioner of Roads and Highways. I toyed briefly
with the idea of representing myself as a minor official from some
distant state like Alaska or the Virgin Islands, inquiring about these
signs for official reasons. But then I knew that if I bumped into a hot
telepath I'd be in the soup. On the other hand, mere curiosity on the
part of a citizen, well oiled with compliments, would get me at the very
least a polite answer.
The Commissioner's fifth-under-secretary bucked me down the hall;
another office bucked me upstairs. A third buck-around brought me to the
Department of Highways Marking and Road Maps.
A sub-secretary finally admitted that he might be able to help me. His
name was Houghton. But whether he was telepath or esper did not matter
because the Commission building was constructed right in the middle of a
dead area.
I still played it straight. I told him I was a citizen of New York,
interested in the new road signs, Ohio was to be commended, et cetera.
"I'm glad you feel that way," he said beaming.
"I presume these signs cost quite a bit more than the stark, black and
white enamel jobs?"
"On the contrary," he said with pride. "They might, but mass-production
methods brought the cost down. You see, the enamel jobs, while we buy
several thousand of the plates for any highway, must be set up, stamped
out, enamelled, and so on. The new signs are all made in one plant as
they are needed; I don't suppose you know, but the highway number and
any other information is put on the plate from loose, snap-in letters.
That means we can buy so many thousand of this or that letter or number,
and the necessary base plates and put them together as needed. They
admitted that they were still running at a loss, but if they could get
enough states interested, they'd eventually come out even, and maybe
they could reduce the cost. Why, they even have a contingent-clause in
the contract stating that if the cost were lowered, they would make a
rebate to cover it. That's so the first users will not bide their time
instead of buying now."
He went on and on and on like any bureaucrat. I was glad we were in a
dead area because he'd have thrown me out of his office for what I was
thinking.
Eventually Mr. Houghton ran down and I left.
I toyed around with the idea of barging in on the main office of the
company but I figured that might be too much like poking my head into a
hornet's nest.
I pocketed the card he gave me from the company, and I studied the
ink-fresh road map, which he had proudly supplied. It pointed out in a
replica panel of the fancy signs, that the State of Ohio was beautifying
their highways with these new signs at no increased cost to the
taxpayer, and that the dates in green on the various highways here and
there gave the dates when the new signs would be installed. The bottom
of the panel gave the Road Commissioner's name in boldface with
Houghton's name below in slightly smaller print.
I smiled. Usually I get mad at signs that proclaim that such and such a
tunnel is being created by Mayor So-and-so, as if the good mayor were
out there with a shovel and hoe digging the tunnel. But this sort of
thing would have been a worthy cause if it hadn't been for the sinister
side.
I selected a highway that had been completed toward Cincinnati and made
my way there with no waste of time.
* * * * *
The road was new and it was another beaut. The signs led me on, mile
after mile and sign after sign.
I did not know what I was following, and I was not sure I knew what I
was looking for. But I was on the trail of something and a bit of
activity, both mental and physical, after weeks of blank-wall
frustration made my spirits rise and my mental equipment sharper. The
radio in the car was yangling with hillbilly songs, the only thing you
can pick up in Ohio, but I didn't care. I was looking for something
significant.
I found it late in the afternoon about half-way between Dayton and
Cincinnati. One of the spokes was missing.
Fifty yards ahead was a crossroad.
I hauled in with a whine of rubber and brakes, and sat there trying to
reason out my next move by logic. Do I turn with the missing spoke, or
do I turn with the one that is not missing?
Memory came to my aid. The "ten o'clock" spoke had been missing back
there near the Harrison farm. The Harrisons had lived on the left side
of the highway. One follows the missing spoke. Here the "two o'clock"
spoke was missing, so I turned to the right along the crossroad until I
came to another sign that was complete.
Then, wondering, I U-turned and drove back across the main highway and
drove for about five miles watching the signs as I went. The ones on my
right had that trefoil emblem upside down. The ones on my left were
right side up. The difference was so small that only someone who knew
the significance would distinguish one from the other. So far as I could
reason out, it meant that what I sought was in the other direction. When
the emblem was upside down I was going away from, and when right side
up, I was going toward.
Away from or toward what?