[Illustration]
* * * * *
[Illustration]
The late afternoon sun hid behind gray banks of snow clouds and a cold
wind whipped loose leaves across the drill field in front of the
Philadelphia Barracks of the North American Continental Thruway
Patrol. There was the feel of snow in the air but the thermometer
hovered just at the freezing mark and the clouds could turn either
into icy rain or snow.
Patrol Sergeant Ben Martin stepped out of the door of the barracks and
shivered as a blast of wind hit him. He pulled up the zipper on his
loose blue uniform coveralls and paused to gauge the storm clouds
building up to the west.
The broad planes of his sunburned face turned into the driving cold
wind for a moment and then he looked back down at the weather report
secured to the top of a stack of papers on his clipboard.
Behind him, the door of the barracks was shouldered open by his junior
partner, Patrol Trooper Clay Ferguson. The young, tall Canadian
officer's arms were loaded with paper sacks and his patrol work helmet
dangled by its strap from the crook of his arm.
Clay turned and moved from the doorway into the wind. A sudden gust
swept around the corner of the building and a small sack perched atop
one of the larger bags in his arms blew to the ground and began
tumbling towards the drill field.
"Ben," he yelled, "grab the bag."
The sergeant lunged as the sack bounced by and made the retrieve. He
walked back to Ferguson and eyed the load of bags in the blond-haired
officer's arms.
"Just what is all this?" he inquired.
"Groceries," the youngster grinned. "Or to be more exact, little
gourmet items for our moments of gracious living."
Ferguson turned into the walk leading to the motor pool and Martin
swung into step beside him. "Want me to carry some of that junk?"
"Junk," Clay cried indignantly. "You keep your grimy paws off these
delicacies, peasant. You'll get yours in due time and perhaps it will
help Kelly and me to make a more polished product of you instead of
the clodlike cop you are today."
Martin chuckled. This patrol would mark the start of the second year
that he, Clay Ferguson and Medical-Surgical Officer Kelly Lightfoot
had been teamed together. After twenty-two patrols, cooped up in a
semiarmored vehicle with a man for ten days at a time, you got to know
him pretty well. And you either liked him or you hated his guts.
As senior officer, Martin had the right to reject or keep his partner
after their first eleven-month duty tour. Martin had elected to retain
the lanky Canadian. As soon as they had pulled into New York Barracks
at the end of their last patrol, he had made his decisions. After
eleven months and twenty-two patrols on the Continental Thruways, each
team had a thirty-day furlough coming.
Martin and Ferguson had headed for the city the minute they put their
signatures on the last of the stack of reports needed at the end of a
tour. Then, for five days and nights, they tied one on. MSO Kelly
Lightfoot had made a beeline for a Columbia Medical School seminar on
tissue regeneration. On the sixth day, Clay staggered out of bed,
swigged down a handful of antireaction pills, showered, shaved and
dressed and then waved good-by. Twenty minutes later he was aboard a
jet, heading for his parents' home in Edmonton, Alberta. Martin soloed
around the city for another week, then rented a car and raced up to
his sister's home in Burlington, Vermont, to play Uncle Bountiful to
Carol's three kids and to lap up as much as possible of his sister's
real cooking.
While the troopers and their med officer relaxed, a service crew moved
their car down to the Philadelphia motor pool for a full overhaul and
refitting for the next torturous eleven-month-tour of duty.
The two patrol troopers had reported into the Philadelphia Barracks
five days ago--Martin several pounds heavier courtesy of his sister's
cooking; Ferguson several pounds lighter courtesy of three assorted,
starry-eyed, uniform-struck Alberta maidens.
They turned into the gate of the motor pool and nodded to the sentry
at the gate. To their left, the vast shop buildings echoed to the
sound of body-banging equipment and roaring jet engines. The darkening
sky made the brilliant lights of the shop seem even brighter and the
hulls of a dozen patrol cars cast deep shadows around the work crews.
The troopers turned into the dispatcher's office and Clay carefully
placed the bags on a table beside the counter. Martin peered into one
of the bags. "Seriously, kid, what do you have in that grab bag?"
"Oh, just a few essentials," Clay replied "_Pate de foie gras_, sharp
cheese, a smidgen of cooking wine, a handful of spices. You know,
stuff like that. Like I said--essentials."
"Essentials," Martin snorted, "you give your brains to one of those
Alberta chicks of yours for a souvenir?"
"Look, Ben," Ferguson said earnestly, "I suffered for eleven months in
that tin mausoleum on tracks because of what you fondly like to think
is edible food. You've got as much culinary imagination as Beulah. I
take that back. Even Beulah turns out some better smells when she's
riding on high jet than you'll ever get out of her galley in the next
one hundred years. This tour, I intend to eat like a human being once
again. And I'll teach you how to boil water without burning it."
"Why you ungrateful young--" Martin yelped.
* * * * *
The patrol dispatcher, who had been listening with amused tolerance,
leaned across the counter.
"If Oscar Waldorf is through with his culinary lecture, gentlemen," he
said, "perhaps you two could be persuaded to take a little pleasure
ride. It's a lovely night for a drive and it's just twenty-six hundred
miles to the next service station. If you two aren't cooking anything
at the moment, I know that NorCon would simply adore having the
services of two such distinguished Continental Commandos."
Ferguson flushed and Martin scowled at the dispatcher. "Very funny,
clown. I'll recommend you for trooper status one of these days."
"Not me," the dispatcher protested. "I'm a married man. You'll never
get me out on the road in one of those blood-and-gut factories."
"So quit sounding off to us heroes," Martin said, "and give us the
clearances."
The dispatcher opened a loose-leaf reference book on the counter and
then punched the first of a series of buttons on a panel. Behind him,
the wall lighted with a map of the eastern United States to the
Mississippi River. Ferguson and Martin had pencils out and poised over
their clipboards.
The dispatcher glanced at the order board across the room where patrol
car numbers and team names were displayed on an illuminated board.
"Car 56--Martin-Ferguson-Lightfoot," glowed with an amber light. In
the column to the right was the number "26-W." The dispatcher punched
another button. A broad belt of multi-colored lines representing the
eastern segment of North American Thruway 26 flashed onto the map in a
band extending from Philadelphia to St. Louis. The thruway went on to
Los Angeles in its western segment, not shown on the map. Ten bands of
color--each five separated by a narrow clear strip, detailed the
thruway. Martin and Ferguson were concerned with the northern five
bands; NAT 26-westbound. Other unlighted lines radiated out in
tangential spokes to the north and south along the length of the
multi-colored belt of NAT 26.
This was just one small segment of the Continental Thruway system that
spanned North America from coast to coast and crisscrossed north and
south under the Three Nation Road Compact from the southern tip of
Mexico into Canada and Alaska.
Each arterial cut a five-mile-wide path across the continent and from
one end to the other, the only structures along the roadways were the
turretlike NorCon Patrol check and relay stations--looming up at
one-hundred-mile intervals like the fire control islands of
earlier-day aircraft carriers.
Car 56 with Trooper Sergeant Ben Martin, Trooper Clay Ferguson and
Medical-Surgical Officer Kelly Lightfoot, would take their first
ten-day patrol on NAT 26-west. Barring major disaster, they would eat,
sleep and work the entire time from their car; out of sight of any but
distant cities until they had reached Los Angeles at the end of the
patrol. Then a five-day resupply and briefing period and back onto
another thruway.
During the coming patrol they would cross ten state lines as if they
didn't exist. And as far as thruway traffic control and authority was
concerned, state and national boundaries actually didn't exist. With
the growth of the old interstate highway system and the Alcan Highway
it became increasingly evident that variation in motor vehicle laws
from state to state and country to country were creating impossible
situations for any uniform safety control.
* * * * *
With the establishment of the Continental Thruway System two decades
later, came the birth of the supra-cop--The North American Thruway
Patrol, known as NorCon. Within the five-mile bands of the
thruways--all federally-owned land by each of the three nations--the
blue-coveralled "Continental Commandos" of NorCon were the sole law
enforcement agency and authority. Violators of thruway law were cited
into NorCon district traffic courts located in the nearest city to
each access port along every thruway.
There was no challenge to the authority of NorCon. Public demand for
faster and more powerful vehicles had forced the automotive industry
to put more and more power under the touch of the ever-growing
millions of drivers crowding the continent's roads. Piston drive gave
way to turbojet; turbojet was boosted by a modification of ram jet and
air-cushion drive was added. In the last two years, the first of the
nuclear reaction mass engines had hit the roads. Even as the hot
Ferraris and Jags of the mid-'60s would have been suicide vehicles on
the T-model roads of the '20s so would today's vehicles be on the
interstates of the '60s. But building roads capable of handling three
hundred to four hundred miles an hour speeds was beyond the financial
and engineering capabilities of individual states and nations. Thus
grew the continental thruways with their four speed lanes in each
direction, each a half-mile wide separated east and west and north and
south by a half-mile-wide landscaped divider. Under the Three Nation
Compact, the thruways now wove a net across the entire North American
continent.
On the big wall map, NAT 26-west showed as four colored lines; blue
and yellow as the two high and ultra-high speed lanes; green and white
for the intermediate and slow lanes. Between the blue and yellow and
the white and green was a red band. This was the police emergency
lane, never used by other than official vehicles and crossed by the
traveling public shifting from one speed lane to another only at
sweeping crossovers.
The dispatcher picked up an electric pointer and aimed the light beam
at the map. Referring to his notes, he began to recite.
"Resurfacing crews working on 26-W blue at milestone Marker 185 to
Marker 187, estimated clearance 0300 hours Tuesday--Let's see, that's
tomorrow morning."
The two officers were writing the information down on their
trip-analysis sheets.
"Ohio State is playing Cal under the lights at Columbus tonight so you
can expect a traffic surge sometime shortly after 2300 hours but most
of it will stay in the green and white. Watch out for the drunks
though. They might filter out onto the blue or yellow.
"The crossover for NAT 163 has painting crews working. Might watch out
for any crud on the roadway. And they've got the entrance blocked
there so that all 163 exchange traffic is being rerouted to 164 west
of Chillicothe."
The dispatcher thumbed through his reference sheets. "That seems to be
about all. No, wait a minute. This is on your trick. The Army's got a
priority missile convoy moving out of the Aberdeen Proving Grounds
bound for the west coast tonight at 1800 hours. It will be moving at
green lane speeds so you might watch out for it. They'll have
thirty-four units in the convoy. And that is all. Oh, yes. Kelly's
already aboard. I guess you know about the weather."
Martin nodded. "Yup. We should be hitting light snows by 2300 hours
tonight in this area and it could be anything from snow to ice-rain
after that." He grinned at his younger partner. "The vacation is over,
sonny. Tonight we make a man out of you."
Ferguson grinned back. "Nuts to you, pop. I've got character witnesses
back in Edmonton who'll give you glowing testimonials about my
manhood."
"Testimonials aren't legal unless they're given by adults," Martin
retorted. "Come on, lover boy. Duty calls."
Clay carefully embraced his armload of bundles and the two officers
turned to leave. The dispatcher leaned across the counter.
"Oh, Ferguson, one thing I forgot. There's some light corrugations in
red lane just east of St. Louis. You might be careful with your
souffles in that area. Wouldn't want them to fall, you know."
Clay paused and started to turn back. The grinning dispatcher ducked
into the back office and slammed the door.
* * * * *
The wind had died down by the time the troopers entered the
brilliantly lighted parking area. The temperature seemed warmer with
the lessening winds but in actuality, the mercury was dropping. The
snow clouds to the west were much nearer and the overcast was getting
darker.
But under the great overhead light tubes, the parking area was
brighter than day. A dozen huge patrol vehicles were parked on the
front "hot" line. Scores more were lined out in ranks to the back of
the parking zone. Martin and Ferguson walked down the line of military
blue cars. Number 56 was fifth on the line. Service mechs were just
re-housing fueling lines into a ground panel as the troopers walked
up. The technician corporal was the first to speak. "All set, Sarge,"
he said. "We had to change an induction jet at the last minute and I
had the port engine running up to reline the flow. Thought I'd better
top 'er off for you, though, before you pull out. She sounds like a
purring kitten."
He tossed the pair a waving salute and then moved out to his service
dolly where three other mechs were waiting.
The officers paused and looked up at the bulk of the huge patrol car.
"Beulah looks like she's been to the beauty shop and had the works,"
Martin said. He reached out and slapped the maglurium plates. "Welcome
home, sweetheart. I see you've kept a candle in the window for your
wandering son." Ferguson looked up at the lighted cab, sixteen feet
above the pavement.
Car 56--Beulah to her team--was a standard NorCon Patrol vehicle. She
was sixty feet long, twelve feet wide and twelve feet high; topped by
a four-foot-high bubble canopy over her cab. All the way across her
nose was a three-foot-wide luminescent strip. This was the variable
beam headlight that could cut a day-bright swath of light through
night, fog, rain or snow and could be varied in intensity, width and
elevation. Immediately above the headlight strip were two red-black
plastic panels which when lighted, sent out a flashing red emergency
signal that could be seen for miles. Similar emergency lights and
back-up white light strips adorned Beulah's stern. Her bow rounded
down like an old-time tank and blended into the track assembly of her
dual propulsion system. With the exception of the cabin bubble and a
two-foot stepdown on the last fifteen feet of her hull, Beulah was
free of external protrusions. Racked into a flush-decked recess on one
side of the hull was a crane arm with a two-hundred-ton lift capacity.
Several round hatches covered other extensible gear and periscopes
used in the scores of multiple operations the NorCon cars were called
upon to accomplish on routine road patrols.
Beulah resembled a gigantic offspring of a military tank, sans heavy
armament. But even a small stinger was part of the patrol car
equipment. As for armament, Beulah had weapons to meet every
conceivable skirmish in the deadly battle to keep Continental Thruways
fast-moving and safe. Her own two-hundred-fifty-ton bulk could reach
speeds of close to six hundred miles an hour utilizing one or both of
her two independent propulsion systems.
At ultra-high speeds, Beulah never touched the ground--floating on an
impeller air cushion and driven forward by a pair of one hundred fifty
thousand pound thrust jets and ram jets. At intermediate high speeds,
both her air cushion and the four-foot-wide tracks on each side of the
car pushed her along at two hundred-mile-an-hour-plus speeds. Synchro
mechanisms reduced the air cushion as the speeds dropped to afford
more surface traction for the tracks. For slow speeds and heavy duty,
the tracks carried the burden.
Martin thumbed open the portside ground-level cabin door.
"I'll start the outside check," he told Clay. "You stow that garbage
of yours in the galley and start on the dispensary. I'll help you
after I finish out here."
As the younger officer entered the car and headed up the short flight
of steps to the working deck, the sergeant unclipped a check list
from the inside of the door and turned towards the stern of the big
vehicle.
* * * * *
Clay mounted to the work deck and turned back to the little galley
just aft of the cab. As compact as a spaceship kitchen--as a matter of
fact, designed almost identically from models on the Moon run--the
galley had but three feet of open counter space. Everything else,
sink, range, oven and freezer, were built-ins with pull-downs for use
as needed. He set his bags on the small counter to put away after the
pre-start check. Aft of the galley and on the same side of the
passageway were the double-decked bunks for the patrol troopers.
Across the passageway was a tiny latrine and shower. Clay tossed his
helmet on the lower bunk as he went down the passageway. At the
bulkhead to the rear, he pressed a wall panel and a thick, insulated
door slid back to admit him to the engine compartment. The service
crews had shut down the big power plants and turned off the air
exchangers and already the heat from the massive engines made the
compartment uncomfortably warm.
He hurried through into a small machine shop. In an emergency, the
troopers could turn out small parts for disabled vehicles or for other
uses. It also stocked a good supply of the most common failure parts.
Racked against the ceiling were banks of cutting torches, a grim
reminder that death or injury still rode the thruways with increasing
frequency.
In the tank storage space between the ceiling and top of the hull were
the chemical fire-fighting liquids and foam that could be applied by
nozzles, hoses and towers now telescoped into recesses in the hull.
Along both sides and beneath the galley, bunks, engine and
machine-shop compartments between the walls, deck and hull, were
Beulah's fuel storage tanks.
The last after compartment was a complete dispensary, one that would
have made the emergency room or even the light surgery rooms of
earlier-day hospitals proud.
Clay tapped on the door and went through. Medical-Surgical Officer
Kelly Lightfoot was sitting on the deck, stowing sterile bandage packs
into a lower locker. She looked up at Clay and smiled. "Well, well,
you DID manage to tear yourself away from your adoring bevies," she
said. She flicked back a wisp of golden-red hair from her forehead and
stood up. The patrol-blue uniform coverall with its belted waist
didn't do much to hide a lovely, properly curved figure. She walked
over to the tall Canadian trooper and reached up and grabbed his ear.
She pulled his head down, examined one side critically and then
quickly snatched at his other ear and repeated the scrutiny. She let
go of his ear and stepped back. "Damned if you didn't get all the
lipstick marks off, too."
Clay flushed. "Cut it out, Kelly," he said. "Sometimes you act just
like my mother."
The olive-complexioned redhead grinned at him and turned back to her
stack of boxes on the deck. She bent over and lifted one of the boxes
to the operating table. Clay eyed her trim figure. "You might act like
ma sometimes," he said, "but you sure don't look like her."
It was the Irish-Cherokee Indian girl's turn to flush. She became very
busy with the contents of the box. "Where's Ben?" she asked over her
shoulder.
"Making outside check. You about finished in here?"
Kelly turned and slowly scanned the confines of the dispensary. With
the exception of the boxes on the table and floor, everything was
behind secured locker doors. In one corner, the compact
diagnostician--capable of analyzing many known human bodily ailments
and every possible violent injury to the body--was locked in its
riding clamps. Surgical trays and instrument racks were all hidden
behind locker doors along with medical and surgical supplies. On
either side of the emergency ramp door at the stern of the vehicle,
three collapsible autolitters hung from clamps. Six hospital bunks in
two tiers of three each, lined another wall. On patrol, Kelly utilized
one of the hospital bunks for her own use except when they might all
be occupied with accident or other kind of patients. And this would
never be for more than a short period, just long enough to transfer
them to a regular ambulance or hospital vehicle. Her meager supply of
personal items needed for the ten-day patrol were stowed in a small
locker and she shared the latrine with the male members of the team.
Kelly completed her scan, glanced down at the checklist in her hand.
"I'll have these boxes stowed in five minutes. Everything else is
secure." She raised her hand to her forehead in mock salute.
"Medical-Surgical Officer Lightfoot reports dispensary ready for
patrol, sir."
Clay smiled and made a checkmark on his clipboard. "How was the
seminar, Kelly?" he asked.
Kelly hiked herself onto the edge of the operating table. "Wonderful,
Clay, just wonderful. I never saw so many good-looking, young, rich
and eligible doctors together in one place in all my life."
She sighed and smiled vacantly into space.
Clay snorted. "I thought you were supposed to be learning something
new about tissue regeneration," he said.
"Generation, regeneration, who cares," Kelly grinned.
Clay started to say something, got flustered and wheeled around to
leave--and bounded right off Ben Martin's chest. Ferguson mumbled
something and pushed past the older officer.
Ben looked after him and then turned back to Car 56's combination
doctor, surgeon and nurse. "Glad to see the hostess aboard for this
cruise. I hope you make the passengers more comfortable than you've
just made the first mate. What did you do to Clay, Kelly?"
"Hi, Ben," Kelly said. "Oh, don't worry about junior. He just gets all
fluttery when a girl takes away his masculine prerogative to make
cleverly lewd witticisms. He'll be all right. Have a happy holiday,
Ben? You look positively fat."
Ben patted his stomach. "Carol's good cooking. Had a nice restful
time. And how about you. That couldn't have been all work. You've got
a marvelous tan."
"Don't worry," Kelly laughed, "I had no intention of letting it be all
study. I spent just about as much time under the sun dome at the pool
as I did in class. I learned a lot though."
[Illustration]
Ben grinned and headed back to the front of the car. "Tell me more
after we're on the road," he said from the doorway. "We'll be rolling
in ten minutes."
When he reached the cab, Clay was already in the right-hand control
seat and was running down the instrument panel check. The sergeant
lifted the hatch door between the two control seats and punched on a
light to illuminate the stark compartment at the lower front end of
the car. A steel grill with a dogged handle on the upper side covered
the opening under the hatch cover. Two swing-down bunks were racked up
against the walls on either side and the front hull door was without
an inside handle. This was the patrol car brig, used for bringing in
unwilling violators or other violent or criminal subjects who might
crop up in the course of a patrol tour. Satisfied with the appearance
of the brig, Ben closed the hatch cover and slid into his own control
seat on the left of the cab. Both control seats were molded and
plastiformed padded to the contours of the troopers and the armrests
on both were studded with buttons and a series of small,
finger-operated, knobs. All drive, communication and fire fighting
controls for the massive vehicle were centered in the knobs and
buttons on the seat arms, while acceleration and braking controls were
duplicated in two footrest pedals beneath their feet.
Ben settled into his seat and glanced down to make sure his
work-helmet was racked beside him. He reached over and flipped a bank
of switches on the instrument panel. "All communications to 'on,'" he
said. Clay made a checkmark on his list. "All pre-engine start check
complete," Clay replied.
"In that case," the senior trooper said, "let's give Beulah some
exercise. Start engines."
Clay's fingers danced across the array of buttons on his seat arms and
flicked lightly at the throttle knobs. From deep within the engine
compartment came the muted, shrill whine of the starter engines,
followed a split-second later by the full-throated roar of the jets as
they caught fire. Clay eased the throttles back and the engine noise
softened to a muffled roar.
Martin fingered a press-panel on the right arm of his seat.
"Car 56 to Philly Control," Ben called.