Murmurs of delight. Clinkings of glasses. Gurglings of liquid.
Someone bounded a piano chord. Voices rose:
"A-Driving he will go,
A-Driving he will go,
To Hell and back in a coffin-sack
A-Driving he will go."
Tom downed his glass of champagne. A pleasant warmth filled his belly.
A satisfying numbness dulled the raw ache of fear.
He smiled bitterly.
There was kindness and gentleness within the human heart, he thought,
but like tiny inextinguishable fires, there were ferocity and
savageness, too. What else could one expect from a race only a few
thousand years beyond the spear and stone axe?
Through his imagination passed a parade of sombre scenes:
The primitive man dancing about a Paleolithic fire, chanting an
invocation to strange gods who might help in tomorrow's battle with
the hairy warriors from the South.
The barrel-chested Roman gladiator, with trident and net, striding into
the great stone arena.
The silver-armored knight, gauntlet in gloved hand, riding into the
pennant-bordered tournament ground.
The rock-shouldered fullback trotting beneath an avalanche of cheers
into the 20th Century stadium.
Men needed a challenge to their wits, a test for their strength. The
urge to combat and the lust for danger was as innate as the desire for
life. Who was he to say that the law of Driving was unjust?
Nevertheless he shuddered.
And the singers continued:
"A thousand miles an hour,
A thousand miles an hour,
Angels cry and devils sigh
At a thousand miles an hour...."
* * * * *
The jetmobile terminal was like a den of chained, growling black
tigers. White-cloaked attendants scurried from stall to stall, deft
hands flying over atomic-engine controls and flooding each vehicle with
surging life.
Ashen-faced, shivering in the early-morning coolness, Tom Rogers handed
an identification slip to an attendant.
"Okay, kid," the rat-faced man wheezed, "there she is--Stall 17. Brand
new, first time out. Good luck."
Tom stared in horror at the grumbling metal beast.
"But remember," the attendant said, "don't try to make a killing your
first day. Most Drivers aren't out to get a Ribbon every day either.
They just want to get to work or school, mostly, and have fun doing it."
_Have fun doing it_, thought Tom. _Good God._
About him passed other black-uniformed Drivers. They paused at
the heads of their stalls, donned crash-helmets and safety belts,
adjusted goggles. They were like primitive warriors, like cocky Roman
gladiators, like armored knights, like star fullbacks. They were
formidable and professional.
Tom's imagination wandered.
_By Jupiter's beard, we'll vanquish Attila and his savages. We'll prove
ourselves worthy of being men and Romans.... The Red Knight? I vow,
Mother, that his blood alone shall know the sting of the lance....
Don't worry, Dad. Those damned Japs and Germans won't lay a hand on
me.... Watch me on TV, folks. Three touchdowns today--I promise!_
The attendant's voice snapped him back to reality. "What you waiting
for, kid? Get in!"
Tom's heart pounded. He felt the hot pulse of blood in his temples.
The Hornet lay beneath him like an open, waiting coffin.
He swayed.
"Hi, Tom!" a boyish voice called. "Bet I beat ya!"
Tom blinked and beheld a small-boned, tousled-haired lad of seventeen
striding past the stall. What was his name? Miles. That was it. Larry
Miles. A frosh at Western U.
A skinny, pimply-faced boy suddenly transformed into a black-garbed
warrior. How could this be?
"Okay," Tom called, biting his lip.
He looked again at the Hornet. A giddiness returned to him.
You can say you're sick, he told himself. It's happened before: a
hangover from the party. Sure. Tomorrow you'll feel better. If you
could just have one more day, just one--
Other Hornets were easing out into the slip, sleek black cats embarking
on an insane flight. One after another, grumbling, growling, spatting
scarlet flame from their tail jets.
Perhaps if he waited a few minutes, the traffic would be thinner. He
could have coffee, let the other nine-o'clock people go on ahead of him.
_No, dammit, get it over with. If you crash, you crash. If you die, you
die. You and Grandpa and a million others._
He gritted his teeth, fighting the omnipresent giddiness. He eased his
body down into the Hornet's cockpit. He felt the surge of incredible
energies beneath the steelite controls. Compared to this vehicle, the
ancient training jets were as children's toys.
An attendant snapped down the plexite canopy. Ahead, a guide-master
twirled a blue flag in a starting signal.
Tom flicked on a switch. His trembling hands tightened about the
steering lever. The Hornet lunged forward, quivering as it was seized
by the Jetway's electromagnetic guide-field.
He drove....
* * * * *
One hundred miles an hour, two hundred, three hundred.
Down the great asphalt valley he drove. Perspiration formed inside his
goggles, steaming the glass. He tore them off. The glaring whiteness
hurt his eyes.
Swish, swish swish.
Jetmobiles roared past him. The rushing wind of their passage buffeted
his own car. His hands were knuckled white around the steering lever.
He recalled the advice of Harry Hayden: Don't let 'er under 600 per. If
you do, some old veteran'll know you're a greenhorn and try to knock
you off.
Lord. Six hundred.
But strangely, a measure of desperate courage crept into his
fear-clouded mind. If Larry Miles, a pimply-faced kid of seventeen,
could do it, so could he. Certainly, he told himself.
His foot squeezed down on the accelerator. Atomic engines hummed
smoothly.
To his right, he caught a kaleidoscopic glimpse of a white
gyro-ambulance. A group of metal beasts lay huddled on the emergency
strip like black ants feeding on a carcass.
_Like Grandfather_, he thought. _Like those two moments out of the dark
past, moments of screaming flame and black death and a child's horror._
Swish.
The scene was gone, transformed into a cluster of black dots on his
rear-vision radarscope.
His stomach heaved. For a moment he thought he was going to be sick
again.
But stronger now than his horror was a growing hatred of that horror.
His body tensed as if he were fighting a physical enemy. He fought his
memories, tried to thrust them back into the oblivion of lost time,
tried to leave them behind him just as his Hornet had left the cluster
of metal beasts.
He took a deep breath. He was not going to be sick after all.
Five hundred now. Six hundred. He'd reached the speed without realizing
it. Keep 'er steady. Stay on the right. If Larry Miles can do it, so
can you.
_Swooommmm._
God, where did _that_ one come from?
Only ten minutes more. You'll be there. You'll make a right hand turn
at the college. The automatic pilot'll take care of that. You won't
have to get in the fast traffic lanes.
He wiped perspiration from his forehead. Not so bad, these Drivers.
Like Harry Hayden said, the killers come out on Saturdays and Sundays.
Now, most of us are just anxious to get to work and school.