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 vines 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 afterward. 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 Emo. Ryzo 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 Ryzo 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 Ryzo 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.