“Otakar, can you hear me?”
“Green.”
“Set the interlocks to the cars, then disconnect the engine coupling. I’ll disconnect the cables back here.”
“Are we going for a ride?”
“You might say that.”
There was a whirr and a clatter as the metal jaws of the coupling slowly opened. Jan pushed the heavy tongue aside, then unplugged all the cable connectors. There were loud thuds under the car behind him as the beta safety brakes were actuated. The cables retracted like snakes into a hole, and he climbed back up to the driving compartment.
“I need three volunteers,” he told the waiting crew members as he pulled off the coldsuit. “You, you, and you. Alzbeta, take this suit and get back into the train. What we have to do may take a while.”
She did not protest, but her eyes were on him as she pulled on the suit slowly and left. Otakar dogged the hatch shut after her. Jan studied the glimmering expanse of water ahead. “Emo,” he said, “just how waterproof are we?”
The engineer did not answer at once. He scratched at his ear in thought as he looked around slowly, looking through the steel walls and floor with a mechanic’s eye, seeing all the joints, seals and hatches.
“Not bad at all,” he said, finally. “We’re made for a certain amount of water, drive trains and bearings, access ports and hatches, all with gaskets. Higher up, all right too, at least for a while. I really think we could submerge right up to the roof without getting into trouble. Higher than that and we could short out the cooling fins on top. Up that far I would say we’re waterproof.”
“Then I think we better go before we change our minds.” He dropped into the driver’s chair. “Get on the engine — I may need a lot of power. Ryzo, keep the radio open and keep a report going back. If there is any trouble I want the others to know what happened. Otakar, stand by if I need you.”
“Going for a swim?” the co-driver asked calmly, flipping on switches.
“I hope not. But we have to find out if the Road is still there. We can’t turn back and we can’t stay here. And this is the only Road. This engine stands more than twice as high as the tank. It all depends on the depth of the water. Power.”
“Full.”
The tanks scuttled aside as the hulking engine ground forward. Straight toward the water until the front wheels sent out the first ripples. Then straight in.
“It’s like being in a ship..” Otakar said, almost under his breath. With the slight difference, Jan thought, that this engine doesn’t float. He did not say it aloud.
All about them was water of unknown depth. They knew the Road was still beneath them, for the water had not yet reached the hubs of the great wheels. And the cable blip was high and centered, being followed automatically. But a bow wave was pushed up by the moving engine, and they could have been in a ship for all the apparent connection they had with land — or even with the Road now falling back behind them.
The turret of the tank ahead was a solid reference point that they approached cautiously. As they came close, the water rose steadily. Jan stopped a good twenty meters from the drowned vehicle.
“Water doesn’t quite cover our wheels yet, plenty to go,” Otakar said, looking out of the side window. He tried to speak calmly but his voice was strained.
“How wide would you say the Road is here?” Jan asked.
“One hundred meters, as always, like most of the rest of the Road.”
“Is it? You don’t think this water may have undercut it?”
“I hadn’t thought…”
“I had. We’ll go around the tank, as close as we can. And hope that it is solid enough under the wheels.”
He flipped off the autopilot as he spoke and turned the wheel slowly as they moved forward under complete manual. The high white blip of the central cable drifted across the screen until it vanished. It had been their only guide. Higher and still higher the water rose.
“I hope you’re staying close to the tank,” Ryzo called out. He may have meant it as a joke. It had not sounded like one.
Jan tried to remember just how big the tank was under the water. He wanted to remain as near to it as possible without running into it. Passing as close as he could. Water, nothing but water on all sides, the only sound the rumble of the engines and drive and the hoarse breathing of the men.
“I can’t see it any more,” Jan called out suddenly. “Cameras are dead. Otakar!”
The co-driver had already jumped to the rear window.
“Easy on, almost past, falling slightly behind, you can turn sharp… now!”
Jan obeyed blindly. He could do nothing else. He was in the midst of an ocean, turning a wheel, with no reference marks at all. Not too much, straight, he should be past it now. Or was he going in the wrong direction? He would be off the edge of the Road soon. He was unaware of the sweat standing out on his face and dampening his palms.
The tiniest of blips on the cable screen.
“I have it again!”
He centered the wheel, then turned it gradually as the blip slowly moved across the screen to align itself. When it did so he flipped on the autopilot and leaned back.
“So much for that; now let’s see how far this goes on.”
He kept the speed controls to himself but allowed the autopilot to track the cable. The Road was still beneath them, impossible as it seemed. They watched as a rainstorm blew toward them and washed over the engine, blanketing vision in all directions. Jan turned on the wipers and the headlights. There was a clatter of relays from the engine room.
“You’ve lost about half your lights,” Emo reported. “Shorted out, circuit breakers kicked out.”
“Will it mean trouble? What about the rest of the lights?”
“Should be all right. All the circuits are isolated.”
They went on. Rain on all sides and just the spattered surface of the water ahead. Water that rose higher and higher, slowly and surely. There was a sudden ascending whine from the engine room and the engine shuddered, lurching sideways.
“What is it?” Ryzo called out, an edge of panic in his voice.
“Revs up,” Jan said, clinging to the wheel, turning it, trying to follow the blip of the cable that was sliding off the screen, killing the autopilot as he did. “But Road speed down. We’re moving sideways.”
“Sand, or mud on the Road!” Otakar shouted. “We’re slipping”
“And we’re losing the cable.” Jan turned the wheel even more. “This thing is almost afloat; the wheels are not getting the traction they should. But they will”
He stamped hard on the accelerator and the transmission roared deeply from below. The drive wheels spun in the mud, churning it up, digging into it, roiling the surface of the water around them. The sliding still continued — the cable blip was gone from the screen.
“We’ll go off the edge!” Ryzo shouted.
“Not yet.” Jan’s teeth almost met in the flesh of his lip, but he was not aware of it.
There was a lurch, then another one as the wheels touched the surface of the Road. He cut the power as they gripped again, then crept forward. Moment after moment of silence. Until the cable blip appeared again. He centered it, and looked at the compass to make sure they were not going in the opposite direction. The engine crawled ahead. The rain passed and he killed the lights.
“I’m not sure… but I think the water is lower,” Otakar said in a hoarse voice. “Yes, it is, it must be, that rung was under water a minute ago.”
“I’ll tell you something even better,” Jan said, cutting in the autopilot and dropping back heavily in the chair. “If you look directly ahead I think you’ll see where the Road comes out of the water again.”
The level of the water sank until the wheels were clear, throwing spray in all directions, then they were up on the solid surface once more and Jan killed the power and set the brakes.