Hours later the trains started forward again. At a much reduced speed until the final repairs could be made, but they were moving. Jan was not aware of it. He had collapsed on the bunk in the engine room, unconscious before his head touched the pillow.
It was dark when he awoke, hours later, and climbed wearily back into the driving compartment. Otakar was at the wheel, his face gray with fatigue.
“Otakar, go below and get some sleep,” Jan ordered.
“I’m fine…
“He is not,” Alzbeta said, most emphatically. “He made me rest, and the others, but has had none himself”
“You hear the lady,” Jan said. “Move.”
Otakar was too tired to argue. He nodded and did as he had been told. Jan slipped into the empty seat and checked the controls and automatic log.
“We’re coming to the bad part now,” he said, soaked in gloom.
“Coming to it!” Alzbeta was shocked. “What would you call that part we have just finished?”
“Normally it would have been one of the easy stretches. The normal life forms there are usually no trouble. It is the ones we are starting through now that are the worst. Residents of eternal summer. All the energy they need from that white hot sun up there, all the food they can consume from the other life forms around them. It’s kill and be killed and it never stops.”
Alzbeta looked out at the jungle beyond the burned edges of the Road and shivered. “I’ve never seen it like this,” she said in a hushed voice. “It all looks so terrible from up here in the engine with the unknown always sweeping toward us. When you look out of a car window it’s so different.”
Jan nodded. “I’m sorry to say it, but there’s far worse out there that we can’t see. Animal life forms never noticed or catalogued. One time I put out nets, just for a few hours when we were going through here, and I caught at least a thousand different kinds of insects. There must be thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands more. The animals are harder to see — but they are there as well. They are voracious and will attack anything. That’s why we never stop out here until we’re out on the islands”
“The insects — why did you want to catch them? Are they good for anything?”
He did not laugh, or even smile, at her simple question. How could she know any better, having been raised on this deadened world? “The answer is yes and no. No, they are good for nothing in the way we usually think of things. We can’t eat them, or use them in any other way. But, yes, the search for knowledge is an end in itself. We are here on this planet because of the pure search for knowledge and the discoveries made thereby. Though perhaps that is not the best example I could have used. Think of it this way…”
“Malfunction reports from train eight,” Ryzo called through from the communication board. “I’m putting you through.”
“Report,” Jan said.
“We seem to have some air intakes that are clogging up.”
“You know the orders. Seal them and recycle the air.”
“We’ve done that on one car, but there are complaints that the air is hard to breathe.”
“There always are. These cars aren’t airtight — enough oxygen is getting in. No matter how bad the air smells it’s still all right. Do not, repeat do not, allow any windows to be opened;” Jan closed the connection and called out to Ryzo, “Can you put me through to Lajos with the tanks.”
The connection was made quickly enough; Lajos sounded exhausted.
“Some of these trees have trunks ten meters thick; takes time to burn through.”
“Narrow the track then. We can’t be more than five hours behind you.”
“The regulations say…”
“The hell with regulations. We’re in a hurry. We’ll be back soon enough and we can widen then.”
While he talked, Jan reset the autopilot, adding ten KPH to their speed. Alzbeta looked at the speedometer, but said nothing.
“I know,” Jan said, “we’re going faster than we should. But we have people jammed in back there, crowded like they have never been before. It’s going to start stinking like a zoo soon…”
The nose radar bleeped a warning as they rounded a turn. Jan flipped off the automatics. Something big was on the Road — but not big enough to slow the engine. The creature reared up to do battle as they hurtled toward it and Alzbeta gasped. A quick vision of a dark green body, bottle green, too many legs, claws, long teeth — and then the engine hit it.
There was a thud as they struck, then a jarring as they crushed the body beneath the wheels, then nothing. Jan flipped the autopilot back on.
“We have at least eighteen more hours of this,” he said. “We can’t afford to stop. For any reason.”
Less than three hours had gone by before the alarms came in. It was train eight again, someone shouting so loud the words were unclear.
“Repeat,” Jan said, shouting himself above the other’s hoarse voice. “Repeat, slow down, we cannot understand you.”
“… bit them… unconscious now, all swollen, we’re stopping, get the doctor from number fourteen.”
“You will not stop. That is an order. Next stop in the islands.”
“We must, the children…”
“I will personally put any driver off the train if he stops along this Road. What happened to the children?”
“Some sort of bugs bit them, big; we killed them.”
“How did they get into the car?”
“The window…”
“I gave orders—” Jan clutched the wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white. He took a deep breath before he spoke again. “Open circuit. All car commanders. Check at once for open windows. All of them must be closed. Train eight. There is anti-venom in every car. Administer it at once”
“We did, but it doesn’t seem to be working with the children. We need the doctor.”
“You’re not getting him. We’re not stopping. He can’t do anything other than administer the anti-venom. Hook through to him now and describe the symptoms. He’ll give you what advice he can. But we’re not stopping.”
Jan turned off the radio. “We can’t stop,” he said to himself. “Don’t they understand? We just can’t stop.”
After dark there was more life on the Road, creatures that stood dazzled by the lights until they vanished under the wide wheels, things that appeared suddenly out of the darkness and were crushed against the windshield. The trains kept moving. It wasn’t until dawn that they came to the mountains and the tunnel, diving into its dark mouth as into a refuge. The Road climbed as it penetrated the harrier and when they emerged they were on a high and barren plateau, a rocky plain made by leveling a mountain top. On both sides of the Road the tanks were pulled up, the exhausted drivers sleeping. Jan slowed the trains until the last one had emerged from the tunnel, then signaled the stop. When the brakes were set and the engines off the radio hummed to life.
“This is train eight. We would like the doctor now.” There was a cold bitterness in the voice. “We have seven ill. And three children dead.”
Jan looked out at the dawn so he would not have to see Alzbeta’s face.
Ten
The two of them were eating together at the folding table in the rear of the engine. The Road was straight and flat, and Otakar was alone at the wheel. When they talked quietly he could not hear them. Ryzo was below with Emo; the occasional cry and slap of cards indicated what they were doing. Jan had no appetite but he ate because he knew he had to. Alzbeta ate slowly, as though she wasn’t aware of what she was doing.
“I had to,” Jan said, his voice almost a whisper. She did not answer. “Don’t you understand that? You haven’t said a word to me since. Two days now.” She looked down at her plate. “You’ll answer me or you’ll go back to your family car with the others.”