The Other Side of Here
- Автор: Лейнстер Мюррей
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Other Side of Here». Краткое содержание книги:
Newark ... Manhattan ... Baltimore—one by one they went out. A succession of thriving communities suddenly put out like a guttered flame—men, women, children sprawled like grotesque mannikins.
Steve Waldron knew it couldn't be plague. There had to be some connection with the disappearance of the nation's top scientists. And then he plunged to the very center of a dead city and gaped at a truth he could not believe. What could he do against so fearsome a force that threatened to engulf the whole nation?
Here's a spine-tingling science-fiction novel by an old master. It will open up a new dimension of suspense and excitement.
By the time the planes returned to soar above the remains of the building from which he'd spoken, the black car was a long way off. Now Waldron looked down at the preposterous sight of a city's population in flight by totally inadequate means.
"See if you can spot those planes," he said presently. "If we can't see them, they probably can't see us."
Lucy got out of the car and went back to where the sky was clearly visible. From far off came the sound of new explosions. Lucy returned. She was tense.
"They're behind that last big hill."
"If you're right," said Waldron, "we may live a little while longer. I'm going to hit this migration."
The black car's motor roared. It shot forward, horn blaring. But there was no possible way for the mass of fugitives to open a path for it. There was not two feet of space between any two cars. However, Waldron kept the car headed toward the flood of traffic. The scream of the car's horn and its seemingly irresistible momentum caused a flurry ahead. Cars tried to close up the tiny spaces to make room and avoid being struck. A protesting din of horn-tootings arose.
It looked like sheer ruthlessness. But Waldron did jam on the brakes as the traffic ahead turned into a bedlam of horns and shoutings. However, a very minor gap had been produced by his tactics in the nearer line of cars. Thrusting his front wheels into that gap, Waldron drove ahead. He pushed the nose of his car into the line and gave all other men the choice of making room for him, or of smashing him and themselves.
Bitter curses rose around him. There were grindings and scrapings. The black car was struck, jarred and dented. A wave of bumper clashings went backward and forward among the cars, like the rippling of water disturbed by a stone. But he was in the traffic, moving and breathing in the mephitic fumes it created.
Loud explosions burst off to one side. The last possible farmhouse in which Waldron could have hidden had now been bombed. The planes, completing their bombing run, flew over the line of traffic. They swept back. Waldron knew that if there had been the barest suspicion that he was in the stream of cars, bombs would have been dropped there too.
"When we humans," said Waldron, "get an idea in our heads, we do carry things to extremes."
But he made no other comment. The car next to them was an ancient taxicab jammed with scared men and women, including a woman with a sleeping baby. The car directly ahead was a delivery truck jammed with Negroes. Beside that was a sports car containing seven people. A motorcycle-and-side-car combination seemed lost in the traffic, though it carried a woman and three children besides the motorcyclist.
A heavy-duty juggernaut of a truck was loaded with household possessions as well as a family, which was certainly not that of the corporation owning the truck. A sedan, neat and trim and newly polished, had all the windows on one side smashed. A limousine held a white-haired woman and an elderly man in the back; in the front were servants in livery. The footman beside the driver had a repeating shotgun between his knees.
Yet, despite the seeming confusion, there were distinctly four lanes of cars. Waldron discovered that his lane moved faster than the next. Presently he saw the cause. An ancient, angular car of the style of fifteen years before was in the stalled line. Steam came from its radiator and a thunderous thumping noise came from its innards.
The engine was no longer running. The thumping came from somewhere in the motor as the wreck on four wheels was pushed by the car behind it. And that other car did not serve willingly, its driver cursing and shouting furiously. And Waldron heard a pounding noise and discovered that it was a flat tire on the wheeled wreck, which bumped and banged and thumped. But in that traffic it was not possible to stop to change tires.
The horde of fugitives pressed on. Once something made the whole column slow down. Then it moved again and Waldron saw a car being pushed off the road. It had caught fire.
This went on for hours. The maximum speed was five miles an hour. Shortly after noon Lucy worried because Waldron had nothing to eat. She took his knife and hacked open a can of the fruit they'd brought from the grocery shelves in the filling station. She fed him as he drove. She had seen other drivers in the swarm being fed and refreshed in the same way.
But the strain was great, not only on men but on machines. Motors heated and boiled. Sometimes they caught fire and flamed luridly. Again they passed in solemn procession a place where a burning car had been heaved out of the way by main strength. It was a pyramid of fire. Its gas tank exploded when they were only a hundred yards beyond and there was tragedy. But the snail-like flight continued.
Then, quite suddenly, the line broke. Some cars darted to the right, where a great highway led northeast. Some swerved to the left and their motors roared as they sped away. Some went straight on, and divided further along, and re-divided.
Waldron turned on the car radio again.
"I've got a hunch what I'll have to do," he said heavily. "But we might as well check up on developments during (the day."
The radio hummed. Music came out of it. Waldron estimated the traffic ahead and behind. He drew out of the road. At least he could get back on it when he chose, here.
The music stopped. An announcer said: News bulletin! It is still not certain that Waldron has been killed and further outbreaks of the plague thus prevented. But he attempted to communicate with authorities this morning, speaking incoherently of reviving plague victims. Planes bombed the farmhouse from which he is believed to have telephoned, and other previously evacuated dwellings in the neighborhood. Two automobiles, also, moving in the same area, were bombed. One was found to be in use by a band of looters. The occupants of the other car have not yet been identified. It is hoped, however, that Waldron is dead, though only with his death made sure can we be positive that no other plague spots will appear. Meanwhile, military cordons have been thrown about Newark and the three other areas ...
"We get an idea in our heads," Waldron observed bitterly, "and we keep it until it's knocked out. And it happens that I'm probably the only person who knows that this idea has to be jolted out of official craniums. It's going to be dangerous, Lucy. I'll drive you to a railroad station. I've got some cash. You can get on a train and go as far as it will take you—"
"No!" said Lucy fiercely.
"It would be safer, though I don't know how much."
"There are just two people in the world I care about," said Lucy, as savagely as before. "There's my father and there's you, Steve. My father is alive, but he's in the hands of the people who're making this monstrous thing they call the plague. And you— Don't you see, Steve, that if anything happens to you I've nothing to live for any more?"
"I'd question that," said Waldron dryly, "but it happens that I don't see much for anybody to live for if Fran's gang isn't licked. He wanted you to go out West. That may mean all the East is likely to be frozen. And Fran—" He frowned. "If Fran's people know you're with me, and they probably do, if you were captured they'd probably make very sure of you. And Fran risked his life and all his family's to prevent it. So the only choice is staying with me or going West, far West."
"I stay!" said Lucy. "Anywhere you go, I go too. And if you're—if you're killed—"
Her voice wavered. Waldron put his hand on hers. "You're a good kid, Lucy." Then he said brusquely, "Our first job is gas and oil. We need it. Then we'll have just about enough time to smash that cordon around Newark in daylight. We can drive without lights and won't be seen from a distance."