Fantastic Stories Presents the Imagination (Stories of Science and Fantasy) Super Pack. Edmond Hamilton
Читать онлайн книгу.
settled back in the seat. “Hurry!”
He looked at the bill. “Yes, indeed.” He started the car. “I sure will.”
The cab whirled away and U-turned toward Vermont.
She felt better to be moving.
And ten minutes later she was arguing with a salesman.
“This will do,” she insisted. “I don’t want a triple-guarantee, a road test, a service check, a—”
“I’ll have to make out a bill of sale.”
“All I want to know is: Is the gas tank full?”
Indignantly, the salesman said: “Of course.”
“Mail me the bill of sale! Tear it up! I don’t care! Here—Here’s my hotel.” After thrusting the card on him, she began to count money.
“The keys are in the ignition. I’ll get your extra set. The license—” He began to recount the money.
She got behind the wheel, snapped on the lights, pressed the ignition button. The motor coughed and roared.
She spun the car out of the lot. She was weak with relief.
Maybe I can outrun him!
I hope.
I’ve got to!
I’ll get as far away as I can. Then I’ll . . . I’ll have to take a chance waiting for an airplane. Then . . . then . . . when my money gives out . . . .
I can’t hope to run forever.
She shuddered.
*
Walt crawled out of the wreck. It seemed to be a miracle he was unhurt.
He had switched the car to automatic drive as he had seen the driver on the desert do; he had not known that there was no automatic-drive beam on that particular stretch of highway.
At the first curve—in a heart beat of time; too fast for him to avert it—the car had hurtled the road and plowed into the embankment.
Walt cursed and shook his head and closed his eyes tightly, gathering his thoughts.
A few minutes later a car with intensely bright headlights stopped to give assistance. Walt threw the driver out and slipped behind the wheel.
In a moment he knew that he had a powerful motor under him.
Chapter VIII
An hour later (two of the twelve hours were gone) Julia was still free. She had weaved and twisted across the city. She had crossed and recrossed the super-highways and the local speedways. She had fled up ramps and through under passes.
She had no way of telling how near Walt was; or what moment and from what direction death might strike. She did not believe that he could reach out through space to snatch her life; if he tried teleportation, she was steeled to resist. The lifeless, glittering windows, the dull glare of overhead and curb lights, the shuttle movement of traffic, the heavy, motionless air—all these combined into bristling menace. Her foot strained against the accelerator; her muscles ached over the wheel.
She hoped she had confused him. Now she streamed for the open highway. She settled the car into a traffic slot on the north-bound coast super-highway. She switched the car on automatic and tried to relax.
The road curved gently toward the west to pick up the coast line. Soon the moonlit breakers hissed on white sand beaches. The ocean lay dark and mysterious toward the far horizon.
She prayed that Walt would not guess for long minutes that she had left the city; that he would lose more precious minutes locating the super-highway.
San Francisco was six hours ahead of her.
*
Walt was continually losing himself in a maze of Los Angeles streets. Ones that seemed to promise to deliver him cross-town to interrupt Julia in her erratic course twined away in improper directions. Occasionally he neared her. But she darted away each time: as if with the primeval instinct of a hunted animal.
At last he stopped the car and cried to a pedestrian across the street: “Is there any place I can get a map of the city?”
“Ask inna filling station.”
Walt snarled. And five minutes later he found the map. He memorized it carefully; it required scarcely more than a minute. During that time, he let his body rest and relax. He threw the map onto the driveway. He grew increasingly more confident of catching her as the information settled into his brain. He visualized the map.
He was ready for her now.
She was already on the super-highway. He left the filling station. He was in no hurry. He was waiting for her to return.
It soon became apparent that she would not.
He grunted and spun his car in her direction.
He lost several minutes in a traffic jam downtown. He got on the wrong lane in a clover leaf beyond the city limits. He had now passed beyond the boundaries of the map he had memorized. He took the ridge super-highway instead of the one Julia had taken. After twenty miles, he realized his mistake and had to cut over. He bounced along an east-west road that was so rough-surfaced he had to reduce his speed.
When he finally arrived on the proper highway he was almost an hour behind Julia.
He concentrated on understanding the physical assembly of the engine in front of him. He could teleport parts from it; he could hold other parts more tightly together by using the same power. But the engine was so very complex. There was (he could tell) something there—in the engine itself—that kept the power from being utilized. He could not locate the block.
He increased the speed by tightening the valves. But the required concentration was too great to be long maintained. It exhausted him and forced him to rest for a few miles. Then he tightened the valves again. The car moved forward in a sudden burst of speed.
*
In San Francisco Julia stopped long enough for a sandwich—long enough to gulp hot coffee—long enough to buy a box of “Wide-awakes.” She checked airline schedules by phone.
The eastern flights were held up by weather over the Rockies. The next strato-jet to Hawaii was due to leave in thirty minutes; but she would have to wait to see if any reservations were canceled before she could be assured of a seat. There would not be another plane south for an hour and a half. One was leaving just then.
She told herself that the airport would become a cul-de-sac unless she could time it perfectly; she could not risk it.
She cruised the city until she had been there over an hour. She was loggy and exhausted.
She was afraid to remain any longer. He might head her off; he might trap her in a dead end street. Once on the straight of way, there was—at least—no danger of that. She left the city and headed north again.
*
Walt arrived ten minutes before she left. He came to a stop at an all night lunch. Invisible, he slipped through walls into the kitchen. He stole food, returned to his car with it, ate it. He drove to a gas station, keeping her position sharply in mind.
“Gas,” he ordered the attendant.
The attendant began filling the tank.
“All the way full,” Walt said. “I want a map of the city when you finish.”
The attendant brought the map. Walt unfolded it.
Julia had left the city. Walt was not going to be fooled this time. But he wanted to memorize the city just in case she did double back.
“Is there .