"C. M. Kornbluth & Donald A. Wollheim - Interplane Express" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

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They were all accompanied by the code, or whatever it was. He stepped down the gas to eighty-five,
noticed how ridges of concrete had appeared in the road so as to guide his wheels almost automatically,
needing his hand on the wheel only for the more drastic curves and turns.
There were plenty of those after a minute or two. McFee found himself tearing through the most
intricate, nerve-wracking series of twists he had ever encountered. It was like two hundred miles of
clover-leaf intersectionsтАФat eighty-five miles per!
Once, he was sure, he had looped the loop in dare-devil style. Several times he had made flat circles
in his own track, all on incredibly sharp banks. But he wasn't sure. All he could see was the onrushing
flood of concrete spinning beneath his wheels.
Twice there were tunnels to shoot through, lighted and banked, with simple noticesтАФin two
alphabets, he presumedтАФto KEEP SPEED.
After three hours of this insanity there was the welcome sign: SLOW TO FIFTY MPH. Only in this
case the peak-and-valley talk was above the English. He slowed to fifty and heaved a sigh of relief. That
Intpl. Hwy. had been a gas-cooker!
Concerning the scenery, he was interested, greatly interested. The tree were nice, the grass was nice,
everything was very nice. Then what the hell was wrong?
He shrugged and lit a cigarette. He wasтАФnaturallyтАФjumpy after all that driving. He remembered he
hadn't slept last night.
Spike approached an intersection of three highways. McFee stopped to study the markers. He was
still on Intpl. Hwy.тАФagain the peak-and-valley talk was above the English. The other roads were
marked in peak-and-valley only. McFee drove on, with a worried thought to his gas-tank. There was a
town aheadтАФgabled roof's, chalet-like. There were advertising signs on the road, with terse injunctions
on them, all in peak-and-valley.
McFee drove into a gas station, which carried the only English lettering he could see in the place.
And scattered about the station were signs not only in English and peak-and-valley but three other
alphabets, all unfamiliar.
"Yus, sairrr!" snapped an attendant at McFee, beginning to polish the windshield. He was tall and
angular, wore a blue smock.
"Fill 'er up," said McFee faintly, glimpsing the attendant's face. His ears were long and hairy; his eyes
were all pupil, no white showing at all. And he didn't have individual teethтАФjust a white shell like a beak
behind his lips, the way commercial artists draw faces. As the attendant filled 'er up McFee noted a
bushy tail protruding from beneath the blue smock.
Joe paid him with a five-dollar bill. The attendant, after referring to a little book, gave him a small pile
of red and blue and green discs. As Joe took off the hand brake he leaned in and said: "Eef you weesh,
sairrr, you may obtain thee smash-fast dorn thee rrroad." He pointed to a brightly decorated shop-front.
"Therrr it speaks Eengleesh good like me."
"Thanks," said McFee. The attendant presented him, as if by afterthought, with a pamphlet in English
and waved at him cheerily as he drove off to the smash-fast shop. There was a sign in the window:
"English Spoken Here." It turned out to be a much superior variety to that of the attendant.
A kind-faced person who might possibly have been female seated him at a high table and assured
him that she'd see he got real home cooking. Meanwhile, McFee, ignoring the curious ones who were
staring at himтАФLord, he didn't blame them!тАФtook out the pamphlet he had been handed.
The title page said: "Highway Guide for the Interplane Traveller. Published for the Convenience of
Our Patrons by the Winged Wolf Petrol Company. English Edition Published for Distribution on Intpl.
Hwy. Route One Between Springfield-Earth-VI and Valley Junction (Wiog-a-Wof)-Earth-V (The
Swoj)."
McFee devoured the book. It proudly announced the completion of the latest "biplanar spanning
section" of the Interplane Highway into Earth-VI. Earth-V, otherwise known as "The Swoj," was where