To the squares, this was Damnation Alley. To HellTanner, this was still the parking lot. He'd been this way.thirty-two times, and so far as he was concerned the Alleystarted in the place that was once called Colorado.

He led, and they followed, and the night wore on likean abrasive.

No airplane could make it. Not since the war. Nonecould venture above a couple hundred feet, the placewhere the winds began. The winds. The mighty windsthat circled the globe, tearing off the tops of mountains,Sequoia trees, wrecked buildings, gathering up birds, bats,insects and anything else that moved up into the deadbelt; the winds that swirled about the world, lacing theskies with dark lines of debris, occasionally meeting,merging, clashing, dropping tons of carnage wherever theycame together and formed too great a mass. Air transportation was definitely out, to anywhere in the world. Forthese winds circled, and they never ceased. Not in all thetwenty-five years of Tanner's memory had they let up.

Tanner pushed ahead, cutting a diagonal by the greensunset. Dust continued to fall about him, great clouds ofit, and the sky was violet, then purple once more. Thenthe sun went down and the night came on, and the starswere very faint points of light somewhere above it all.After a time, the moon rose, and the half-face that itshowed that night was the color of a glass of Chianti wineheld before a candle.

He let another cigarette and began to curse, slowly,softly and without emotion.

They threaded their way amid heaps of rubble: rock,metal, fragments of machinery, the prow of a boat. Asnake, as big around as a garbage can and dark green mthe cast light, slithered across Tanner's path, and hebraked the vehicle as it continued and continued and continued. Perhaps a hundred and twenty feet of snakepassed by before Tanner removed his foot from the brakeand touched gently upon the gas pedal once again.

Glancing at the left-hand screen, which held an infraredversion of the view to the left, it seemed that he saw twoeyes glowing within the shadow of a heap of girders andmasonry. Tanner kept one hand near the fire-control button and did not move it for a distance of several miles.

There were no windows in the vehicle, only screenswhich reflected views in every direction including straightup and the ground beneath the car. Tanner sat within anilluminated box which shielded him against radiation. The"car" that he drove had eight heavily treaded tires andwas thirty-two feet in length. It mounted eight fifty-caliberautomatic guns and four grenade throwers. It carriedthirty armor-piercing rockets which could be dischargedstraight ahead or at any elevation up to forty degrees fromthe plane. Each of the four sides, as well as the roof ofthe vehicle, housed a flame thrower. Razor-sharp "wings"of tempered steel—eighteen inches wide at their basesand tapering to points, an inch and a quarter thickwhere they ridged—could be moved through a completehundred-eighty-degree arc along the sides of the car andparallel to the ground, at a height of two feet and eightinches. When standing at a right angle to the body of thevehicle—eight feet to the rear of the front bumper—theyextended out to a distance of six feet on either side of thecar. They could be couched like lances for a charge. Theycould be held but slightly out from the sides for purposesof slashing whatever was sideswiped. The car was bulletproof, air-conditioned and had its own food locker andsanitation facilities. A long-barreled .357 Magnum washeld by a clip on the door near the driver's left hand. A30-06, a .45 caliber automatic and six hand grenades occupied the rack immediately above the front seat.

But Tanner kept his own counsel, in the form of along, slim SS dagger inside his right boot.

He removed his gloves and wiped his palms on theknees of his denims. The pierced heart that was tattooedon the back of his right hand was red in the light from thedashboard. The knife that went through it was dark blue,and his first name was tattooed in the same color beneathit, one letter on each knuckle, beginning with that at thebase of his litt!e finger.

He opened and explored the two near compartmentsbut could find no cigars. So he crushed out his cigarettebutt on the floor and lit another.

The forward screen showed vegetation, and he slowed.He tried using the radio but couldn't tell whether anyoneheard him, receiving only static in reply.

He slowed, staring ahead and up. He halted once again.

He turned his forward lights up to full intensity andstudied the situation.

A heavy wall of thorn bushes stood before him, reaching to a height of perhaps twelve feet. It swept on to hisright and off to his left, vanishing out of sight in bothdirections. How dense, how deep a pit might be, he couldnot tell. It had not been there a few years before.

He moved forward slowly and activated the flamethrowers. In the rearview screen, he could see that theother vehicles had halted a hundred yards behind himand dimmed their lights.

He drove till he could go no further, then pressed thebutton for the forward flame.

It shot forth, a tongue of fire, licking fifty feet into thebramble. He held it for five seconds and withdrew it. Thenhe extended it a second time and backed away quickly asthe flames caught.

Beginning with a tiny glow, they worked their way upward and spread slowly to the right and the left. Thenthey grew in size and brightness.As Tanner backed away, he had to dim his screen,for they'd spread fifty feet before he'd backed more thana hundred, and they leaped thirty and forty feet into the air.

The blaze widened, to a hundred feet, two, three ...As Tanner backed away, he could see a river of fireflowing off into the distance, and the night was bright about him.

He watched it burn, until it seemed that he lookedupon a molten sea. Then he searched the refrigerator, butthere was no beer. He opened a soft drink and sipped itwhile he watched the burning. After about ten minutes,the air conditioner whined and shook itself to life. Hordesof dark, four-footed creatures, the size of rats or cats, fledfrom the inferno, their coats smouldering. They flowed by.At one point, they covered his forward screen, and hecould hear the scratching of their claws upon the fenders and the roof.

He switched off the lights and killed the engine, tossedthe empty can into the waste box. He pushed the "Recline" button on the side of the seat, leaned back, andclosed his eyes.

He was awakened by the blowing of horns. It was stillnight, and the panel clock showed him that he had sleptfor a little over three hours.

He stretched, sat up, adjusted the seat. The other carshad moved up, and one stood to either side of him. Heleaned on bis own horn twice and started bis engine. Heswitched on the forward lights and considered the prospect before him as he drew on his gloves.

Smoke still rose from the blackened field, and far offto his right there was a glow, as if the fire still continuedsomewhere in the distance. They were in the place thathad once been known as Nevada.

He rubbed his eyes and scratched his nose, then blewthe horn once and engaged the gears.

He moved forward slowly. The burnt-out area seemedfairly level and his tires were thick.

He entered the black field, and his screens were immediately obscured by the rush of ashes and smoke whichrose on all sides.He continued, hearing the tires crunching through thebrittle remains. He set his screens at maximum andswitched his headlamps up to full brightness.

The vehicles that flanked him dropped back perhapseighty feet. and he dimmed the screens that reflected theglare of their lights.

He released a flare, and as it hung there, burning, cold,white and high, he saw a charred plain that swept on tothe edges of his eyes' horizon.