The sun began to climb, and still they moved forward,scraping their fenders against the edges of the wrecks,using their wings like plows. They were on the bridgefor three hours before its end came into sight through arift in the junkstacks.

When their wheels finally touched the opposite shore,Greg sat there breathing heavily and then lit a cigarette.

"You want to drive awhile. Hell?"

"Yeah. Let's switch over."

He did, and, "God! I'm bushed!" he said as he sprawledout.

Tanner drove forward through the ruins of East SaintLouis, hurrying to clear the town before nightfall. Theradiation level began to mount as he advanced, and thestreets were cluttered and broken. He checked the inside of the cab for radioactivity, but it was still clean.

It took him hours, and as the sun fell at his back hesaw the blue aurora begin once more in the north. But thesky stayed clear, filled with its stars, and there were noblack lines that he could see. After a long while, a rosecolored moon appeared and hung before him. He turnedon the music, softly, and glanced at Greg. It didn't seemto bother him, so he let it continue.The instrument panel caught his eye. The radiationlevel was still climbing. Then, in the forward screen, be saw the crater and he stopped.

It must have been over half a mile across, and he couldn't tell its depth.

He fired a flare, and in its light he used the telescopic lenses to examine it to the right and to the left.

The way seemed smoother to the right, and he turnedin that direction and began to negotiate it.

The place was hot! So very, very hot! He hurried. Andhe wondered as he sped, the gauge rising before him: What had it been like on that day. Whenever? That daywhen a tiny sun had lain upon this spot and fought with,and for a time beaten, the brightness of the other in thesky, before it sank slowly into its sudden burrow? He triedto imagine it, succeeded, then tried to put it out of hismind and couldn't. How do you put out the fires that burnforever? He wished that he knew. There'd been so manyplaces to go then, and he liked to move around.

What had it been like in the old days, when a mancould just jump on his bike and cut out for a new townwhenever he wanted? And nobody emptying buckets ofcrap on you from out of the sky? He felt cheated, whichwas not a new feeling for him, but it made him curse even longer than usual.

He lit a cigarette when he'd finally rounded the crater, and he smiled for the first time in months as the radiationgauge began to fall once more. Before many miles, be sawtall grasses swaying about him, and not too long after that he began to see trees.

Trees short and twisted, at first, but the further he fledfrom the place of carnage, the taller and straighter theybecame. They were trees such as he had never seen before—fifty, sixty feet in height—and graceful, and gathering stars, there on the plains of Illinois.

He was moving along a clean, hard, wide road, and justthen he wanted to travel it forever—to Floridee, of theswamps and Spanish moss and citrus groves and finebeaches and the Gulf; and up to the cold, rocky Cape,where everything is gray and brown and the waves breakbelow the lighthouses and the salt burns in your nose andthere are graveyards where bones have lain for centuriesand you can still read the names they bore, chiseledthere into the stones above them; down through the nationwhere they say the grass is blue; then follow the mightyMissus Hip to the place where she spreads and comes andthere's the Gulf again, full of little islands where theold boosters stashed their loot; and through the shagtopped mountains he'd heard about: the Smokies, Ozarks,Poconos, Catskills; drive through the forest of Shenandoah; park, and take a boat out over Chesapeake Bay; see the big lakes and the place where the water falls,Niagara. To drive forever along the big road, to see everything, to eat the world. Yes. Maybe it wasn't all Damnation Alley. Some of the legendary places must still beclean, like the countryside about him now. He wanted itwith a hunger, with a fire like that which always burned inhis loins. He laughed then, just one short, sharp bark, because now it seemed like maybe he could have it.

The music played softly, too sweetly perhaps, and itfilled him.

By morning he was into the place called Indiana and stillfollowing the road. He passed farmhouses which seemedin good repair. There could even be people living in them.He longed to investigate, but he didn't dare to stop. Thenafter an hour, it was all countryside again, and degenerating.

The grasses grew shorter, shriveled, were gone. An occasional twisted tree clung to the bare earth. The radiationlevel began to rise once more. The signs told him he wasnearing Indianapolis, which he guessed was a big city thathad received a bomb and was now gone away.

Nor was he mistaken.

He had to detour far to the south to get around it, backtracking to a place called Martinsville in order to crossover the White River. Then as he headed east once more,his radio crackled and came to life. There was a faintvoice, repeating, "Unidentified vehicle, halt!" and heswitched all the scanners to telescopic range. Far ahead, ona hilltop, he saw a standing man with binoculars and awalkie-talkie. He did not acknowledge receipt of the transmission, but kept driving.

He was hitting forty miles an hour along a halfwaydecent section of roadway, and he gradually increased hisspeed to fifty-five, though the protesting of his tires uponthe cracked pavement was sufficient to awaken Greg.

Tanner stared ahead, ready for an ^attack, and the radio kept repeating the order, louder now as he neared thehill, and called upon him to acknowledge the message.

He touched the brake as he rounded a long curve, andhe did not reply to Greg's "What's the matter?"

When he saw it there, blocking the way, ready to fire,he acted instantly.

The tank filled the road, and its big gun was pointeddirectly at him, As his eye sought for and found passage around it, hisright hand slapped the switches that sent three armorpiercing rockets screaming ahead and his left spun thewheel counter-clockwise and his foot fell heavy on theaccelerator.

He was half off the road then, bouncing along theditch at its side, when the tank discharged one fierybelch which missed him and then caved in upon itselfand blossomed.

There came the sound of rifle fire as he pulled backonto the road on the other side of the tank and spedahead. Greg launched a single grenade to the right andthe left and then hit the fifty calibers. They tore onahead, and after about a quarter of a mile Tanner pickedup bis microphone and said, "Sorry about that Mybrakes don't work," and hung it up again. There was noresponse.

As soon as they reached a level plain, commanding agood view in all directions. Tanner halted the vehicle andGreg moved into the driver's seat.

"Where do you think they got hold of that armor?"

"Who knows?"

"And why stop us?"

"They didn't know what we were carrying—andmaybe they just wanted the car."

"Blasting, it's a helluva way to get it."

"If they can't have it, why should they let us keep it?"

"You know just how they think, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Have a cigarette."

Tanner nodded, accepted.

"It's been pretty bad, you know?"

"I can't argue with that."

"... And we've still got a long way to go.""Yeah, so let's get rolling."

"You said before that you didn't think we'd make it"

"I've revised nay opinion. Now I think we will."

"After all we've been through?"

"After all we've been through."

"What more do we have to fight with?"

"I don't know all that yet."

"But on the other hand. we know everything there isbehind us. We know how to avoid a lot of it now."