Part 4

A new display cleared, and it said, "I-S termination: four minutes." Arvius nodded happily. Under peak magnification, he could see the barriers stretching across the road ahead.

He regretted the necessity of leaving the Interstate. No more roaring west, ripping across the open plains, wide open and screaming. After the construction interval he would be back, but as he stretched his hands and watched for the end of the repelectric his attitude changed, and he began to look forward to the variety and challenge of an old road with no repelectric.

Here skill would tell, and when he felt the telltale tug of the trailer signaling Janice's readiness to relinquish control, he wished Gutley had been somehow able to catch up with him, so he could show the old man up properly, perhaps rendering his dry little bag of tricks inoperative once and for all.

The great speeding machine wound down, and Arvius felt the thump of the turbine disengaging. At that lower speed, he could see the sparkling little tags on the repelectric, and although he knew they all related to the construction ahead, he made no attempt to interpret them. The first printed sign appeared in his lights, green and glowing, and it said, "Squeeze right one-half mile." Arvius watched as it flashed by, diminishing blank-side-up in the rear-viewer, and then ahead there was another sign. Again he flashed by, and the signs were appearing rapidly now.

In the rear-viewer they stood like a line of little soldiers. He took an extra quick nip of the Road Drug and flexed his feet and hands.

In the rear-viewer, he caught a glimpse of headlights dancing. Instantly, he recognized Gutley.

There was no doubt or hesitation for Arvius. It was time to run.

He looked back again, and the old man had doused his lights. One moment Luta II had been coming full-tilt, even gaining, as Arvius was slowing for the construction, and in the next few seconds, the black Peterbuilt had disappeared.

Arvius wondered; How could Gutley have come up so fast? He reasoned that it must have something to do with his innovation.

The sky was no longer pitch black. There was a strip of deep, almost sea green shadow lying across the world at the horizon, behind him. He rolled down his window, and thoom, the morning air came blasting in, upsetting empty Road Drink cups and rattling the crinkly pages of the manifest, scattering them all over the cab.

Arvius ignored the disturbance and stretched, filling his lungs with clear cool air. The Key Signal lit up in a final signing off as the repelectric ended. Arvius took the wheel firmly and pulled it, hand over hand. The Kenworth responded, rolling slowly off the highway into a rut-filled dirt path which connected the local road with the Interstate. Janice would be recording, but without the repelectric, she was helpless.

Arvius shifted in the seat. Control was completely his now. As the tractor dipped into the pitted strip of earth, Arvius looked back once more. The deep green at the horizon was paler now, almost aqua. The stars were thinning out as gray light seeped smokily through the air, filtering away the night.

He could make out buildings here and there along the side of the road, and just barely, less than a mile back, the bulk of Gutley's thundering cruiser.

Arvius moved across the local road and turned left, his headlights basting the walls of a roadside shack, and he thought, as he began to pickup speed, that the old man must be crazy – he was ripping through all the signs and warning tags as if he cared nothing for them.

Arvius shrugged. "Well, he'll care when he gets to the barrier," he said, and he turned his attention to driving. The smooth whistle of his engine was low-pitched; he had a mental picture of Janice impatiently drumming her fingers while he fumbled through this stretch without the repelectric.

He was an excellent driver; in all the company only Gutley was better. But what human was more efficient than a cruiser well-keyed on repelectric?

The clouds to the east were streaked with red. In the viewer Arvius could see the exact spot where the hot orange disc of the sun would first appear. His use of the rear-viewer triggered something that had been sleeping in Janice, and he heard a click as she dropped in a filter.

Suddenly, there was Gutley, racing forward out of the morning, blue smoke spewing angrily from Luta II's tall stack, and Arvius thought, "Already the challenge."

A sign ahead said, "Speed Zone, one mile," and Arvius smiled grimly. The big Kenworth lumbered into the town of Titlesborough at precisely thirty, and Gutley's Peterbuilt barreled right up to within a few feet of Arvius' trailer and held there.

Then the two great cruisers gingerly cakewalked through the little town. Janice muttered and moaned, Luta II's huge tenth-generation Cummins diesel belched and spit as her expert operator shifted down, worked the clutch and shifted again.

Arvius looked around at the sleeping village. Three grain storage elevators dominated Titlesborough. There was a little diner with a pick-up cruiser parked in the front yard. Within, the lights were still on.

Arvius thought, "They're just beginning to wake up out here," and he turned his head as he wheeled past. A sign of fluorescent tubing winked on and off, pale in the growing light. "Eat . . . Eat . . . Eat . . ."

Arvius responded by helping himself to another slug of the RD. Gutley was packed in so close behind Janice that all Arvius could see of her was the two big mirrors which extruded at conventional speeds.

The crescent of the sun was up. In the center of the town a signal was suspended over the middle of the road. As they rolled up to it, it turned yellow, and then quickly, red. Cursing, Arvius brought Janice to a halt and waited.

The two big cruisers stood at the light, idling heavily, and after a moment Gutley tapped his horn. Arvius jumped, but he did not return the greeting. At last the light went green again.

Arvius with his automatic transmission was away from the light and well down the road before he looked back. Luta was slowly rolling away from the intersection, and Arvius was delighted. He didn't know how Gutley had caught up with him after holding in Kansas, but it was clear he didn't have a chance to stay with the turbine-engined cruiser now.

Again, Arvius was sure of his win. He gleefully watched as the plume of smoke from Luta II's stack was interrupted, resumed, and stopped again. Gutley was shifting gears. The big Peterbuilt had sixteen forward speeds. Arvius laughed aloud.

Titlesborough ended as suddenly as it had begun, and on the open road again, Arvius let his speed creep up around sixty. He didn't dare let Janice roll much faster than this on the unautomated road. If something happened, a civilian cruiser darting from a side road, an animal racing across the street, he would never be able to stop in time.

It was a two-lane highway, parallel to the Interstate, and Arvius was not afraid of Luta II coming up and passing him. There was no room for passing maneuvers. Traffic was beginning to pick up already; he looked down at the light cruisers and farm vehicles snapping by in the opposite direction, and his pleasure was extreme enough to taste.

Luta II had recovered, and she came powering up to Janice's tail. Uneasily, Arvius increased his speed. It was a terrific strain, but he couldn't stand to have Gutley so close. His eyes switched from side to side as he checked the road, and he rolled as fast as he dared without the help of the repelectric. Gutley hung close anyway, drifting, pushing Luta II's snout around to the left and ducking back in again as a unit appeared, coming on from the west. Arvius calmly watched his adversary's sniffing tactics.

Gutley's cruiser's gleaming metalwork appeared on the left, then dodged quickly back. He came out again, this time poking around on the right, dangerously near the shoulder. Arvius gave Janice a little more power. She was nearing seventy, and he didn't like it. If something went wrong, Arvius was not certain he would be able to control her. She was beginning to approach Interstate speed, and Arvius fervently wished he had the skill to let her run as fast as he knew she loved to roll.

With the addition of power, she pulled away from Luta II momentarily, and Arvius knew without looking that the black Peterbuilt was sailing right back into position. No matter how fast he was willing to run, Gutley was ready to push.

Off to his left, he could see the hills which surrounded the parallel Interstate and the Gothic spires of some of the construction equipment. Luta came venturing around on his right, suddenly, and Arvius cut down the power.

He couldn't believe his eyes at first. Gutley was actually going to attempt to pass him on the shoulder. The big cruiser wheels needed traction, the sand and gravel of the shoulder offered none. Gutley was either crazy or he was a fool; Arvius didn't know what to do as he watched fascinated and horrified while the great cruiser of the Top Operator flashed its lights and began walking up along Arvius' right. At any moment, he expected to see the big rig go careening out of control, but she didn't.

Instead, she slid smoothly up, wheeling on the crumbling shoulder, now past the rear of his trailer, now halfway alongside. Arvius looked at the speed indicator. They were doing sixty. Still Gutley came on, and Arvius could see the front wheels making freaky corrections, alternately slipping and grabbing, spinning and freeing, and steadily coming on.

A geyser of dust and sand boiled up behind Gutley's trailer, as the old man signaled again that he would pass. Reluctantly, Arvius slowed down. The big frosted windows were next to his cab for a moment, and then the flatbed trailer was jouncing past.

Luta II was gone. She had made it. Arvius had never seen anything like it, and he felt for the fist time that perhaps he didn't deserve the position of Top Operator. No one but Gutley would have attempted such a maneuver. No one but Gutley would have pulled the thing off successfully.

Arvius had to give the man credit, and for a few long moments, he watched the other man's cruiser rolling away, faster and faster, while Janice moved along slowly, as though she was sulking. Then Arvius shook off his depression, and he took some more of the Road Drug. If he could keep up with Luta II on the service road, when they got back to the Interstate, with his superior acceleration, he might still have a chance.

With that thought in mind, he opened the throttle, and immediately, Janice began to gain on the receding unit of John Gutley. As he pulled in close again, he realized something was very different about the way Gutley was operating. The man was doing seventy-five, then eight, eight-five, pushing ninety, and still accelerating.

Arvius couldn't understand what it was that enabled the old man to roll like this without the repelectric, but as long as Luta II was running interference, it was all right with him. Janice could keep up all right, but Arvius worried about anyone who got in Gutley's way. He was rolling close enough to read the stenciled instructions on the wooden crates Gutley was hauling. "Lift Here," "Fragile," "This Side Up," and "Hi Valu."

Arvius began to feel a little better. In spite of the fact that Gutley had shown fantastic skill in coming past on the shoulder, it was to the old man's disadvantage to run in the lead. He was only setting the pace for Arvius, and after all, Janice liked to roll fast too.

So Arvius was just beginning to regain his confidence when Gutley suddenly signaled for a left turn, and pulled around across the road before Arvius had time to react. Arvius looked off to the left as he shot by, and he saw that Gutley had found the access road and hit it at better than ninety, while Janice rolled helplessly past.

Arvius shut down the engine and began to work the brakes. Gutley was gone. As he rolled to a stop and onto the shoulder, about a mile beyond the place where Gutley had turned off, he sat for a while and began to try to put the facts together.

Luta II had passed him on the shoulder. She had caught up with Janice on the Interstate. With her old Cummins diesel, she had caught up with Janice's turbined sleekness, even after being left behind back in the Kansas station. He had detected the end of the construction long before Arvius would have been able to, if he had been in the lead, and had attempted a turn at a much higher speed than Arvius would have dared without the repelectric. All this had something to do with Gutley's innovation.

Arvius didn't know how, but it seemed as if the old man had a way to run without the repelectric. As he signaled and wheeled Janice around in a big slow U-turn which took her over to the shoulder on the far side of the road, he shook his head, and he was filled with despair. Gutley would be well along the final stretch by now. The run was all but over.

Arvius had driven Janice back onto the Interstate, watching in the viewer as her wheels did their peculiar rambling jig over the ruts and holes of the access path. Crazy Gutley had pounded over this same temporary surface at better than ninety. It seemed to Arvius that all was lost. The Interstate was relatively empty, and the sun was up, well into the day.

He opened Janice wide, and the turbine moaned as she raced along the Interstate, her computer happy to be keying on the repelectric again, on the last leg to Denver.

It was clear to Arvius that Gutley had had the help of the company with his innovation, but that was no consolation. The fact was he had lost, and the reason did not matter.

He thought about the maddening little towns with their speed traps, traffic lights and detours, the little civilian cruisers that came staggering out from side roads like turtles, and it occurred to him that the company had deliberately given him this particular run, so that Gutley would have an opportunity to utilize his innovation.

Arvius felt wasted. It seemed to him that everyone was against him, and he thought, "After this run is over, I should quit." How could they have done this to him? It seemed that they had all set out to hinder him, and he was determined never to forgive or forget.

Houses began to crop up with increasing regularity. Denver. Quick blurs on the right and then the left sides of the Interstate. A line of big trees, all the houses alike. Off to the left, there was a red and white checkered water tower, and ahead, mingling with the clouds, were the mountains. So shimmery and vague.

Arvius began to relax. There was no hope any more that he could beat Gutley, so why not settle down? He squinted and cranked up the viewer, not to see Luta, but to try to determine the outline of the mountains. Even with the viewer at maximum, they were but ethereal shadows, barely discernible ghosts, a purplish mass, lightening and mixing at the top so their shape, from this distance, was insolvable.

He thought about Sid. Sid could have told him what was going on. He figured Sid had known, but the fat man hadn't mentioned a thing. Of course, he hadn't asked, but that was beside the point. A friend would have told him. And that brought him back to Gutley. Strangely, he felt that Gutley had tried to tell him in the diner, but Arvius hadn't been willing to listen.

Was Gutley his only friend? Was the man he longed to beat the only person he could rely on?

Outside of Denver, Gutley was cackling with dry glee. Luta II was laughing too, it seemed, but only Gutley was aware of that. As the big black cruiser wheeled through the gates and into the yard, Gutley threw switches and flipped toggles, shutting her down in stages.

She rolled to a stop by the railhead, and Gutley, still laughing, was suddenly racked with an almost feverish lust to get out and drive some more. He couldn't stop laughing, and the joyous bubbling sounds in his throat were suspiciously mechanical.

Arvius was taking his time. Yawning, he picked up the manifest envelope and withdrew from it a series of celluloid overlays. Selecting one, a detail of Denver interchanges, he placed it on the table viewer. Along the borders of the map there were more detailed maps of the inner city, and Arvius listlessly watched as the blue dot which represented his cruiser moved along the transparent map. They were approaching IS 25 South, and Janice floated off the pumice and through the series of slower lanes to the ramp.

Arvius punched out the Key Signal when it came on, but he really wanted only to rest. Outside, he could see factories now, and more houses. There was the curved concrete pillar of a drive-in theater, and then another and another. Truck stops, motels and diners flashed by too. Arvius reached for the RD, but changed his mind and put it back. What was the use? Janice was in a tight cloverleaf, and he felt the thunk of her automatic transmission. She whizzed around smoothly, keying fast on the repelectric, and Arvius nodded absently.

He was tired and bored. Then they were on 25 South, and Arvius shifted the celluloid map to one of the detail segments. The only sound was the whooming of air as it scrubbed past Janice's sleek waxed body, and the chuckle of her computer. Arvius stretched, comfortable but sad in the insulated cabin, and he thought about the possibility that he and Gutley had just set a new record.

A display came up, clearing slowly on an empty viewer, and it read, "Denver yard ETA, 11:24 RMT." Arvius considered the fact that he had left Detroit at 13:15, and that had been Central Standard. Then there was the weigh station in Kansas, but that had been pretty late . . . Arvius remembered that he had decided to retire after this run, so what was the difference?

As soon as the tapes from this run had been posted to the repelectric, someone else would come along to break the record, and life went on, so what was he knocking himself out for?

"What do I care about records and Top Operators?" Arvius asked himself. His only answer was the Key Signal, which popped on again. Arvius slowly punched it out, and they were ready to come off the Interstate, at Sixth Avenue.

The Denver yards were at the far end of Sixth, about four miles from Lowrey Port. Arvius rolled along the road feeling almost casually lethargic. The terminal was a study in contrast to the confusion and dirty bustle of the Detroit yard.

Here, all was clean and everything sparkled. "Neat and orderly," Arvius thought as he rolled through the gates. He tried at first not to look, but as he went past the railhead there was Luta II, standing by the dock, and her two transformers were still fastened to the flatbed trailer.

Arvius felt a twinge of hope. Maybe Gutley could be beaten after all. "But no," Arvius reasoned, "he's probably just with the foreman." Any minute, he looked for the head of the Top Operator to stick up from somewhere, after getting his manifest signed. Everyone knew a run was not legally complete until the bill of lading had been accepted by the foreman. Just a technicality, but sometimes it made all the difference, like tagging a man out on a dropped third strike.

Arvius tried to keep his feelings in check. There was no hope. If Gutley wasn't getting signed in, Luta II had arrived first, and he was entitled to first service. The doors of the receiving warehouse stood open, and as Arvius halted, he could see straight through to the open doors in the back. Beyond, there was the blue sky, and the mountains.

The Rockies towered suddenly close and clear, alarming in their massive, glacier-hewn detail. They looked red and brown, blue and gray, and the air, as he climbed down from the cab, seemed mountainous, as though this was the only place where the real stuff could be breathed. He took a deep breath and his lungs felt seared by the clearness of it all, the serene yet mighty quiet.

It seemed for a moment as if there had never been a mechanized yard here. Arvius knew better, but the efficient and quiet hum and growl of the clean and simple machinery seemed harmonious enough to have almost always been here. Never the corruption and politics of the Detroit yard. Never anything but efficiency. Arvius looked down at his hand. He had forgotten he was holding the manifest. Desperately, he went in search of the foreman. First, he walked around to the back of the trailer and broke the seal, rapping the handle sharply with the heel of his hand and pulling open the doors.

Occasionally, he glanced over in the direction of the railhead dock where Luta II towered, as if mocking him. The way he looked at it, Arvius had one thing in his favor: Gutley might mock him, but no one could know that he no longer cared. He looked up in the warehouse, and he could see the mundane outline of a figure walking toward him through the building. The foreman.

She was silhouetted against the bright outdoor background, and Arvius saw the shadow of her hand as she waved. He returned her greeting, and he couldn't help smiling. Muntillio had always been friendly with him, and she had treated him fairly. He was glad to see her. She came slowly out on the ramp, and she pushed her hair back from her face with a free hand.

"Mornin', Arvio," she said. In her left hand she had a clipboard.

"Morning?" It's about afternoon, isn't it?"

Muntillio looked around. "Oh yeah," she said. "I must have fallen asleep." She spotted Gutley's rig at the railhead and she said, "What's with Gutley?"

Arvius could hardly believe his ears. "You mean he hasn't signed in yet?"

Muntillio shook her head. "I better go see what's up," she said, as though she regretted the necessity.

"What about me?" Arvius said. Suddenly he was eager again.

Muntillio regarded him coolly."All in good time," she said, and her voice was even and steady. Arvius blinked as she executed a smooth hand-vault from the platform and strode off in the direction of Luta II.

Then he swung into action. He raced up into the cab of Janice, pulled her up and backed her in faster than he had ever backed a unit before.

He pulled on his gloves as he ran back to the ramp, and he dashed into the trailer, snatching the tow rope from the podium as he ran. Then, working with feverish sureness, he attached the rope to the innermost pallet, and backed slowly out, cranking down the pallet dolly wheels as he came.

There was a stanchion on the platform. He formed a coil and dropped the rope around it. The pressure of the rope triggered the steel-colored spool-shaped device, and it began to slowly turn, extracting the pallets from the trailer.

When the first pallet had rumbled out onto the platform, Arvius dropped the rope and picked up the clipboard with the manifest envelope. He withdrew an overlay of the warehouse floor plan and slid it into position over the little square in the foreman's podium.

Muntillio hadn't left her stylus. Frantically, he looked inside the podium for a spare, but there was none.

Arvius was desperate. If Muntillio talked to Gutley, the old man would have his two crates offloaded and his manifest signed before Arvius did or said anything. A stylus!

Arvius felt that nothing had ever been as important before as a stylus was then. He put his hand in his pocket at the very instant he remembered he had the stylus from the Detroit diner still there. He wasn't sure it would work, but he was certain he had nothing to lose by trying. Without hesitation, he touched the stylus to the overlay. Immediately, there was a groan and shudder within the big building.

A light came on in the overlay, and Arvius pounced on it with the stylus, drawing the extractor down through the main aisle as he had seen Muntillio and others do it, tracing a path slowly on the overlay, and looking again and again in the direction of Luta II as if by watching he could stop the action there.

Muntillio climbed up along the dock, and she was cupping her hand, peering into the window.

Arvius bent again to his task. The extractor came ponderously forth, and Arvius could feel it shaking through the platform under his feet. As soon as it was under the pallet, the electromagnet switched on, and Arvius began to move the stylus back toward the warehouse door. The pallet jerked and responded, tracking the path of the gimbaled magnet below.

Arvius got the pallet thorough the doors, lifted the stylus, and the extractor went off. Again, he went to the stanchion and took up the rope. He had begun to sweat profusely, and he peeled off his jacket, then bent again to the stanchion and pull-rope.

Muntillio appeared at his side. Arvius looked down at her, and he saw that she was holding Gutley's manifest."You signed him in?" His spirits through so much lifting and depression in the past few hours, suddenly left him completely. Arvius felt drained.

Muntillio nodded slowly. "You better take it easy, Arvio," she said softly.

"But you had no right," Arvius complained. "He wasn't even offloaded." He knew it sounded as if he was crying, and he didn't care.

"You don't understand," Muntillio whispered. Something in her voice made Arvius bring his head up, and he faced her squarely as she went on. "You know that when there is a company connected accident or disability, the first man in gets signed if he is unable to offload?" She made it sound like a question, but he knew Muntillio, and this was her way, sometimes, of making a statement.

"Yeah," Arvius said. "And if we both pull in dead, it's a draw."

She said nothing, but stood watching Arvius carefully for what seemed a long time. Finally, he realized the truth. John Gutley was dead.

A week and a half later, Arvius was back in Detroit. "Didja hear?" Sid said, wobbly jowls all a-jiggle

"No, what?"

"Your friend Phillips. The kid beat Wrigley his first time out."

"Yeah? Well I guess that's good." Arvius settled on Sid's desk, and he sucked noisily on a toothpick. "But you should know, Sid, a man doesn't have any friends in this business."

"What are you trying to say, Arvio?"

"You could have told me something about what Gutley was up to."

Sid looked impatiently at Arvius. "They tell me you're going to retire now. Now that you're Top Operator, you wanna quit."

"You know all about everything don't you?"

"That's right." Sid was amiable and his voice sounded warm. "I have my connections."

Arvius rose from the desk and spread his arms. "I'll never beat Gutley," he said. "I wanted to take him while he was at his peak, and he ran circles around me with his dying breath. I'll never feel like the Top Operator, no matter what people in the office try to tell me." The paper workers looked up from their desks around The Tower to watch the scene. Arvius plopped back to Sid's desk. His slumping posture reflected inner disgust.

"They got you a new catalyst, Arvio," Sid purred. "A good one.

"That's nice," Arvius said, but his voice betrayed him, revealing a sincere interest in spite of his show of nonchalance.

"Yes it is nice," Sid agreed pleasantly. "And the company has authorized me to issue you a self-unit, like Gutley's, only with a few modifications, so you won't be hurt."

"Oh no you don't!" Arvius said, waving his hands and sliding erect from the desk. "I don't need any of that new stuff."

"Well, I had to tell you, that's all," Sid replied. "Luta II goes to Phillips." The foreman made a note on something with a stylus. Arvius stood for a moment, as if he was undecided. "It's too bad," Sid prompted. "Phillips told me he's sure he could take you."

In spite of himself, Arvius was genuinely interested. "Phillips said that?"

Sid said nothing. He'd seen it all many times before, and he knew now was the time to wait and watch the wheels turn. The office people all watched too. No one made a sound, and the telewindow was still for once, as Sid ignored his console and rummaged through one of his drawers. Arvius took a deep breath. "All right," he announced. "I'll run against him, but I don't need any innovations and extra equipment. I'll beat him with what I have. I know Janice backwards and forwards. I can take her apart and put her together blindfolded. Phillips doesn't know as much as I've forgotten. I have more time on the road than he has in the . . . what's the matter? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Sid sighed. "If you don't know Arvio, I ain't gonna tell you."

"Whaddaya mean? Some new trick?"

"No, an old one. I thought you caught on by now, when I heard you was gonna retire, but . . ." Sid let the sentence hang and he produced one of the manifest envelopes and handed it to Arvius. "Your man is waiting in the diner."

"Are you trying to tell me I can't win? That I can't beat that punk?"

"Our money is on you this time, Arvius," Sid said, and it seemed natural that he should suddenly be speaking for the staff of the office. "But nobody wins in the long run. You'll see, you'll find out."

"You're crazy, you know that, Sid? You're really crazy." Arvius glared at the workers, and they ducked to their various machines and little tasks. "I'm going to beat Phillips, just this once, to show you I can do it, and then I'll retire."

Sid said, "Yeah, yeah," and he waved Arvius out. "I got work to do if you don't mind."

"OK, then, I'll see you." Arvius left The Tower and went down to the railhead. Sid watched him go, and when he saw in the telewindow that Arvius was not heading for the diner where Phillips waited, he grunted, and went back to his searching and scanning for fresh material from the yard. About a quarter of an hour later, Sid saw Arvio's big turbine rig come whistling around from the shipping side of the building and go rolling out toward the gate. Sid noticed that Arvius hadn't bothered to get Janice washed and waxed as he used to after every run, but that was when Arvius had been a catalyst. Now he was the Top Operator. Phillips came from the diner, arm-waving and yelling, as predictably as a crossing guard on a model train set. Sid thought about the fact that there was nothing for any of them to do but wish Arvius well for as long as he lasted, and to relay messages from the bosses.

This concludes Catalyst Run, by Jesse Miller.