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Read Ebook: The Drivers by Ludwig Edward W Hunter Mel Illustrator
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Ebook has 103 lines and 5482 words, and 3 pages
ving to You, Happy Driving to You, Happy Driving, Dear Taaa-ahmmm--" "Happy Driving to--" "--You!"
An explosion of laughter. A descent of beaming faces, a thrusting forward of hands.
Mom reached him first. Her small face was pale under its thin coat of make-up. Her firm, rounded body was like a girl's in its dress of swishing Martian silk, yet her blue eyes were sad and her voice held a trembling fear:
"You passed, Tom?" Softly.
Tom's upper lip twitched. Was she afraid that he'd passed the tests--or that he hadn't! He wasn't sure.
Before he could answer, Dad broke in, hilariously. "Everybody passes these days excepts idiots and cripples!"
Tom tried to join the chorus of laughter.
"I passed," said Tom, forcing a smile. "But, Dad, I didn't want a surprise party. Really, I--"
Dad grinned. An understanding, intimate and gentle, flickered across his handsome, gray-thatched features. For an instant Tom felt that he was not alone.
Then the grin faded. Dad resumed his role of proud and blustering father. Light glittered on his three rows of Driver's Ribbons. The huge Blue Ribbon of Honor was in their center, like a blue flower in an evil garden of bronze accident stars, crimson fatality ribbons and silver death's-heads.
He knew now that he was alone, an exile, and Mom and Dad were strangers. After all, how could one person, entrenched in his own little world of calm security, truly know another's fear and loneliness?
"Just a little celebration," Dad was saying. "You wouldn't be a Driver unless we gave you a real send-off. All our friends are here, Tom. Uncle Mack and Aunt Edith and Bill Ackerman and Lou Dorrance--"
A lank, loose-jowled man jostled between them. Tom realized that Uncle Mack was babbling at him.
"Knew you'd make it, Tom. Never believed what some people said 'bout you being afraid. My boy, of course, enlisted when he was only seventeen. Over thirty now, but he still Drives now and then. Got a special license, you know. Only last week--"
Dad exclaimed, "A toast to our new Driver!"
Murmurs of delight. Clinkings of glasses. Gurglings of liquid.
Someone bounded a piano chord. Voices rose:
"A-Driving he will go, A-Driving he will go, To Hell and back in a coffin-sack A-Driving he will go."
Tom downed his glass of champagne. A pleasant warmth filled his belly. A satisfying numbness dulled the raw ache of fear.
He smiled bitterly.
There was kindness and gentleness within the human heart, he thought, but like tiny inextinguishable fires, there were ferocity and savageness, too. What else could one expect from a race only a few thousand years beyond the spear and stone axe?
Through his imagination passed a parade of sombre scenes:
The primitive man dancing about a Paleolithic fire, chanting an invocation to strange gods who might help in tomorrow's battle with the hairy warriors from the South.
The barrel-chested Roman gladiator, with trident and net, striding into the great stone arena.
The silver-armored knight, gauntlet in gloved hand, riding into the pennant-bordered tournament ground.
The rock-shouldered fullback trotting beneath an avalanche of cheers into the 20th Century stadium.
Men needed a challenge to their wits, a test for their strength. The urge to combat and the lust for danger was as innate as the desire for life. Who was he to say that the law of Driving was unjust?
Nevertheless he shuddered.
And the singers continued:
"A thousand miles an hour, A thousand miles an hour, Angels cry and devils sigh At a thousand miles an hour...."
The jetmobile terminal was like a den of chained, growling black tigers. White-cloaked attendants scurried from stall to stall, deft hands flying over atomic-engine controls and flooding each vehicle with surging life.
Ashen-faced, shivering in the early-morning coolness, Tom Rogers handed an identification slip to an attendant.
"Okay, kid," the rat-faced man wheezed, "there she is--Stall 17. Brand new, first time out. Good luck."
Tom stared in horror at the grumbling metal beast.
"But remember," the attendant said, "don't try to make a killing your first day. Most Drivers aren't out to get a Ribbon every day either. They just want to get to work or school, mostly, and have fun doing it."
About him passed other black-uniformed Drivers. They paused at the heads of their stalls, donned crash-helmets and safety belts, adjusted goggles. They were like primitive warriors, like cocky Roman gladiators, like armored knights, like star fullbacks. They were formidable and professional.
Tom's imagination wandered.
The attendant's voice snapped him back to reality. "What you waiting for, kid? Get in!"
Tom's heart pounded. He felt the hot pulse of blood in his temples.
The Hornet lay beneath him like an open, waiting coffin.
He swayed.
"Hi, Tom!" a boyish voice called. "Bet I beat ya!"
Tom blinked and beheld a small-boned, tousled-haired lad of seventeen striding past the stall. What was his name? Miles. That was it. Larry Miles. A frosh at Western U.
A skinny, pimply-faced boy suddenly transformed into a black-garbed warrior. How could this be?
"Okay," Tom called, biting his lip.
He looked again at the Hornet. A giddiness returned to him.
You can say you're sick, he told himself. It's happened before: a hangover from the party. Sure. Tomorrow you'll feel better. If you could just have one more day, just one--
Other Hornets were easing out into the slip, sleek black cats embarking on an insane flight. One after another, grumbling, growling, spatting scarlet flame from their tail jets.
Perhaps if he waited a few minutes, the traffic would be thinner. He could have coffee, let the other nine-o'clock people go on ahead of him.
He gritted his teeth, fighting the omnipresent giddiness. He eased his body down into the Hornet's cockpit. He felt the surge of incredible energies beneath the steelite controls. Compared to this vehicle, the ancient training jets were as children's toys.
An attendant snapped down the plexite canopy. Ahead, a guide-master twirled a blue flag in a starting signal.
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