"I wish I knew what she's talking about half the time," Jack said, blowing on his coffee. Sam leaned on the counter, looking past the couple toward the empty road.

"I know what the lady means," Sam said, almost to himself. "You get to thinking ... well, I can remember when people used to drive their own cars. Themselves. Steering and everything, except on the biggest highways. And everything got done with people. People made things, and cooked food, and grew plants. Everybody was busy all the time. It was better then."

The man called Jack shrugged. "Sure, sure. Everybody always talks about the good old days. But I don't see many of 'em going to live in the woods. Like Grace—she says she doesn't like the autokitchen, but she uses it."

"It saves time," Grace said. "I guess I will have coffee, too, mister."

"It saves time, she says," Jack said. "For what? She's got too much time now."

"I wonder what it must have been like in the old days, here," Grace said vaguely, staring around the lunchroom. "Everybody running in and out. All the drivers—trucks, with men in them, the way you read about it in the historical novels. Men that drove their own cars, in all kinds of weather ... gee."

"Just like on TV," Sam said, grinning.

"I hope we get the car out of there pretty soon," Jack said anxiously. He glanced out toward the silent garage. "I always wonder what would happen if the machinery stuck, or something. How would you ever get your car out?"

"It doesn't get stuck," Sam said. A peculiar look crossed his face as he added, "Not any more."

"Did it ever?"

Sam shrugged. "Oh, well, you know twenty or thirty years ago all this automatic stuff wasn't quite so good as it is now. Cars, repair shops ... things went wrong, sometimes. Like ... like the Traveler."

"The Traveler?" The woman looked up. "Oh, that's just a ghost story. Like the Flying Dutchman. Isn't it?"

The lunchroom was completely silent. Sam was no longer paying any attention to the couple sitting at the counter. He was close to the big window, standing stiffly, feet apart, like an admiral on a ship's bridge, his eyes studying the empty horizon. There, where the lines of the road met with 

 Prev. P 3/5 next