the precision of a drawing-board exercise in perspective, he thought he saw a fleck of light.

"It isn't when it goes past," Sam said, in a quiet tight voice. He talked at the window, his back to the other two, his words meant mostly for himself.

"It's not its going by. That doesn't bother me," he repeated. "It came by my old place five or six times, I remember. That's why I finally asked to be transferred out here, where it hardly ever goes by. But I could have gotten used to it. I mean, you don't have to look at it, or anything. It's just another car. Old, sure, but there's no difference. A car goes by, that's all. Only...."

"You mean it's real?" the woman asked, in a low voice.

Her husband's eyes were looking out, toward the empty road, following Sam's look.

"The Traveler," he said, without looking at his wife. "Sure, it's real. Why'd you think they don't make that model of car any more? It's real. I knew somebody who saw it, once."

"There might even be two or three Travelers," Sam said, watching the distant glitter of light. There was certainly a car coming. Just a car ... although it was still too far away to tell for sure.

"A haunted car!" the woman said, her eyes wider. "Gee!"

"It isn't a haunted car," her husband said. "It's just one of the earliest makes of automatic highway cars. Everything automatic, steering, destination set ... just like any car is, nowadays. Only it wasn't quite perfect, somehow."

"They got into their car," Sam said, his eyes picking out distant, microscopic details. The high flaring fins, the double headlamps ... lit up, although it was broad daylight on the road. He knew what the rest would be. It was moving so slowly. But it always moved slowly, barely thirty miles an hour. As if somebody wanted you to look and see....

"They just got in, the way anybody would do," Sam said. "They set a destination, and the windows closed up, and the airconditioner went on, and the car went out on the road."

"Only it never got there," the other man said. "Wherever it was going to go."

"But ..." the woman looked puzzled. "Wouldn't anybody stop it? I mean, wouldn't it run out of fuel, or ... well, how did the people in it get out?"

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