Robert Heinlein Short Story Collection III, A Puke (TM) Audiobook

Reformatted for Machine Text 2023.

1 The Roads Must Roll. Astounding Science Fiction, June 1940.

2 The Green Hills of Earth. The Saturday Evening post, February 1947.

3 Space Jockey. The Saturday Evening post, April 1947.

4 Waldo. Astounding Science Fiction 1942.

5 The Long Watch. American Legion Magazine 1949.

6 We Also Walk Dogs. Astounding Science Fiction, July 1941.

7 Black Pits of Luna. The Saturday Evening post, January 1948.

8 Witchs Daughter. 1946, Published New Destinies 1988.

9 Successful Operation. Futuria Fantasia, Spring 1940.

THE ROADS MUST ROLL.
by Robert Anson Heinlein.
First published in 1940.
"Who makes the roads roll?"
The speaker stood still on the rostrum and waited for his audience to answer him. The reply came in scattered shouts that cut through the ominous, discontented murmur of the crowd.
"We do! We do! Damn right!"
"Who does the dirty work 'down inside', so that Joe Public can ride at his ease?"
This time it was a single roar: "We do!"
The speaker pressed his advantage, his words tumbling out in a rasping torrent. He leaned toward the crowd, his eyes picking out individuals at whom to fling his words. "What makes business? The roads! How do they move the food they eat? The roads! How do they get to work? The roads! How do they get home to their wives? The roads!" He paused for effect, then lowered his voice. "Where would the public be if you boys didn't keep them roads rolling? Behind the eight ball, and everybody knows it. But do they appreciate it? Pfui! Did we ask for too much? Were our demands unreasonable? 'The right to resign whenever we want to.' Every working stiff in any other job has that. 'The same Pay as the engineers.'
Why not? Who are the real engineers around here? D'yuh have to be a cadet in a funny little hat before you can learn to wipe a bearing, or jack down a rotor? Who earns his keep: The gentlemen in the control offices, or the boys down inside? What else do we ask? "The right to elect our own engineers.' Why the hell not? Who's competent to pick engineers? The technicians, or some damn dumb examining board that's never been down inside, and couldn't tell a rotor bearing from a field coil?"
He changed his pace with natural art, and lowered his voice still further. "I tell you, brother, it's time we quit fiddlin' around with petitions to the Transport Commission, and use a little direct action. Let 'em yammer about democracy; that's a lot of eyewash, we've got the power, and we're the men that count!"
A man had risen in the back of the hall while the speaker was haranguing. He spoke up as the speaker paused. "Brother Chairman," he drawled, "may I stick in a couple of words?"
"You are recognized, Brother Harvey."
"What I ask is: What's all the shootin' for? We've got the highest hourly rate of pay of any mechanical guild, full insurance and retirement, and safe working conditions, barring the chance of going deaf." He pushed his antinoise helmet farther back from his ears. He was still in dungarees, apparently just up from standing watch. "Of course we have to give ninety days' notice to quit a job, but, cripes, we knew that when we signed up.
The roads have got to roll, they can't stop every time some lazy punk gets tired of his billet.
"And now Soapy", the crack of the gavel cut him short, "Pardon me, I mean Brother Soapy, tells us how powerful we are, and how we should go in for direct action. Rats! Sure, we could tie up the roads, and play hell with the whole community, but so could any screwball with a can of nitroglycerin, and he wouldn't have to be a technician to do it, neither.
"We aren't the only frogs in the puddle. Our jobs are important, sure, but where would we be without the farmers, or the steel workers, or a dozen other trades and professions?"
He was interrupted by a sallow little man with protruding upper teeth, who said: "Just a minute, Brother Chairman, I'd like to ask Brother Harvey a question," then turned to Harvey and inquired in a sly voice: "Are you speaking for the guild, brother, or just for yourself? Maybe you don't believe in the guild? You wouldn't by any chance be", he stopped and slid his eyes up and down Harvey's lank frame, "a spotter, would you?"
Harvey looked over his questioner as if he had found something filthy in a plate of food. "Sikes," he told him, "if you weren't a runt, I'd stuff your store teeth down your throat. I helped found this guild. I was on strike in '60. Where were you in '60? With the finks?"
The chairman's gavel pounded. "There's been enough of this," he said. "Nobody that knows anything about the history of this guild doubts the loyalty of Brother Harvey. We'll continue with the regular order of business.'' He stopped to clear his throat.' 'Ordinarily, we don't open our floor to outsiders, and some of you boys have expressed a distaste for some of the engineers we work under, but there is one engineer we always like to listen to whenever he can get away from his pressing duties. I guess maybe it's because he's had dirt under his nails the same as us. Anyhow, I present at this time Mister Shorty Van Kleeck,'' A shout from the floor stopped him. "Brother Van Kleeck," "O K, Brother Van Kleeck, chief deputy engineer of this roadtown." "Thanks, Brother Chairman." The guest speaker came briskly forward, and grinned expansively at the crowd. He seemed to swell under their approval. "Thanks, brothers. I guess our chairman is right. I always feel more comfortable here in the guild hall of the Sacramento Sector, or any guild hall for that matter, than I do in the engineers' clubhouse. Those young punk cadet engineers get in my hair.
Maybe I should have gone to one of the fancy technical institutes, so I'd have the proper point of view, instead of coming up from down inside.
"Now, about those demands of yours that the Transport Commission just threw back in your face, Can I speak freely?'' "Sure you can, Shorty!
You can trust us!"
"Well, of course I shouldn't say anything, but I can't help but understand how you feel. The roads are the big show these days, and you are the men who make them roll. It's the natural order of things that your opinions should be listened to, and your desires met. One would think that even politicians would be bright enough to see that. Sometimes, lying awake at night, I wonder why we technicians don't just take things over, and."
"Your wife is calling, Mister Gaines."
"Very well." He flicked off the office intercommunicator and picked up a telephone handset from his desk. "Yes, darling, I know I promised, but,
You're perfectly right, darling, but Washington has especially requested that we show Mister Blekinsop anything he wants to see. I didn't know he was arriving today. No, I can't turn him over to a subordinate. It wouldn't be courteous. He's Minister of Transport for Australia. I told you that. Yes, darling, I know that courtesy begins at home, but the roads must roll. It's my job; you knew that when you roamed me. And this is part of my job.
That's a good girl. We'll positively have breakfast together. Tell you what, order horses and a breakfast pack and we'll make it a picnic. I'll meet you in Bakersfield, usual place. Good-by, darling. Kiss Junior good night for me."
He replaced the handset, whereupon the pretty but indignant features of his wife faded from the visor screen. A young woman came into his office. As she opened the door, she exposed momentarily the words painted on its outer side: "Diego-Reno Roadtown, Office of the Chief Engineer." He gave her a harassed glance.
"Oh, it's you. Don't marry an engineer, Dolores, marry an artist. They have more home life."
"Yes, Mister Gaines. Mister Blekinsop is here, Mister Gaines."
"Already? I didn't expect him so soon. The Antipodes ship must have grounded early."
"Yes, Mister Gaines."
"Dolores, don't you ever have any emotions?"
"Yes, Mister Gaines."
"Hum, it seems incredible, but you are never mistaken. Show Mister Blekinsop in."
"Very good, Mister Gaines."
Larry Gaines got up to greet his visitor. Not a particularly impressive little guy, he thought, as they shook hands and exchanged formal amenities.
The rolled umbrella, the bowler hat, were almost too good to be true. An Oxford accent partially masked the underlying clipped, flat, nasal twang of the native Australia.
"It's a pleasure to have you here, Mister Blekinsop, and I hope we can make your stay enjoyable."
The little man smiled. "I'm sure it will be. This is my first visit to your wonderful country. I feel at home already. The eucalyptus trees, you know, and the brown hills."
"But your trip is primarily business?"
"Yes, yes. My primary purpose is to study your roadcities and report to my government on the advisablity of trying to adapt your startling American methods to our social problems Down Under. I thought you understood that such was the reason I was sent to you."
"Yes, I did, in a general way. I don't know just what it is that you wish to find out. I suppose that you have heard about our roadtowns, how they came about, how they operate, and so forth."
"I've read a good bit, true, but I am not a technical man, Mister Gaines, not an engineer. My field is social and political. I want to see how this remarkable technical change has affected your people. Suppose you tell me about the roads as if I were entirely ignorant. And I will ask questions."
"That seems a practical plan. By the way, how many are there in your party?"
"Just myself. My secretary went on to Washington."
"I see." Gaines glanced at his wrist watch. "It's nearly dinner time. Suppose we run up to the Stockton Sector for dinner. There is a good Chinese restaurant up there that I'm partial to. It will take us about an hour and you can see the ways in operation while we ride."
"Excellent."
Gaines pressed a button on his desk, and a picture formed on a large visor screen mounted on the opposite wall. It showed a strong-boned, angular young man seated at a semicircular control desk, which was backed by a complex instrument board. A cigarette was tucked in one corner of his mouth.
The young man glanced up, grinned, and waved from the screen. "Greetings and salutations, chief. What can I do for you?"
"Hi, Dave. You've got the evening watch, eh? I'm running up to the Stockton Sector for dinner. Where's Van Kleeck?"
"Gone to a meeting somewhere. He didn't say."
"Anything to report?"
"No, sir. The roads are rolling, and all the little people are going ridey-ridey home to their dinners."
"O K, keep 'em rolling."
"They'll roll, chief."
Gaines snapped off the connection and turned to Bleckinsop. "Van Kleeck is my chief deputy. I wish he'd spend more time on the road and less on politics. Davidson can handle things, however. Shall we go?"
They glided down an electric staircase, and debouched on the walkway which bordered the north-bound five-mile-an-hour strip. After skirting a stairway trunk marked "Overpass to Southbound Road," they paused at the edge of the first strip. "Have you ever ridden a conveyor strip before?"
Gaines inquired. "It's quite simple. Just remember to face against the motion of the strip as you get on."
They threaded their way through homeward-bound throngs, passing from strip to strip. Down the center of the twenty-mile-an-hour strip ran a glassite partition which reached nearly to the spreading roof. The Honorable Mister Blekinsop raised his eyebrows inquiringly as he looked at it.
"Oh, that?" Gaines answered the unspoken question as he slid back a panel door and ushered his guest through. "That's a wind break. If we didn't have some way of separating the air currents over the strips of different speeds, the wind would tear our clothes off on the hundred mile an hour strip." He bent his head to Blekinsop's as he spoke, in order to cut through the rush of air against the road surfaces, the noise of the crowd, and the muted roar of the driving mechanism concealed beneath the moving strips. The combination of noises inhibited further conversation as they proceeded toward the middle of the roadway. After passing through three more wind screens located at the forty, sixty, and eighty-mile-an hour strips, respectively, they finally reached the maximum-speed strip, the hundred-mile-an-hour strip, which made the round trip, San Diego to Reno and back, in twelve hours.
Blekinsop found himself on a walkway, twenty feet wide, facing another partition. Immediately opposite him an illuminated show-window proclaimed:
JAKE'S STEAK HOUSE Number 4. The Fastest Meal on the Fastest Road!
"To dine on the fly Makes the miles roll by!"
"Amazing!" said Mister Blekinsop. "It would be like dining in a tram. Is this really a proper restaurant?"
"One of the best. Not fancy, but sound."
"Oh, I say, could we."
Gaines smiled at him. "You'd like to try it, wouldn't you, sir?"
"I don't wish to interfere with your plans."
"Quite all right. I'm hungry myself, and Stockton is a long hour away. Let's go in."
Gaines greeted the manageress as an old friend. "Hello, Missus McCoy. How are you tonight?"
"If it isn't the chief himself! It's a long time since we've had the pleasure of seeing your face." She led them to a booth somewhat detached from the crowd of dining commuters. "And will you and your friend be having dinner?"
"Yes, Missus McCoy. Suppose you order for us, but be sure it includes one of your steaks."
"Two inches thick, from a steer that died happy." She glided away, moving her fat frame with surprising grace.
With sophisticated foreknowledge of the chief engineer's needs, Missus McCoy had left a portable telephone at the table. Gaines plugged it into an accommodation jack at the side of the booth, and dialed a number. "Hello, Davidson? Dave, this is the chief. I'm in Jake's Steak House Number 4 for supper. You can reach me by calling 10-L-6-6."
He replaced the handset, and Blekinsop inquired politely: "Is it necessary for you to be available at all times?"
"Not strictly necessary," Gaines told him, "but I feel safer when I am in touch. Either Van Kleeck, or myself, should be where the senior engineer of the watch, that's Davidson this shift, can get hold of us in a pinch. If it's a real emergency, I want to be there, naturally."
"What would constitute a real emergency?"
"Two things, principally. A power failure on the rotors would bring the road to a standstill, and possibly strand millions of people a hundred miles, or more, from their homes. If it happened during a rush hour, we would have to evacuate those millions from the road, not too easy to do."
"You say millions, as many as that?"
"Yes, indeed. There are twelve million people dependent on this roadway, living and working in the buildings adjacent to it, or within five miles of each side."
The Age of Power blends into the Age of Transportation almost imperceptibly, but two events stand out as landmarks in the change: The invention of the Sun-power screen, and the opening of the first moving road. The power resources of oil and coal of the United States had, save for a few sporadic outbreaks of common sense, been shamefully wasted in their development all through the first half of the twentieth century.
Simultaneously, the automobile, from its humble start as a one-lunged horseless carriage, grew into a steel-bodied monster of over a hundred horsepower and capable of making more than a hundred miles an hour. They boiled over the countryside, like yeast in ferment. In the middle of the century it was estimated that there was a motor vehicle for every two persons in the United States.
They contained the seeds of their own destruction. Seventy million steel juggernauts, operated by imperfect human beings at high speed, are more destructive than war. In the same reference year the premiums paid for compulsory liability and property damage insurance by automobile owners exceeded in amount the sum paid the same year to purchase automobiles. Safe driving campaigns were chronic phenomena, but were mere pious attempts to put Humpty-Dumpty together again. It was not physically possible to drive safely in those crowded metropolises.
Pedestrians were sardonically divided into two classes, the quick and the dead.
But a pedestrian could be defined as a man who had found a place to park his car. The automobile made possible huge cities, then choked those same cities to death with their numbers. In 1900 Herbert George Wells pointed out that the saturation point in the size of a city might be mathematically predicted in terms of its transportation facilities. From a standpoint of speed alone the automobile made possible cities two hundred miles in diameter, but traffic congestion, and the inescapable, inherent danger of high-powered, individually operated vehicles canceled out the possibility.
Federal Highway Number 66 from Los Angeles to Chicago, "The Main Street of America," was transformed into a superhighway for motor vehicles, with an under-speed limit of sixty miles per hour. It was planned as a public works project to stimulate heavy industry; it had an unexpected byproduct.
The great cities of Chicago and St. Louis stretched out urban pseudopods toward each other, until they met near Bloomington, Illinois. The two parent cities actually shrank in population.
The city of San Francisco replaced its antiquated cable cars with moving stairways, powered with the Douglas-Martin Solar Reception Screens.
The largest number of automobile licenses in history had been issued that calendar year, but the end of the automobile was in sight. The National
Defense Act closed its era.
This act, one of the most bitterly debated ever to be brought out of committee, declared petroleum to be an essential and limited material of war.
The army and navy had first call on all oil, above or below the ground, and seventy million civilian vehicles faced short and expensive rations.
Take the superhighways of the period, urban throughout their length. Add the mechanized streets of San Franciso's hills. Heat to boiling point with an imminent shortage of gasoline. Flavor with Yankee ingenuity. The first mechanized road was opened between Cincinnati and Cleveland.
It was, as one would expect, comparatively primitive in design. The fastest strip moved only thirty miles per hour, and was quite narrow, for no one had thought of the possibility of locating retail trade on the strips themselves. Nevertheless, it was a prototype of the social pattern which was to dominate the American scene within the next two decades, neither rural nor urban, but partaking equally of both, and based on rapid, safe, cheap, convenient transportation.
Factories, wide, low buildings whose roofs were covered with solar power screens of the same type that drove the road, lined the roadway on each side. Back of them and interspersed among them were commercial hotels, retail stores, theaters, apartment houses. Beyond this long, thin, narrow strip was the open countryside, where much of the population lived. Their homes dotted the hills, hung on the banks of creeks, and nestled between the farms. They worked in the "city," but lived in the "country", and the two were not ten minutes apart.
Missus McCoy served the chief and his guest in person. They checked their conversation at the sight of the magnificent steaks. Up and down the six-hundred-mile line, sector engineers of the watch were getting in their hourly reports from their subsector technicians. "Subsector One, check!"
"Subsector Two, check!" Tensiometer readings, voltage, load, bearing temperatures, synchrotachometer readings, "Subsector Seven, check!"
Hard-bitten, able men in dungarees, who lived much of their lives down inside amidst the unmuted roar of the hundred-mile strip, the shrill whine of driving rotors, and the complaint of the relay rollers.
Davidson studied the moving model of the road, spread out before him in the main control room at Fresno Sector. He watched the barely perceptible crawl of the miniature hundred-mile strip and subconsciously noted the reference number on it which located Jake's Steak House Number 4.
The chief would be getting into Stockton soon; he'd give him a ring after the hourly reports were in. Everything was quiet; traffic tonnage normal for rush hour; he would be sleepy before this watch was over. He turned to his cadet engineer of the watch. "Mister Barnes."
"Yes, sir."
"I think we could use some coffee."
"Good idea, sir. I'll order some as soon as the hourlies are in."
The minute hand of the control board chronometer reached twelve. The cadet watch officer threw a switch. "All sectors, report!" he said, in crisp, self-conscious tones.
The faces of two men flicked into view on the visor screen. The younger answered him with the same air of acting under supervision. "Diego
Circle, rolling!"
They were at once replaced by two more. "Angeles Sector, rolling!"
Then: "Bakersfield Sector, rolling!"
And: "Stockton Sector, rolling!''
Finally, when Reno Circle had reported, the cadet turned to Davidson and reported: "Rolling, sir."
"Very well, keep them rolling!"
The visor screen flashed on once more. "Sacramento Sector, supplementary report."
"Proceed."
"Cadet Engineer Guenther, while on visual inspection as cadet sector engineer of the watch, found Cadet Engineer Alec Jeans, on watch as cadet subsector technician, and R. J. Ross, technician second class, on watch as technician for the same subsector, engaged in playing cards. K was not possible to tell with any accuracy how long they had neglected to patrol their subsector."
"Any damage?"
"One rotor running hot, but still synchronized. It was jacked down, and replaced."
"Very well. Have the paymaster give Ross his time, and turn him over to the civil authorities. Place Cadet Jeans under arrest and order him to report to me."
"Very well, sir."
"Keep them rolling!"
Davidson turned back to control desk and dialed Chief Engineer Games' temporary number.
"You mentioned that there were two things that could cause major trouble on the road, Mister Gaines, but you spoke only of power failure to the rotors."
Gaines pursued an elusive bit of salad before answering. "There really isn't a second major trouble, it won't happen. However, we are traveling along here at one hundred miles per hour. Can you visualize what would happen if this strip under us should break?"
Mister Blekinsop shifted nervously in his chair. "Hum! Rather a disconcerting idea, don't you think? I mean to say, one is hardly aware that one is traveling at high speed, here in this snug room. What would the result be?"
"Don't let it worry you; the strip can't part. It is built up of overlapping sections in such a fashion that it has a safety factor of better than twelve to one. Several miles of rotors would have to shut down all at once, and the circuit breakers for the rest of the line fail to trip out before there could possibly be sufficient tension on the strip to cause it to part.
"But it happened once, on the Philadelphia-Jersey City road, and we aren't likely to forget it. It was one of the earliest high-speed roads, carrying a tremendous passenger traffic, as well as heavy freight, since it serviced a heavily industrialized area. The strip was hardly more than a conveyor belt, and no one had foreseen the weight it would carry. It happened under maximum load, naturally, when the high-speed way was crowded. The part of the strip behind the break buckled for miles, crushing passengers against the roof at eighty miles per hour. The section forward of the break cracked like a whip, spilling passengers onto the slower ways, dropping them on the exposed rollers and rotors down inside, and snapping them up against the roof.
"Over three thousand people were killed in that one accident, and there was much agitation to abolish the roads. They were even shut down for a week by presidential order, but he was forced to reopen them again. There was no alternative."
"Really? Why not?"
"The country had become economically dependent on the roads. They were the principal means of transportation in the industrial areas, the only means of economic importance. Factories were shut down; food didn't move; people got hungry, and the president was forced to let them roll again. It was the only thing that could be done; the social pattern had crystallized in one form, and it couldn't be changed overnight. A large, industrialized population must have large-scale transportation, not only for people, but for trade."
Mister Blekinsop fussed with his napkin, and rather diffidently suggested: "Mister Gaines, I do not intend to disparage the ingenious accomplishments of your great people, but isn't it possible that you may have put too many eggs in one basket in allowing your whole economy to become dependent on the functioning of one type of machinery?"
Gaines considered this soberly. "I see your point. Yes, and no, every civilization above the peasant-and-village type is dependent on some key type of machinery. The old South was based on the cotton gin. Imperial England was made possible by the steam engine. Large populations have to have machines for power, for transportation, and for manufacturing in order to live. Had it not been for machinery the large populations could never have grown up. That's not a fault of the machine; that's its virtue.
"But it is true that whenever we develop machinery to the point where it will support large populations at a high standard of living we are then bound to keep that machinery running, or suffer the consequences. But the real hazard in that is not the machinery, but the men who run the machinery. These roads, as machines, are all right. They are strong and safe and will do everything they were designed to do. No, it's not the machines, it's the men.
"When a population is dependent on a machine, they are hostages of the men who tend the machines. If their morale is high, their sense of duty strong."
Someone up near the front of the restaurant had turned up the volume control of the radio, letting out a blast of music that drowned out Gaines' words. When the sound had been tapered down to a more nearly bearable volume, he was saying:
"Listen to that. It illustrates my point."
Blekinsop turned an ear to the music. It was a swinging march of compelling rhythm, with a modern interpretive arrangement. One could near the roar of machinery, the repetitive clatter of mechanisms. A Pleased smile of recognition spread over the Australian's face. "It's your field artillery song, 'The Roll of the Caissons,' isn't it? But I don't see the connection."

"You're right; it was 'The Roll of the Caissons,' but we adapted it to our own purposes. It's "The Road Song of the Transport Cadets,' too. Wait!"
The persistent throb of the march continued, and seemed to blend with the vibration of the roadway underneath into a single timpano. Then a male chorus took up the verse:
"Hear them hum!
Watch them run!
Oh, our job is never done,
For our roadways go rolling along!
While you ride,
While you glide,
We are watching down inside,
So your roadways keep rolling along!
"Oh, it's Hie! Hie! Hee!
The rotor men are we,
Check off the sectors loud and strong!
ONE! TWO! THREE!
Anywhere you go,
You are bound to know,
That your roadways are rolling along!
KEEP THEM ROLLING!
That your roadways are rolling along!"
"See?" said Gaines, with more animation in his voice. "See? That is the real purpose of the United States Academy of Transport. That is the reason why the transport engineers are a semi-military profession, with strict discipline. We are the bottle neck, the sine qua non, of all industry, all economic life. Other industries can go on strike, and only create temporary and partial dislocations. Crops can fail here and there, and the country takes up the slack. But if the roads stop rolling, everything else must stop; the effect would be the same as a general strike, with this important difference: It takes a majority of the population, fired by a real feeling of grievance, to create a general strike; but the men that run the roads, few as they are, can create the same complete paralysis.
"We had just one strike on the roads, back in '60. It was justified, I think, and it corrected a lot of real abuses, but it mustn't happen again."
"But what is to prevent it happening again, Mister Gaines?"
"Morale, esprit de corps. The technicians in the road service are indoctrinated constantly with the idea that their job is a sacred trust. Besides, we do everything we can to build up their social position. But even more important is the academy. We try to turn out graduate engineers imbued with the same loyalty, the same iron self-discipline, and determination to perform their duty to the community at any cost, that Annapolis and West Point and Goddard are so successful in inculcating in their graduates."
"Goddard? Oh, yes, the rocket field. And have you been successful, do you think?"
"Not entirely, perhaps, but we will be. It takes time to build up a tradition. When the oldest engineer is a man who entered the academy in his teens we can afford to relax a little and treat it as a solved problem."
"I suppose you are a graduate?"
Gaines grinned. "You flatter me, I must look younger than I am. No, I'm a carry-over from the army. You see, the war department operated the roads for some three months during reorganization after the strike in '60. I served on the conciliation board that awarded pay increases and adjusted working conditions, then I was assigned."
The signal light of the portable telephone glowed red. Gaines said, "Excuse me," and picked up the handset. "Yes?"
Blekinsop could overhear the voice at the other end. "This is Davidson, chief. The roads are rolling."
"Very well. Keep them rolling!"
"Had another trouble report from the Sacramento Sector."
"Again? What this time?"
Before Davidson could reply he was cut off. As Gaines reached out to dial him back, his coffee cup, half full, landed in his lap. Blekinsop was aware, even as he was lurched against the edge of the table, of a disquieting change in the hum of the roadway.
"What has happened, Mister Gaines?"
"Don't know. Emergency stop, God knows why." He was dialing furiously. Shortly he flung the phone down, without bothering to return the handset to its cradle. "Phones are out. Come on! No! You'll be safe here. Wait."
"Must I?"
'Well, come along then, and stick close to me." He turned away, having dismissed the Australian cabinet minister from his mind. The strip ground slowly to a rest, the giant rotors and myriad rollers acting as flywheels in preventing a disastrous sudden stop. Already a little knot of commuters, disturbed at their evening meal, were attempting to crowd out the door of the restaurant.
"Halt!"
There is something about a command issued by one used to being obeyed which enforces compliance. It may be intonation, or possibly a more esoteric power, such as animal tamers are reputed to be able to exercise in controlling ferocious beasts. But it does exist, and can be used to compel even those not habituated to obedience.
The commuters stopped in their tracks.
Gaines continued: "Remain in the restaurant until we are ready to evacuate you. I am the chief engineer. You will be in no danger here. You!" He pointed to a big fellow near the door. "You're deputized. Don't let anyone leave without proper authority. Missus McCoy, resume serving dinner."
Gaines strode out the door, Blekinsop tagging along. The situation outside permitted no such simple measures. The hundred-mile strip alone had stopped; twenty feet away the next strip flew by at an unchecked ninety-five miles an hour. The passengers on it flickered past, unreal cardboard figures.
The twenty-foot walkway of the maximum speed strip had been crowded when the breakdown occurred. Now the customers of shops, of lunch stands, and of other places of business, the occupants of lounges, of television theaters, all came crowding out onto the walkway to see what had happened. The first disaster struck almost immediately.
The crowd surged, and pushed against a middle-aged woman on its outer edge. In attempting to recover her balance she put one foot over the edge of the flashing ninety-five-mile strip. She realized her gruesome error, for she screamed before her foot touched the ribbon.
She spun around and landed heavily on the moving strip, and was rolled by it, as the strip attempted to impart to her mass, at one blow, a velocity of ninety-five miles per hour, one hundred and thirty-nine feet per second. As she rolled she mowed down some of the cardboard figures as a sickle strikes a stand of grass. Quickly, she was out of sight, her identity, her injuries, and her fate undetermined, and already remote.
But the consequences of her mishap were not done with. One of the flickering cardboard figures bowled over by her relative moment fell toward the hundred-mile strip, slammed into the shockbound crowd, and suddenly appeared as a live man, but broken and bleeding, amidst the luckless, fallen victims whose bodies had checked his wild flight.
Even there it did not end. The disaster spread from its source, each hapless human ninepin more likely than not to knock down others so that they fell over the danger-laden boundary, and in turn ricocheted to a dearly-bought equilibrium.
But the focus of calamity sped out of sight, and Blekinsop could see no more. His active mind, accustomed to dealing with large numbers of individual human beings, multiplied the tragic sequence he had witnessed by twelve hundred miles of thronged conveyor strip, and his stomach chilled.
To Blekinsop's surprise, Gaines made no effort to succor the fallen, nor to quell the fear-infected mob, but turned an expressionless face back to the restaurant. When Blekinsop saw that he was actually reentering the restaurant, he plucked at Gaines' sleeve. "Aren't we going to help those poor people?"
The cold planes of the face of the man who answered him bore no resemblance to his genial, rather boyish host of a few minutes before.
"No, bystanders can help them, I've got the whole road to think of. Don't bother me."
Crushed, and somewhat indignant, the politician did as he was ordered. Rationally, he knew that the chief engineer was right, a man responsible for the safety of millions cannot turn aside from his duty to render personal service to one, but the cold detachment of such viewpoint was repugnant to him.
Gaines was back in the restaurant. "Missus McCoy, where is your getaway?"
"In the pantry, sir."
Gaines hurried there, Blekinsop at his heels. A nervous Filipino salad boy shrank out of Gaines' way as he casually swept a supply of prepared green stuffs onto the floor, and stepped up on the counter where they had rested. Directly above his head and within reach was a circular manhole, counterweighted and operated by a handwheel set in its center. A short steel ladder, hinged to the edge of the opening, was swung up flat to the ceiling and secured by a hook.
Blekinsop lost his hat in his endeavor to clamber quickly enough up the ladder after Gaines. When he emerged on the roof of the building, Gaines was searching the ceiling of the roadway with a pocket flashlight. He was shuffling along, stooped double in the awkward four feet of space between the roof underfoot and ceiling.
He found what he sought, some fifty feet away, another manhole similar to the one they had used to escape from below. He spun the wheel of the lock, and stood up in the space, then rested his hands on the sides of the opening, and with a single lithe movement vaulted to the roof of the roadways. His companion followed him with more difficulty.
They stood in darkness, a fine, cold rain feeling at their faces. But underfoot, and stretching beyond sight on each hand, the Sun-power screens glowed with a faint opalescent radiance, their slight percentage of inefficiency as transformers of radiant Sun power to available electrical power being evidenced as a mild induced radioactivity. The effect was not illumination, but rather like the ghostly sheen of a snow-covered plain seen by starlight.
The glow picked out the path they must follow to reach the rain-obscured wall of buildings bordering the ways. The path was a narrow black stripe which arched away into the darkness over the low curve of the roof. They started away on this path at a dogtrot, making as much speed as the slippery footing and the dark permitted, while Blekinsop's mind still fretted at the problem of Gaines' apparently callous detachment. Although possessed of a keen intelligence, his nature was dominated by a warm, human sympathy, without which no politician, irrespective of other virtues or shortcomings, is long successful.
Because of this trait he distrusted instinctively any mind which was guided by logic alone. He was aware that, from a standpoint of strict logic, no reasonable case could be made out for the continued existence of human race, still less for the human values he served.
Had he been able to pierce the preoccupation of his companion, he would have been reassured. On the surface, Gaines' exceptionally intelligent mind was clicking along with the facile ease of an electromechanical integrator, arranging data at hand, making tentative decisions, postponing judgments without prejudice until necessary data were available, exploring alternatives. Underneath, in a compartment insulated by stern self discipline from the acting theater of his mind, his emotions were a torturing storm of self reproach. He was heartsick at the suffering he had seen, and which he knew too well was duplicated up and down the line. Although he was not aware of any personal omission, nevertheless the fault was somehow his, for authority creates responsibility.
He had carried too long the superhuman burden of kingship, which no sane mind can carry lightheartedly, and was at this moment perilously close to the frame of mind which sends captains down with their ships. But the need for immediate, constructive action sustained him.
But no trace of this conflict reached his features.
At the wall of buildings glowed a green line of arrows, pointing to the left. Over them, at the terminus of the narrow path, shone a sign: "Access down." They pursued this, Blekinsop puffing in Gaines' wake, to a door let in the wall, which gave into a narrow stairway lighted by a single glow tube. Gaines plunged down this, still followed, and they emerged on the crowded, noisy, stationary walkway adjoining the northbound road.
Immediately adjacent to the stairway, on the right, was a public tele-booth. Through the glassite door they could see a portly, well-dressed man speaking earnestly to his female equivalent, mirrored in the visor screen. Three other citizens were waiting outside the booth.
Gaines pushed past them, flung open the door, grasped the bewildered and indignant man by the shoulders and hustled him outside, kicking the door closed after him. He cleared the visor screen with one sweep of his hand, before the matron pictured therein could protest, and pressed the emergency-priority button.
He dialed his private code number, and was shortly looking into the troubled face of his engineer of the watch, Davidson.
"Report!"
"It's you, chief! Thank God! Where are you?" Davidson's relief was pathetic.
"Report!"
The senior watch officer repressed his emotion, and complied in direct, clipped phrases: "At 7:09 p.m. the consolidated tension reading, Strip 20, Sacramento Sector, climbed suddenly. Before action could be taken, tension on Strip 20 passed emergency level; the interlocks acted, and power to subject strip cut out. Cause of failure unknown. Direct communication to Sacramento control office has failed. They do not answer the auxiliary, nor commercial. Effort to reestablish communication continues. Messenger dispatched from Stockton Subsector 10.
"No casualties reported. Warning broadcast by public announcement circuit to keep clear of Strip 19. Evacuation has commenced."
"There are casualties," Gaines cut in. "Police and hospital emergency routine. Move!"
"Yes, sir!" Davidson snapped back, and hooked a thumb over his shoulder, but his cadet officer of the watch had already jumped to comply.
"Shall I cut out the rest of the road, chief?"
"No, no more casualties are likely after the first disorder. Keep up the broadcast warnings. Keep those other strips rolling, or we will have a traffic jam the devil himself couldn't untangle."
Gaines had in mind the impossibility of bringing the strips up to speed under load. The rotors were not powerful enough to do this. If the entire road was stopped, he would have to evacuate every strip, correct the trouble on Strip 20, bring all strips up to speed, and then move the accumulated peak-load traffic. In the meantime, over five million stranded passengers would constitute a tremendous police problem. It was simpler to evacuate passengers on Strip 20 over the roof, and allow them to return home via the remaining strips.
"Notify the mayor and the governor that I have assumed emergency authority. Same to the chief of police and place him under your orders. Tell the commandant to arm all cadets available and await orders. Move!"
"Yes, sir. Shall I recall technicians off watch?"
"No, this isn't an engineering failure. Take a look at your readings; that entire sector went out simultaneously. Somebody cut out those rotors by hand. Place off-watch technicians on standby status, but don't arm them, and don't send them down inside. Tell the commandant to rush all available senior-class cadets to Stockton Subsector Office Number 10 to report to me. I want them equipped with tumblebugs, pistols, and sleepgas bombs."
"Yes, sir." A clerk leaned over Davidson's shoulder and said something in his ear. "The governor wants to talk to you, chief."
"Can't do it, nor can you. Who's your relief? Have you sent for him?"
"Hubbard, he's just come in."
"Have him talk to the governor, the mayor, the press, anybody that calls, even the White House. You stick to your watch. I'm cutting off. I'll be back in communication as quickly as I can locate a reconnaissance car." He was out of the booth almost before the screen cleared.
Blekinsop did not venture to speak, but followed him out to the northbound twenty-mile strip. There Gaines stopped, short of the windbreak, turned, and kept his eyes on the wall beyond the stationary walkway. He picked out some landmark or sign, not apparent to his companion, and did an Eliza crossing the ice back to the walkway, so rapidly that Blekinsop was carried some hundred feet beyond him, and almost failed to follow when Gaines ducked into a doorway, and ran down a flight of stairs.
They came out on a narrow lower walkway, down inside. The pervading din claimed them, beat upon their bodies as well as their ears. Dimly, Blekinsop perceived their surroundings, as he struggled to face that wall of sound. Facing him, illuminated by the red monochrome of a neon arc, was one of the rotors that drove the five-mile strip, its great, drum-shaped armature revolving slowly around the stationary field coils in its core. The upper surface of the drum pressed against the under side of the moving way and imparted to it its stately progress.
To the left and right, a hundred yards each way, and beyond at similar intervals, farther than he could see, were other rotors. Bridging the gaps between the rotors were the slender rollers, crowded together like cigars in a box, in order that the strip might have a continuous rolling support. The rollers were supported by steel-girder arches through the gaps of which he saw row after row of rotors in staggered succession, the rotors in each succeeding row turning over more rapidly than the last.
Separated from the narrow walkway by a line of supporting steel pillars, and lying parallel to it on the side away from the rotors, ran a shallow paved causeway, joined to the walk at this point by a ramp. Gaines peered up and down this tunnel in evident annoyance. Blekinsop started to ask him what troubled him, but found his voice snuffed out by the sound. He could not cut through the roar of thousands of rotors and the whine of hundreds of thousands of rollers.
Gaines saw his lips move, and guessed at the question. He cupped his hands around Blekinsop's right ear, and shouted: "No car, I expected to find a car here."
The Australian, wishing to be helpful, grasped Gaines' arm and pointed back into the jungle of machinery. Gaines' eye followed the direction indicated and picked out something that he had missed in his preoccupation, a half dozen men working around a rotor several strips away. They had jacked down a rotor until it was no longer in contact with the road surface, and were preparing to replace it in toto. The replacement rotor was standing by on a low, heavy truck.
The chief engineer gave a quick smile of acknowledgment and thanks, and aimed his flashlight at the group, the beam focused down to a slender, intense needle of light. One of the technicians looked up, and Gaines snapped the light on and off in a repeated, irregular pattern. A figure detached itself from the group and ran toward them.
It was a slender young man, dressed in dungarees, and topped off with ear pads and an incongruous, pillbox cap, bright with gold braid and insignia. He recognized the chief engineer and saluted, his face falling into humorless, boyish intentness.
Gaines stuffed his torch into a pocket and commenced to gesticulate rapidly with both hands, clear, clean gestures, as involved and as meaningful as deaf-mute language. Blekinsop dug into his own dilettante knowledge of anthropology and decided that it was most like an American
Indian sign language, with some of the finger movements of hula. But it was necessarily almost entirely strange, being adapted for a particular terminology.
The cadet answered him in kind, stepped to the edge of the causeway, and flashed his torch to the south. He picked out a car, still some distance away, but approaching at headlong speed. It braked, and came to a stop alongside them.
It was a small affair, ovoid in shape, and poised on two centerline wheels. The forward, upper surface swung up and disclosed the driver, another cadet. Gaines addressed him briefly in sign language, then hustled Blekinsop ahead of him into the cramped passenger compartment.
As the glassite hood was being swung back into place, a blast of wind smote them, and the Australian looked up in time to glimpse the last of three much larger vehicles hurtle past them. They were headed north, at a speed of not less than two hundred miles per hour. Blekinsop thought that he had made out the little hats of cadets through the windows of the last of the three, but he could not be sure.
He had no time to wonder, so violent was the driver's getaway. Gaines ignored the accelerating surge, he was already calling Davidson on the built-in communicator. Comparative silence had settled down once the car was closed. The face of a female operator at the relay station showed on the screen.
"Get me Davidson, senior watch office!"
"Oh! It's Mister Gaines! The Mayor wants to talk to you, Mister Gaines."
"Refer him, and get me Davidson. Move!"
"Yes, sir."
"And see here, leave this circuit hooked in to Davidson's board until I tell you personally to cut it."
"Right." Her face gave way to the watch officer's.
"That you, chief? We're moving, progress O K, no change."
"Very well. You'll be able to raise me on this circuit, or at Subsector 10 office. Clearing now." Davidson's face gave way to the relay operator.
"Your wife is calling, Mister Gaines. Will you take it?"
Gaines muttered something not quite gallant, and answered: "Yes." Missus Gaines flashed into facsimile. He burst into speech before she could open her mouth. "Darling I'm all right don't worry I'll be home when I get there I've got to go now." It was all out in one breath, and he slapped the control that cleared the screen.
They slammed to a breath-taking stop alongside the stair leading to the watch office of Subsector 10, and piled out. Three big lorries were drawn up on the ramp, and three platoons of cadets were ranged in restless ranks alongside them. Tumblebugs, small, open monocycles, used to patrol down inside, were ready nearby.
A cadet trotted up to Gaines and saluted. "Lindsay, sir, cadet engineer of the watch. The engineer of the watch requests that you come at once to the control room."
The engineer of the watch looked up as they came in. "Chief, Van Kleeck is calling you."
"Put him on."
When Van Kleeck appeared in the big visor, Gaines greeted him with: "Hello, Van. Where are you?"
"Sacramento office. Now listen."
"Sacramento? That's good! Report."
Van Kleeck looked disgruntled. "Report, hell! I'm not your deputy any more, Gaines. Now, you."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Listen, and don't interrupt me, and you'll find out. You're through, Gaines. I've been picked as Director of the Provisional Control Committee for the New Order."
"Van, have you gone off your rocker? What do you mean, the 'New Order'?"
"You'll find out. This is it, the Functionalist revolution. We're in; you're out. We stopped Strip 20 just to give you a little taste of what we can do."
Concerning Function: A Treatise on the Natural Order in Society, the Bible of the Functionalist movement, was first published in 1930. It claimed to be a scientifically accurate theory of social relations. The author, Paul Decker, disclaimed the "outworn and futile" ideas of democracy and
human equality, and substituted a system in which human beings were evaluated "functionally", that is to say, by the role each filled in the economic sequence. The underlying thesis was that it was right and proper for a man to exercise over his fellows whatever power was inherent in his function, and that any other form of social organization was silly, visionary, and contrary to the "natural order."
The complete interdependence of modern economic life seems to have escaped him entirely.
His ideas were dressed up with a glib mechanistic pseudo-psychology based on the observed orders of precedence among barnyard fowls, and on the famous Pavlov conditioned reflex experiments on dogs. He failed to note that human beings are neither dogs nor chickens. Old Doctor Pavlov ignored him entirely, as he had ignored so many others who had blindly and unscientifically dogmatized about the meaning of his important, but strictly limited, experiments.
Functionalism did not take hold at once, during the '30s almost everyone, from truck driver to hatcheck girl, had a scheme for setting the world right in six easy lessons; and a surprising percentage managed to get their schemes published. But it gradually spread. Functionalism was particularly popular among little people everywhere who could persuade themselves that their particular jobs were the indispensable ones, and that therefore, under the "natural order," they would be top dogs. With so many different functions actually indispensable such self-persuasion was easy.
Gaines stared at Van Kleeck for a moment before replying. "Van," he said slowly, "you don't really think you can get away with this, do you?"
The little man puffed out his chest. “Why not? We have gotten away with it. You can't start Strip 20 until I am ready to let you, and I can stop the whole road, if necessary.”
Gaines was becoming uncomfortably aware that he was dealing with unreasonable conceit, and held himself patiently in check. "Sure you can,
Van, but how about the rest of the country? Do you think the United States army will sit quietly by and let you run California as your private kingdom?"
Van Kleeck looked sly. "I've planned for that. I've just finished broadcasting a manifesto to all the road technicians in the country, telling them what we have done, and telling them to arise, and claim their rights. With every road in the country stopped, and people getting hungry, I reckon the President will think twice before sending the army to tangle with us. Oh, he could send a force to capture, or kill, me, I'm not afraid to die!, but he doesn't dare start shooting down road technicians as a class, because the country can't get along without us, consequently, he'll have to get along with us, on our terms!"
There was much bitter truth in what he said. If an uprising of the road technicians became general, the government could no more attempt to settle it by force than a man could afford to cure a headache by blowing out his brains. But was the uprising general?

"Why do you think that the technicians in the rest of the country will follow your lead?"
"Why not? It's the natural order of things. This is an age of machinery; the real power everywhere is in the technicians, but they have been kidded into not using their power with a lot of obsolete catch phrases. And of all the classes of technicians, the most important, the absolutely essential, are the road technicians. From now on they run the show, it's the natural order of things!" He turned away for a moment and fussed with some papers on the desk before him; then he added: "That's all for now, Gaines, I've got to call the White House, and let the president know how things stand.
You carry on, and behave yourself, and you won't get hurt."
Gaines sat quite still for some minutes after the screen cleared. So that's how it was. He wondered what effect, if any, Van Kleeck's invitation to strike had had on road technicians elsewhere. None, he thought, but then he had not dreamed that it could happen among his own technicians.
Perhaps he had made a mistake in refusing to take time to talk to anyone outside the road. No, if he had stopped to talk to the Governor, or the newspapermen, he would still be talking. Still,
He dialed Davidson.
"Any trouble in any other sectors, Dave?"
"No, chief."
"Or on any other road?"
"None reported."
"Did you hear my talk with Van Kleeck?"
"I was cut in, yes."
"Good. Have Hubbard call the President and the Governor, and tell them that I am strongly opposed to the use of military force as long as the outbreak is limited to this one road. Tell them that I will not be responsible if they move in before I ask for help."
Davidson looked dubious. "Do you think that is wise, chief?"
"I do! If we try to blast Van and his red-hots out of their position, we may set off a real, countrywide uprising. Futhermore, he could wreck the road so that God himself couldn't put it back together. What's your rolling tonnage now?"
"Fifty-three percent under evening peak."
"How about Strip 20?"
"Almost evacuated."
"Good. Get the road clear of all traffic as fast as possible. Better have the chief of police place a guard on all entrances to the road to keep out new traffic. Van may stop all the strips any time, or I may need to myself. Here is my plan: I'm going down inside with these armed cadets. We will work north, overcoming any resistance we meet. You arrange for watch technicians and maintenance crews to follow immediately behind us. Each rotor, as they come to it, is to be cut out, then hooked into the Stockton control board. It will be a haywire rig, with no safety interlocks, so use enough watch technicians to be able to catch trouble before it happens.
"If this scheme works, we can move control of the Sacramento Sector right out from under Van's feet, and he can stay in his Sacramento control office until he gets hungry enough to be reasonable."
He cut off and turned to the subsector engineer of the watch. "Edmunds, give me a helmet, and a pistol."
"Yes, sir." He opened a drawer, and handed his chief a slender, deadly-looking weapon. Gaines belted it on, and accepted a helmet, into which he crammed his head, leaving the antinoise ear flaps up. Blekinsop cleared his throat.
"May, uh, may I have one of those helmets?" he inquired.
"What?" Gaines focused his attention. "Oh, You won't need one, Mister Blekinsop. I want you to remain right here until you hear from me."
"But," The Australian statesman started to speak, thought better of it, and subsided.
From the doorway the cadet engineer of the watch demanded the chief engineer's attention. "Mister Gaines, there is a technician out here who insists on seeing you, a man named Harvey."
"Can't do it."
"He's from the Sacramento Sector, sir."
"Oh! Send him in."
Harvey quickly advised Gaines of what he had seen and heard at the guild meeting that afternoon. "I got disgusted and left while they were still jawin', chief. I didn't think any more about it until Strip 20 stopped rolling. Then I heard that the trouble was in Sacramento Sector, and decided to look you up."
"How long has this been building up?"
"Quite some time, I guess. You know how it is. There are a few sore heads everywhere, and a lot of them are Functionalists. But you can't refuse to work with a man just because he holds different political views. It's a free country."
"You should have come to me before, Harvey." Harvey looked stubborn. Gaines studied his face. "No, I guess you are right. It's my business to keep tabs on your mates, not yours. As you say, it's a free country. Anything else?"
"Well, now that it has come to this, I thought maybe I could help you pick out the ringleaders."
"Thanks. You stick with me. We are going down inside and try to clear up this mess."
The office door opened suddenly, and a technician and a cadet appeared, lugging a burden between them. They deposited it on the floor, and waited.
It was a young man, quite evidently dead. The front of his dungaree jacket was soggy with blood. Gaines looked at the watch officer. "Who is he?"
Edmunds broke his stare and answered: "Cadet Hughes. He's the messenger I sent to Sacramento when communication failed. When he didn't report, I sent Marston and Cadet Jenkins after him."
Gaines muttered something to himself, and turned away. "Come along, Harvey."
The cadets waiting below had changed in mood. Gaines noted that the boyish intentness for excitement had been replaced by something uglier.
There was much exchange of hand signals and several appeared to be checking the loading of their pistols.
He sized them up, then signaled to the cadet leader. There was a short interchange of signals. The cadet saluted, turned to his men, gesticulated briefly, and brought his arm down smartly. They filed upstairs, and into an empty standby room, Gaines following.
Once inside, and the noise shut out, he addressed them: "You saw Hughes brought in. How many of you want a chance to kill the louse that did it?"
Three of the cadets reacted almost at once, breaking ranks and striding forward. Gaines looked at them coldly. "Very well. You three turn in your weapons, and return to your quarters. Any of the rest of you that think this is a matter of private revenge, or a hunting party, may join them." He permitted a short silence to endure before continuing. "Sacramento Sector has been seized by unauthorized persons. We are going to retake it—if possible, without loss of life on either side, and, if possible, without stopping the roads. The plan is to take over down inside, rotor by rotor, and cross-connect through Stockton. The task assignment of this group is to proceed north down inside, locating and overpowering all persons in your path. You will bear in mind the probability that most of the persons you will arrest are completely innocent. Consequently, you will favor the use of sleep-gas bombs, and will shoot to kill only as a last resort.
"Cadet captain, assign your men in squads of ten each, with squad leader. Each squad is to form a skirmish line across down inside, mounted on tumblebugs, and will proceed north at fifteen miles per hour. Leave an interval of one hundred yards between successive waves of skirmishers.
Whenever a man is sighted, the entire leading wave will converge on him, arrest him, and deliver him to a transport car, then reform in the rear of the last wave. You will assign the transports that delivered you here to hold prisoners. Instruct the drivers to keep abreast of the second wave.
"You will assign an attack group to recapture subsector control officers, but no office is to be attacked until its subsector has been cross connected with Stockton. Arrange liaison accordingly.
"Any questions?" He let his eyes run over the faces of the young men. When no one spoke up, he turned back to the cadet in charge. "Very well, sir. Carry out your orders!"
By the time the dispositions had been completed, the follow-up crew of technicians had arrived, and Gaines had given the engineer in charge his instructions. The cadets "stood to horse" alongside their poised tumblebugs. The cadet captain looked expectantly at Gaines. He nodded, the cadet brought his arm down smartly, and the first wave mounted and moved off.
Gaines and Harvey mounted tumblebugs, and kept abreast of the cadet captain, some twenty-five yards behind the leading wave. It had been a long time since the chief engineer had ridden one of these silly-looking little vehicles, and he felt awkward. A tumblebug does not give a man dignity, since it is about the size and shape of a kitchen stool, gyro-stabilized on a single wheel. But it is perfectly adapted to patrolling the maze of machinery down inside, since it can go through an opening the width of a man's shoulders, is easily controlled, and will stand patiently upright, waiting, should its rider dismount.
Heinlein:
https://rumble.com/v406mdz-index-of-robert-heinlein-audiobooks..html