When Greg awakened him, it was night. Tanner coughed and drank a mouthful of ice water and crawled back to the latrine. When he emerged, he took the driver's seat and checked the mileage and looked at the compass. He corrected their course and, "We'll be in Salt Lake City before morning," he said, "if we're lucky… Did you run into any trouble?"
"No, it was pretty easy. I saw some snakes, and I let them go by. That was about it."
Tanner grunted and engaged the gears.
"What was that guy's name that brought the news about the plague?" Tanner asked.
"Brady or Brody or something like that," said Greg.
"What was it that killed him? He might have brought the plague to L.A., you know."
Greg shook his head.
"No. His car had been damaged, and he was all broken up, and he'd been exposed to radiation a lot of the way. They burned his body and his car, and anybody who'd been anywhere near him got shots of Haffikine."
"What's that?"
"That's the stuff we're carrying, Haffikine antiserum. It's the only cure for the plague. Since we had a bout of it around twenty years ago, we've kept it on hand and maintained the facilities for making more in a hurry. Boston never did, and now they're hurting."
"Seems kind of silly for the only other nation on the continent, maybe in the world, not to take better care of itself, when they knew we'd had a dose of it."
Greg shrugged. "Probably, but there it is. Did they give you any shots before they released you?"
"Yeah."
"That's what it was, then."
"I wonder where their driver crossed the Missus Hip? He didn't say, did he?"
"He hardly said anything at all. They got most of the story from the letter he carried."
"Must have been one hell of a driver, to run the Alley."
"Yeah. Nobody's ever done it before, have they?"
"Not that I know of."
"I'd like to have met the guy."
"Me too, I guess."
"It's a shame we can't radio across country, like in the old days."
"Why?"
"Then he wouldn't of had to do it, and we could find out along the way whether it's really worth making the run. They might all be dead by now, you know."
"You've got a point there, mister, and in a day or so we'll be to a place where going back will be harder than going ahead."
Tanner adjusted the screen, as dark shapes passed.
"Look at that, will you!"
"I don't see anything."
"Put on your infras."
Greg did this and stared upward at the screen.
Bats. Enormous bats cavorted overhead, swept by in dark clouds.
"There must be hundreds of them, maybe thousands..."
"Guess so. Seems there are more than there used to be when I came this way a few years back. They must be screwing their heads off in Carlsbad."
"We never see them in L.A. Maybe they're pretty much harmless."
"Last time I was up to Salt Lake, I heard talk that a lot of them were rabid. Someday someone's got to go, them or us."
"You're a cheerful guy to ride with, you know?"
Tanner chuckled and lit a cigarette, and, "Why don't you make us some coffee?" he said. "As for the bats, that's something our kids can worry about, if there are any."
Greg filled the coffeepot and plugged it into the dashboard. After a time it began to grumble and hiss.
"What the hell's that?" said Tanner, and he hit the brakes. The other car halted, several yards behind his own, and he turned on his microphone and said, "Car three! What's that look like to you?" and waited.
He watched them: towering, tapered tops that spun between the ground and the sky, wobbling from side to side, sweeping back and forth, about a mile ahead. It seemed there were fourteen or fifteen of the things. Now they stood like pillars, now they danced. They bored into the ground and sucked up yellow dust. There was a haze all about them. The stars were dim or absent above or behind them.
Greg stared ahead and said, "I've heard of whirlwinds, tornadoes, big, spinning things. I've never seen one, but that's the way they were described to me."
And then the radio crackled, and the muffled voice of the man called Marlowe came through: "Giant dust devils," he said. "Big, rotary sandstorms. I think they're sucking stuff up into the dead belt, because I don't see anything coming down..."
"You ever see one before?"
"No, but my partner says he did. He says the best thing might be to shoot our anchoring columns and stay put."
Tanner did not answer immediately. He stared ahead, and the tornadoes seemed to grow larger.
"They're coming this way," he finally said. "I'm not about to park here and be a target. I want to be able to maneuver. I'm going ahead through them."
"I don't think you should."
"Nobody asked you, mister, but if you've got any brains, you'll do the same thing."
"I've got rockets aimed at your tail, Hell."