INTERPLANE EXPRESS McFee and Spike hissed down the big four-lane highway. McFee was full of youth and the devil. Spike, being a brand-new Cadillon Eight, was full of hi-test Rocony. It was a week-day morning and the roads were clear. McFee had been stepping it up to fifty and fifty-five without spotting a state trooper; he was on the tail-end of last night's bust and was still feeling the wine. Spike was a sweet car. His nose was red and his fenders were glossy; the concealed headlights lifted or vanished as one flicked a button on the dashboard. Speed? They had gone eighty for a couple of reckless minutes on a fine straightaway, and the motor hadn't even worked at it. He shot past a number of small upstate towns just waking into life. Hearing the clang of a school bell, he slowed down considerably. Whatever his other vices, McFee wasn't a baby-killer. The delights of the highway were manifold; it was one of the latest things laid on the map. The turns were rough-surface concrete, gripping the tires like chewing-gum. There was a cut-off, and McFee took it in spite of the unfinished look of the road. There were hunks of concrete here and there; some road-building machinery too?tractors and drags. He eased his way along the lumpish surface, noting with approval how Spike's springs cushioned him nicely as they slammed into a sack of gravel or rolled over a smoothing-hoard. The end of the rubble was marked by a sign. McFee glanced at the marker as he rolled past, then shook his head and remarked "Huh?" just as if he were in the movies. He reversed and stopped before the sign, which said: INTPL. HWY. CONN., US ROUTE ONE That wasn't all it said, but that was all McFee could read. Because the rest of what it said?right below the English?was in an alphabet he didn't know, stuff that looked like shorthand, but connected. Or like the peak-and-valley code of the language-scrambling machines. McFee shrugged and went on down the Intpl. Hwy. Route One. It was completely deserted; he had the only car on it. But the scenery was swell?the green, rolling hills of New England, sheep here and there. He shot past another road-sign which said: SPEED UP TO SIXTY-FIVE MPH and below it more of the peak-and-valley talk. McFee obeyed, though it was a novelty to find such a request. It made sense, though. This was a high-speed road if ever there was one. For, after the speed-sign the highway doubled, it developed a parkway strip down the center and banked heavily on all turns. There were lots of turns. Some of them didn't make sense at all, being S-shaped when there wasn't any hill to avoid climbing by the S. There were deliberately constructed curving ramps, high piles of concrete. McFee was fighting the wheel, damning the wide play that the late-model cars all had. Not that there was any danger; the road was too scientifically constructed for that, but he had to keep his eyes well on the concrete and miss the scenery. Out of the corner of his eye he sensed that the country was changing ever so slightly. The hills were higher and more bare of foliage. Hell! He couldn't be in the Green Mountains yet?could he? Another sign flashed by, then another in case he had missed the first. They said: SPEED UP TO EIGHTY-FIVE MPH and a third sign following simply added PLEASE They were all accompanied by the code, or whatever it was. He stepped down the gas to eighty-five, noticed how ridges of concrete had appeared in the road so as to guide his wheels almost automatically, needing his hand on the wheel only for the more drastic curves and turns. There were plenty of those after a minute or two. McFee found himself tearing through the most intricate, nerve-wracking series of twists he had ever encountered. It was like two hundred miles of clover-leaf intersections?at eighty-five miles per! Once, he was sure, he had looped the loop in dare-devil style. Several times he had made flat circles in his own track, all on incredibly sharp banks. But he wasn't sure. All he could see was the onrushing flood of concrete spinning beneath his wheels. Twice there were tunnels to shoot through, lighted and banked, with simple notices?in two alphabets, he presumed?to KEEP SPEED. After three hours of this insanity there was the welcome sign: SLOW TO FIFTY MPH. Only in this case the peak-and-valley talk was above the English. He slowed to fifty and heaved a sigh of relief. That Intpl. Hwy. had been a gas-cooker! Concerning the scenery, he was interested, greatly interested. The tree were nice, the grass was nice, everything was very nice. Then what the hell was wrong? He shrugged and lit a cigarette. He was?naturally?jumpy after all that driving. He remembered he hadn't slept last night. Spike approached an intersection of three highways. McFee stopped to study the markers. He was still on Intpl. Hwy.?again the peak-and-valley talk was above the English. The other roads were marked in peak-and-valley only. McFee drove on, with a worried thought to his gas-tank. There was a town ahead?gabled roof's, chalet-like. There were advertising signs on the road, with terse injunctions on them, all in peak-and-valley. McFee drove into a gas station, which carried the only English lettering he could see in the place. And scattered about the station were signs not only in English and peak-and-valley but three other alphabets, all unfamiliar. "Yus, sairrr!" snapped an attendant at McFee, beginning to polish the windshield. He was tall and angular, wore a blue smock. "Fill 'er up," said McFee faintly, glimpsing the attendant's face. His ears were long and hairy; his eyes were all pupil, no white showing at all. And he didn't have individual teeth?just a white shell like a beak behind his lips, the way commercial artists draw faces. As the attendant filled 'er up McFee noted a bushy tail protruding from beneath the blue smock. Joe paid him with a five-dollar bill. The attendant, after referring to a little book, gave him a small pile of red and blue and green discs. As Joe took off the hand brake he leaned in and said: "Eef you weesh, sairrr, you may obtain thee smash-fast dorn thee rrroad." He pointed to a brightly decorated shop-front. "Therrr it speaks Eengleesh good like me." "Thanks," said McFee. The attendant presented him, as if by afterthought, with a pamphlet in English and waved at him cheerily as he drove off to the smash-fast shop. There was a sign in the window: "English Spoken Here." It turned out to be a much superior variety to that of the attendant. A kind-faced person who might possibly have been female seated him at a high table and assured him that she'd see he got real home cooking. Meanwhile, McFee, ignoring the curious ones who were staring at him?Lord, he didn't blame them!?took out the pamphlet he had been handed. The title page said: "Highway Guide for the Interplane Traveller. Published for the Convenience of Our Patrons by the Winged Wolf Petrol Company. English Edition Published for Distribution on Intpl. Hwy. Route One Between Springfield-Earth-VI and Valley Junction (Wiog-a-Wof)-Earth-V (The Swoj)." McFee devoured the book. It proudly announced the completion of the latest "biplanar spanning section" of the Interplane Highway into Earth-VI. Earth-V, otherwise known as "The Swoj," was where he was now. The peak-and-valley writing was Swojian, as were all these smocked and hairy people. He couldn't make much out of the technical details which the book offered in what it called "simplified, easily understandable form for the layman's interest and amusement." It was mostly straight mathematics. The only intelligible part of the section was: "The reader will be interested to learn that the speed-torsion formulae are in the main products of Swojian science, though valuable data were collected by the Officials of Earth. There was as well considerable collaboration between the Swoj and Earth-I." More intelligible was the "Brief History of the Interplane Highway." There at last McFee found the basis of the whole insane collusion against his peace of mind. There it was explained that "Earth" consists of a large number of coexistent planes. Many years ago the first crossing had been made form Earth-I to Earth-V. Since then the highway had been made commercially practical and been extended to link Earths II, III, IV, and VII. "?and this new section, due to open April 15, 1943?" McFee gasped. He was three weeks early! He had gone through before?he read on. "?will be an accomplished fact by the time that you, visitor from America, read this. Secret negotiations with the government of the United States have been nearly completed at this stage of writing." McFee's smash-fast arrived in the hands of the amiable Swojian whom he regarded with new interest as a potential neighbor. She served him bacon and eggs, explaining that they had been raising chickens and hogs in anticipation of a flow of American tourists. English was being taught as a second language to the inhabitants of the border towns. He ate ravenously, then continued with the booklet. There was a schedule of currencies, a digest of highway markers in Swojian, and an official greeting from the Chamber of Commerce of the Tinkabog Continental Unit in the All-Swoj Federation. He was invited to enjoy himself, see the sights, report any discourtesies and generally to consider himself a public guest. McFee rose from the hefty breakfast tickled pink at being the first American tourist to see the place, thinking perhaps of writing articles about it in the Halliburton manner: "Through the Swoj With Gun and Camera." "The Poetry of Swoj." "Swoj the Mysterious." Who kn...
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