“He won’t do it, Pete! You know the Circular was his baby—the super all-weather pike that nothing could shut down. He says you’ll have to handle this in the field—”

“Handle, hell! I’m talking about preventing a major disaster! And in a matter of minutes, at that!”

“I’ll try again—”

“If he says no, divert a couple of the big ten-yard graders and block it off yourself. Set up field arcs, and keep any cars from getting in from either direction.”

“Pete, that’s outside your authority!”

“You heard me!”

Ten minutes later, back at ground level, Reynolds watched the boom-mounted polyarcs swinging into position at the two roadblocks a quarter of a mile apart, cutting off the threatened section of the raised expressway. A hundred yards from where he stood on the rear cargo deck of a light grader rig, a section of rock fifty feet wide rose slowly, split, fell back with a ponderous impact. One corner of it struck the massive pier supporting the extended shelf of the lay-by above. A twenty-foot splinter fell away, exposing the reinforcing-rod core.

“How deep, Jim?” Reynolds spoke over the roaring sound coming from the disturbed area.

“Just subsurface now, Pete! It ought to break through—” His voice was drowned in a rumble as the damaged pier shivered, rose up, buckled at its midpoint, and collapsed, bringing down with it a large chunk of pavement and guard rail, and a single still-glowing light pole. A small car that had been parked on the doomed section was visible for an instant just before the immense slab struck. Reynolds saw it bounce aside, then disappear under an avalanche of broken concrete.

“My God, Pete—” Dan started. “That damned fool news hound …!”

“Look!” As the two men watched, a second pier swayed, fell backward into the shadow of the span above. The roadway sagged, and two more piers snapped. With a bellow like a burst dam, a hundred-foot stretch of the road fell into the roiling dust cloud.

“Pete!” Mayfield’s voice burst from the car radio. “Get out of there! I threw a reader on that thing and it’s chattering off the scale …!”

Among the piled fragments something stirred, heaved, rising up, lifting multi-ton pieces of the broken road, thrusting them aside like so many potato chips. A dull blue radiance broke through from the broached earth, threw an eerie light on the shattered structure above. A massive, ponderously irresistible shape thrust forward through the ruins. Reynolds saw a great blue-glowing profile emerge from the rubble like a surfacing submarine, shedding a burden of broken stone, saw immense treads ten feet wide claw for purchase, saw the mighty flank brush a still-standing pier, send it crashing aside.

“Pete, what—what is it…?”

“I don’t know.” Reynolds broke the paralysis that had gripped him. “Get us out of here, Dan, fast! Whatever it is, it’s headed straight for the city!”

6