 and ventures in time and space, transcribed in future tense. Can you predict the future? Can you tell what will come in a hundred years, or in ten, or in the next minute? Tonight the mentioned X brings you a glimpse of what may well happen within your own lifetime. The Robert Heinlein story, The Road Must Roll. Oh, our job is never done, for our roadways go rolling. Watch it down inside, so your roadways be rolling. It was in the middle of the 1950s that the automotive age began to die. The traffic engineers had long expected it. For years they had watched our vast cities sprawl and spread out, spill over into the countryside, become more and more dependent on motor transportation. And then finally the inevitable breaking point was reached. The growing flood of cars and buses and trucks began to swamp the streets and arterial highways. The building of roads could no longer keep pace. The superhighways clogged, congested, became packed with cars, stalled bumper to bumper, and the cities began to die of slow strangulation. But the traffic could no longer roll. The engineers took over. They banned the automobiles, tore up the superhighways, and in their place they built the rolling roads. Mechanized roads that moved like huge conveyor belts, quirling along on their giant rotors at speeds ranging from 5 to 100 miles an hour, carrying the freight, the food, and the people from city to city and coast to coast. An engineering miracle had changed the face of a nation. The automobiles and railroads vanished. The rolling roads had taken over all transportation. And no one worried over the fact that if the road should ever stop, our whole economic life would stop. But the machinery had never failed yet. The machinery that rolled the road was perfect. But people forgot that machinery depends on men, the men who run it. To take over our jobs! Jim Gaines! Darling, I can't make it. Oh, but you promised! Yes, I know, but Washington called in. They're sending Evans, the Australian Minister of Transport, through my sector today. I've got to show him through personally. I'm Chief Supervisor, it wouldn't be courteous. Roads must roll. Well, I can't help it, darling. I'll tell you how much it's docked in at nine. We'll take it in a show. Kiss Allen, good night for me. Send him in. Well, good evening, Mr. Evans. I'm Gaines, Chief Engineer. How do you do, Mr. Gaines? Won't you sit down? Thank you. They told me at the embassy you'd be the man to see. I want to know how the roads work. I think we can handle that. I'm not a technical man, Mr. Gaines. My field is sociology. I suppose you'd tell me about the roads as if I were entirely ignorant. Well, fine, fine. Well, it's nearly dinner time. I suppose we run up to Stockton's sector for dinner. All right. Take us about an hour on the roads and you can see them working. Excellent. If you'll excuse me for a minute. That's all right. Oh, Dave, you're on the evening watch, huh? Where's Van Cleek? Oh, going to some meeting. I'm going up to Stockton for dinner. Anything to report? No, sir. The roads are rolling. Okay, keep them rolling. All right, Mr. Evans, let's go. This? This here is the low-speed strip. Have you ever ridden a conveyor before? No. That's quite simple. Remember to face the motion of the strip as you get on. Oh, that's it. All right. All right. Well, we'll go right across here. Each adjoining strip is a few miles an hour faster than the one next to it. I see. The freight is carried on the 50-mile strip. Most passenger traffic is on the express strip. All right. All right now, watch your step. 100 miles an hour. Amazing. This strip makes a round trip to San Diego to Reno in $12. Oh. It's a restaurant. Ready to eat? Is this a restaurant? There's a sign, Jake Steakhouse, fastest meal on the road. Is it really a proper restaurant? Yeah, well, the best. Hook right into the moving strip, of course. Shall we go in? All right, Mr. Gaines, we don't see much of you out on the road. Well, busy in the office, Jay. Oh, true. Right this way. Thank you. Here they are. Now, what'll it be? Well, you order, Jake. Well, how about a steak? Two inches thick from a steer that died happy. That's fine. That's fine. Plug me in the intercom, will you, Jake? Sure. If you'll excuse me, Mr. Evans? Now, this is the chief, Davidson. I'm at Jake Steakhouse. You can reach me at 10L66. 10L66, right. Oh, no. I can get ahold of me in an emergency now. Mr. Gaines, what kind of an emergency could there be? Well, two principles. Power failure on the roaders would bring the road to a stand sale. That happened during rush hour. We'd have to evacuate millions of people. Well, well, as many as that. Oh, yes, easily. There are 12 million people dependent on this section of road. Gaines here. Proceed. And have the paymaster give Ross his time turning him over to civil authorities. Place Cadet Gunther under arrest. Bring him to Road Town Central. All right. Keep him rolling. As I was saying, Evans, there are two possibilities of danger. Can you visualize what would happen if the strip under us would break? I haven't thought of that. You don't realize you're traveling at 100 miles an hour, eh? Well, it can't break not now. The strip has a safety factor of over 12 to 1. It's a good soup, Jake. Thank you, Mr. Gaines. But you know, Evans, a break did happen once in the early days. That was on the Philadelphia Jersey City Road. Yeah, me, no. That's right. The strip wasn't much more than a conveyor belt then. You know, it buckled for miles, crushing passengers against the roof. Yeah. Forward section in front of the break spilled them down under into the rotors and the rollers. Was it very bad? Over 3,000 people were killed in that break. But, Evans, the roads had to go on. You know, the entire economic system hangs on the roads. They stopped now, the country would starve. Isn't it possible that you've become too dependent on these roads, Mr. Gaines? For example, what if you had to strike? We had to strike back in 75. But, ah, there's not much danger of that anymore. Oh, why not? Every cadet that goes to work on the roads today is a graduate of the United States Transport Academy. Oh, I see. They're all picked man. It's green for emotional stability. They're trained to give us the same kind of loyalty that Annapolis and West Point developed in their men. Are you going to graduate, I suppose, Mr. Gaines? No, no, I was too old for that. The academy wasn't set up till after the strike in 75. But it won't be long now, maybe five or ten years, Evans, before the oldest engineer on the road is a man who's been through that academy. Now, Gaines there. Davidson, Gene, there's trouble in Sacramento. Hello, Davidson. The phones must be out. Come on. Jake! Jake! What is it? What's the matter? Have everybody stay in the restaurant, Jake. Probably somebody step onto the next trip to cut the ribbons. There'll be plenty of casualties. Jake, where's your getaway hat? In the pantry. Well, how am I going to help those people? I've got the whole road to think of. Now, don't bother me. Give me a hand, Jake. This hatch is stuck here. All right, if you're coming with me, Mr. Evans, you've got to move fast. I haven't got any time to waste. I'm in the road ceiling. That's the outer shell over there. I'll be going outside. You know, there'll be an excess down manhole over here. There, spaced every hundred feet. It's there by the green light. All right, this will get us down on the northbound road. Careful now, it's dark. All right. Stand away from that door, heaven. But this road is still rolling. Yeah, so it is. It was only the hundred-mile strip that stopped. Here's what I want a phone booth. Look out, Evans. Excuse me, will you? Hey! I'm talking to my wife. What? Don't hide you. I'll... Emergency priority. Division office. Gaines here, report. Chief, are you there? Now, I've been called. Never mind that report. Facilities, I saw them. Put police and hospital routine A into operation. Get me Van Cleek. Do you want him to take over for me till I report him? We can't reach him to the road. No, keep those other strips rolling or we'll have a traffic jam that Devil himself couldn't untangle. There are five million passengers on that road now. Notify the governor that I've assumed emergency authority. Arm all cadets available and await orders. Shall I recall technicians off watch? No, this isn't an engineering failure, man. That whole sector went out simultaneously. Somebody cut those rotors by hand. Now, I want all available senior class cadets to report to stockton subsector office 10. With pistols and tear gas. Call them. Refer him to somebody else. I'm busy. I'll get back to you. I'm going down under. An anti-noise filter. All right, come on. What are we looking for? A recon car. There should be one here. Are those the rotors? Yeah, the big ones are rotors. They drive the road. The little ones are rollers. They give continuous support. I see. Oh, there's a watch gang now, jacking down a rotor. Can they hear us? No, the noise filter works on a four-foot radius. I'll flesh them. He sees the light. That goes to the reporting, sir. I want your recon car emergency. Yes, sir. Right over here, sir. Come on, Evans. It's so small. Oh, you fit. All right. Hang on. She accelerates like a rocket. This is Gaines. Get me Davidson, senior watch officer. Mr. Gaines, the mayor wants to talk to you. I haven't got time. Get me Davidson. Leave this circuit hooked into Davidson's board until I tell you to cut it. Yes, sir. Gaines, calling. Have you found out yet what's stopping the road? No, sir. It's still a mystery to me. All right. I'm on my way in a recon car. Hold everything until I get to her. Three platoons of cadet engineers standing by with tumble bug motorcycles. Are they armed? Pistols and tear gases ordered. All right. Good. Assistant supervisor Van Kleeck is calling you on circuit nine. Oh, it's about time. Cut me yet, sir. Hello, Van. Where are you? Sir, Sacramento. That's good report. What are you talking about? Have you gone off your rotor? Got us, Edmunds. If we go in and blast him out, he may wreck the road. What's your rolling, Tunney's now? 53% under evening peak, sir. How about strip 20? Almost evacuated. Yeah. Good report. Listening on this, Davidson. Standing by, Chief. I'm going down inside with these cadets. We're going to work north, overcoming any resistance that we may meet. The watch technicians and maintenance crews are to follow behind us. Each rotor, as they come to it, is to be cut out from under Sacramento's control, then hooked into the Stockton Control Board. You understand? Got it. Jack. If it works right, we can move control of Sacramento's sector right out from under Van's feet. He can stay in his office there till he's hungry enough to be reasonable. Edmunds, get me a pistol. Mr. Gaines is a man here, and he's badly hurt. He wants to see you. Take care of him. I haven't got time to... He's from Sacramento's sector. What? Send him in here. Mr. Gaines. Mr. Gaines. Take it easy, sir. Mr. Gaines. You're... You're Harvey from the Mechanics. I tried to warn you. I tried to get away and shot me three times. Get a doctor, will you? All right now. Easy, easy, Harvey. Harvey, how long has this been building up? Isn't the man... It's the engineers. I told them they were crazy. I told them the roads got a road. And when I tried to get away... Easy now. I'm bleeding from the mouth. Harvey. Got it. Harvey? Can you hear me? He's dead, Mr. Gaines. Come on, Edmunds. We better move. All right, you man. You saw Harvey brought in. How many of you want a chance to kill the mouse that did it? All right, man. Anybody who hasn't got his mind on his job will be in the way. Now, here's the order. We move north, mounted on tumblebucks. We're going to try to regain control rotor by rotor before Sacramento sector knows what we're moving. Now, we've got to capture any watch personnel we run on before they can get word back. You understand? Man surprises fight. Use tear gas when possible. Shoot only when necessary. Harvey. But get them before they can reach a phone jack. Can you hear me? Any questions? Now, let's move out. That's the score, Edmunds. 33 prisoners so far. No one kills him. For years, as I rode one of these tumblebucks, we've gotten out of steer. This man ahead, there at the rotor base. Now, he's got a phone jack. Hurry. He gets word back. We're sunk. I don't think he's seen us. I'll just mount him. All right. Come here, you. Come in here. Come jacked in. All right. He's got through to Sacramento office. It's going to be tough. I don't know, sir. Maybe you can get the call through. Listen. The road. Take off your noise, builder. There. There's a road. The road is stopping. Hold your man. Hold. Hold up there. Hold up. Edmunds, there's a recon car coming up. Com speaker. Give it to me. Here you are, sir. Gaines here. Who stopped the road? He did. Oh, he did, did he? All right. I'll get that van Clicke into me. The road is stopped. You've won this trick. You forgot something, Van. You can't lick the whole country. It's drastic, Van. I come up to your headquarters and we talk this over. Two reasonable men ought to be able to make a settlement. An arm. My men will stay here. Dave, if I take too long, Van Clicke will get edgy and set off that charge. I can't understand it. The psych tests are rigid. We've never had a failure in the Humwardworth Burton Method. Then suddenly a whole sector goes sour. How could Van Clicke get a whole crew of psych-cleared men to revolt? Seasy, Dave, is my deputy. He was ex-officio personnel officer for the whole road. He must have been faking psych records for years, transferring mallet-justed men into his sector. I've got that personnel record, Mr. Gaines. Oh, thank you. This is Van's record here. Masked, introvert, inferiority rating seven and comment. In spite of potential instability shown on what's with Curve, here is especially adept in handling men. He's adept, all right. I haven't got time for any more, Dave. Chief, are you actually going up there to Van Clicke's office? I've got to. They'll be armed. They'll kill you. I'm going to take that chance. I was calling the army. He won't dare blow the road then. You see, look at that psych record there. He's putting up a big, brave front, but he's rotten inside. He wants to be taken seriously. He wants everybody to think he's the most dangerous man in this country. If I call the army in, you'll try to prove it by blowing the road. But how can you stop him, Mr. Gaines? He'll have a gun. Well, you have. What'll I have? Only a prayer. And what I know about Mr. Van Clicke. Director Van Clicke will see you now. I want you to sign this now. The declaration of your recognition of the engineer's control committee. You've got one minute to sign it, Gaines. Or I'll push this button and blow up the whole sector. You better sign, Gaines. You need this gorilla with the gun, Van? Why don't you handle one on our man alone? All right, Harry, out. Out, out. Yeah. I'll sign. What is so funny? You are. You are, Van. You start a revolution because you think the engineer should control the road. And when you've got control, the only thing you can think of to do is to blow it up. That's kind of silly, isn't it? All right. Tell me what you so scared. I'm not scared. Yeah, sitting there sweating all over that push button that you're holding. If your buddies knew how afraid you were, they'd probably throw you into the road. I'm not afraid. You're afraid of me right now, Van. You're afraid I'll have you on the carpet. You're afraid the cadets won't salute you. You're afraid that they're laughing at you behind your back. No, no, no. I'm not. You keep quiet. Now, I've got a gun here. Yeah, you're afraid of using the wrong fork at dinner. You're afraid people are looking at you, Van, laughing. I am not. I am not. Hey, you dirty, stuck-up snob. Just because you went to a hi-hat school, do you think you're better than everybody, huh? You and your crummy little gold-brained cadets... Van, you're a pathetic little shrimp. I understand you perfectly, Van. You're a third-rater. All your life, you've been afraid that someone would send you to the foot of the class, or you'll write out on your ear where you belong. I don't want to look at you anymore. I'll show you. I'll put a bullet in you. Put down that pop gun before you hurt yourself. Don't you come near me now. Don't you come near me. I'll shoot. Give me that, Van. Let me go, look. Give me that pistol. I thought if I wounded your little ego, you'd forget to push that button and pull a trigger instead. I'm afraid you'll never make a good executive, Van. They have to know when to punch buttons. That's games here. Yeah, I'm... Attack now, Davidson, mop up. I'll hold the control room. I've got Van Cleak. I think his little revolution is just about over. It's Mr. Gaines. Oh, Mr. Evans, I forgot about you. I've been waiting at the sector office. It's everything under control. Yes, all's rolling. Those are the watch engineers going under to check Sacramento sector inch by inch now. Remarkable organization. Remarkable. Thank you. How are these in, Chief? San Diego Circle rolling, Bakersfield, Fresno, Stockton? Stockton. Stockton, oh. Oh, no. What's the matter, Chief? It's trouble, Mr. Gaines. Here it is. I promised to meet my wife at Stockton for a show. She's been waiting there since 9 o'clock last night. Oh, dear me. Dave, Dave, see if you can get her for me. Try the sector office. All right, Chief. And Dave, see if you can calm her down. Oh, sure, Chief, sure. I'll tell her the road must roll. No, no, don't tell her that. I don't think she'd appreciate that. She's heard it too often. Well, I better get going. Bye, Dave. Keep them rolling. Keep them rolling. And you're always rolling along. He heard another adventure into the unknown world of the future, the world of dimension. Next week, the strange story of the test pilot who became the first man ever to invade outer space and of what he found when he got there. Listen next week to The Outer Limit. This is in Dimension Axe. The road must roll was written by Robert Heinlein and adapted for radio by Ernest Kanhoy. Featured in the cast were Wendell Holmes's games and Ralph Bell as Van Kleeck. Your host was Norman Rose. Music by Albert Perman, engineer Bill Chambers. Dimension Axe is produced by Van Woodward and directed by Edward King.