[vscweb-devel] en caught sooner.

[Whitt <fl...@mo...>]

Interchange with NAT 114-South out of Cleveland and the traffic
densities picked up in all lanes as many of the southbound vehicles
turned west on to NAT 26. The screens flicked and Clay came alert. Some
fifteen miles ahead in the one-hundred-fifty-to-two-hundred-mile an hour
blue lane, a glowing dot remained motionless in the middle of the lane
and the other racing lights of the blue lane traffic were sheering
around it like a racing river current parting around a boulder.
"Trouble," he said to Martin, as he shoved forward on the throttle. A
stalled car in the middle of the high-speed lane was an invitation to
disaster. The bull horn blared as Beulah leaped past the two hundred
mile an hour mark and safety cocoons slid into place. Aft in the
dispensary, Kelly was sealed into her bunk by a cocoon rolling out of
the wall and encasing the hospital bed. Car 5 slanted across the police
lane with red lights flashing and edged into the traffic flow in the
blue lane. The great, red winking lights and the emergency radio siren
signal began clearing a path for the troopers. Vehicles began edging to
both sides of the lane to shift to crossovers to the yellow or green
lanes. Clay aimed Beulah at the motionless dot on the screen and eased
back from the four-mile-a-minute speed. The patrol car slowed and the
headlight picked up the stalled vehicle a mile ahead. The cocoons opened
and Ben slipped on his work helmet and dropped down the steps to the
side hatch. Clay brought Beulah to a halt a dozen yards directly to the
rear of the stalled car, the great bulk of the patrol vehicle with its
warning lights ser