Marker 95
in--" he paused and looked back at the halted traffic piled up before
the lane had been closed "--seven minutes." He jumped for the steps
and sprinted out of the patrol car in the wake of Ferguson and Kelly.

The team's surgeon was kneeling beside the inert body on the road.
After an ear to the chest, Kelly opened her field kit bag and slapped
an electrode to the victim's temple. The needle on the encephalic
meter in the lid of the kit never flickered. Kelly shut the bag and
hurried with it over to the mass of wreckage. A thin column of black,
oily smoke rose from somewhere near the bottom of the heap. It was
almost impossible to identify at a glance whether the mangled metal
was the remains of one or more cars. Only the absence of track
equipment made it certain that they even had been passenger vehicles.

Clay was carefully climbing up the side of the piled up wrecks to a
window that gaped near the top.

"Work fast, kid," Martin called up. "Something's burning down there
and this whole thing may go up. I'll get this traffic moving."

He turned to face the halted mass of cars and cargo carriers east of
the wreck. He flipped a switch that cut his helmet transmitter into
the remote standard vehicular radio circuit aboard the patrol car.

"Attention, please, all cars in green lane. All cars in the left line
move out now, the next line fall in behind. You are directed to clear
the area immediately. Maintain fifty miles an hour for the next mile.
You may resume desired speeds and change lanes at mile Marker 95. I
repeat, all cars in green lane...." he went over the instructions once
more, relayed through Beulah's transmitter to the standard receivers
on all cars. He was still talking as the traffic began to move.

By the time he turned back to help his teammates, cars were moving in
a steady stream past the huge, red-flashing bulk of the patrol car.

Both Clay and Kelly were lying flat across the smashed, upturned side
of the uppermost car in the pile. Kelly had her field bag open on the
ground and she was reaching down through the smashed window.

"What is it Clay?" Martin called.

The younger officer looked down over his shoulder. "We've got a woman
alive down here but she's wedged in tight. She's hurt pretty badly and
Kelly's trying to slip a hypo into her now. Get the arm out, Ben."

Martin ran back to the patrol car and flipped up a panel on the hull.
He pulled back on one of the several levers rece