WILD SURMISE

AUGUST 1986 #7

AN ALMOST ANONYMOUS INFORMAL NOTE

CARS

M's wise older brother tells about an experiment. A large number of smallish animals, rats I. think, were placed in modest sized but adequate cages where they were kept warm and well fed. of course they became fat, and there were lots of little rats. A similar number of rats were placed in a single large cage, where because of the crowding they spent so much time fighting and getting excited that they lost weight, and there were few little rats. Last, all the little cages were hooked to an empty big cage, whereupon all the rats immediately left their warm little nests and trooped down to the big cage to spend their time fighting and starving.

He was talking about people moving to cities, of course. And the modern city depends, above all else, on the car. With a car, a person can scour large areas in search of food, clothing, shelter and work. Thus these things need not all be available everywhere. The little family farm provided all such things, but its existence forced people to disperse. M S smarter younger brother points out that a farming village could be only so large, because each farmer had to be able to till enough land within walking distance to support himself.

Despite the widespread use of advertisements of cars showing them in a wild landscape with nothing but the road and the country, the car isn t really used for driving into the country. The car is used for driving into town. For this purpose, the modern car is eminently suited. It is small and non-polluting, so you can crowd a lot of them together. It has enormous windows so you can see pedestrians and enormous lights so others can see you. It burns little gas so more people can own cars. It has big doors and hatches for getting groceries in and out. It has safety features designed for low speed accidents. It needs fiendishly complex machinery for repairs. It is warmed and salt-proofed against winter and air-conditioned and window-tinted against summer, but it provides very little protection from heat or cold if the engine breaks down; you are not expected to venture far from help.

So there is little more to ask from the modern car. It serves its mission well, and will as long as gasoline can be had on the planet. It gets you around town very nicely.

Town, of course, is not always so nice. How often have you been discomforted by another driver who would not signal his intent? Perhaps you are sitting at a red light signaling a left turn. The driver coming the other way is not signaling. when the light changes, you roll forward to turn behind him, only to find he now wants to make a left turn right through where you are sitting? Or you are in the left lane of a four lane road and decide it would be a convenient time to get in the right hand lane for an eventual right turn. You signal your lane change and the car behind and to your right moves up to block you. Seeing him move, you decide he has seen your signal and force your way in front of him. He now backs off like a whipped cur several unnecessary car lengths. Do you really feel good about that?

In a well settled town with few uprooted people, the social experience of driving is very pleasant. During M's years in Baltimore, he says that characteristically when a traffic jam formed, about the first sound heard after all the brakes was the toot of one driver signaling another to go ahead. Once as M was going into town, maybe a bit fast, passing cars that were in the right lane of the express way, he topped a rise and saw that traffic in the left lane was standing dead still. He romped onto the brakes of his little sports car and stopped inches from the last car in the line. Traffic he had been passing was too dense for him to pull around, so there was nothing to do but turn on his flasher and wait for the next idiot to come mash him like a bug. In a few moments, a car from the right hand lane, one of the ones he had passed, saw what was going on and pulled out of the moving lane to stop behind N, shielding him, figuring, I suppose, that his car would be more visible and thus would prevent an accident.

Another time, in a strange part of town, N had the setting sun in his face and was going to make a left turn under an elevated track. The car coming the other way started forward abruptly when the light changed, slowed when M slowed and came at last to a full stop in the middle of the intersection blocking all hope of M's completing his turn. with ill concealed patience, M moved his tiny car up until he was door to door with the big sedan. He folded his arms on the door and rested his chin on his arms in token of having all day to listen to the explanation for the other driver's behavior. The other driver was laughing. When he got a hold on himself he said, "You can't turn left." Sure enough, in the gloom of the bridge and the glare of the sun, there was a "No Left trurn" sign.

M thought later that the face was familiar. It reminded him of, and may in fact have been, Spiro Agnew, then vice president of the United States and just at that time being attacked with highly effective venom by just about everybody. If so, his situation was not unlike that of a lot of us a lot of the time, but it had not affected his driving.

It is painful to watch the faces of the cormuters, the long lines driving into Washington on a weekday morning, not because the faces look numb or deadened. The faces are alive, resolved, patient, resourceful, good humored. They have the anirnation of euphoric morphined mice, which trot about hoppingly and bug eyed. The faces say, "This will be a good day. This day I will be clever and controlled. This day I will not scream at anybody. This day I will not lose my sense of proportion. This day I will be flexible and alert. This day, for the first time, I will not come home late, disappointed, dog tired, fed up and discouraged." They are driving into town.

That is what the modern car is for.

But people do spend more on cars than the minimum needed to accomplish that purpose. Imagine an open topped touring car chuckling grandly down some palm lined boulevard, the back seat half filled with tasseled cushions. Imagine a two seat roadster, roof buttoned against the chill drizzle humming up the narrow, curving cobbled road to a hilltop home. Imagine a convertable swinging along country lanes between vined stone walls and green meadows. Imagine a low slung muscle car tearing down a hot concrete four laner in some land where the sky is the speed limit. For such missions, the modern car is quite satisfactory, too. People insist on spending more but continue to get about the same thing. Suppose you wanted a "better" car. what might you really want?

Comfort, safety and style.

If it is power and thrills you want, don't get a car. Get a motorcycle or a motor boat. If it is speed you want, take a commercial jet. If you want to carry a great deal, get a truck, and if you want to wallow through deep mud, get a tractor.

For raw style, there are two basic shapes. Both are shaped like a door stop. The 'classic' car presents a low almost vertical wall to the wind and then trails off with a long downward slope. The "racy" car presents a long upward slope to the wind and is chopped off in back. You can buy extreme examples of either for a small fortune, or you can spend the same money to buy some modeling clay and retain a professional sculptor.

The book on comfort reads thus: Get a big four door, air conditioned heavy sedan with a big eight cylinder engine in front and the drive from the rear wheels; keep it mechanically simple. because a breakddown is very uncomfortable.

The comfortable car should be heavy, solid, and reliable. Think 'brick." They make houses out of brick. For a car, you want a house that moves.

That leaves safety. These days, safety seems to be the "bolt on" variety. One hires an engineer and says, TBOlt on a better bumper," and he does a laudable job. One says, "Bolt on a seat belt." He bolts the seat belt to the frame, if the car has a frame, and assures himself that the heavy seat, too, is well fastened to the frame. If there is no frame, I am not sure what the engineer is supposed to do.

One advantage to the safety belt is that it keeps the person in the car in an accident. There is another advantage. It stabilizes the driver in the car. M says then when driving a sports car this sometimes happens: the car hits a bump, the bump knocks the car up against the foot on the accelerator, the engine speeds up, the car lurches forward, the foot comes off the accelerator, the engine slows, the car slows, the foot keeps going and hits the accelerator again, and the whole process started again. The result is a rapid series of hard jerks. In order to keep control of the car on rough Baltimore streets, N would, tighten his seat belt, brace his right knee against the transmission tunnel, his right heel on the floor, his left foot on the floor, his left elbow over the door, his right elbow against the passenger head rest, hold the top of the wheel with his left hand and his left wrist with his right hand and push back against his back rest. At speeds over 50 Mph, he reckoned that if there was a problem, the little car was going to fold up like a stomped tin can, so he would undo his seat belt.

The shoulder strap has been shown to be effective by the engineers, although I have my doubts if the wearer slumps. Driving around with a heavy cord across your neck always struck me as a good way to get garroted. I do not know if the law allows you to put your arm over the shoulder strap to keep it away from your neck, but I hope it does. The very fact that it takes a law to force most people to wear such a device suggests that there are problems with it. Usually the law is designed to curb aberrant behavior, to induce everyone to behave with the same prudence as the average reasonable person. Writing a law in order to compel aberrant behavior seems like a way to force the average citizen out of sympathy with the law.

In the same way, the 55 Mph speed limit, a kind of bolt-on safety idea, conflicts with the habits of the average safe driver. I have never seen the cost-benefit analysis of driving 55 instead of

70. Indeed, I grant that fewer will be killed at 55. But on average, how many alert waking hours of my own life do I as an average driver expect to be saved by the lower speed limit? And how many alert waking hours will it cost me in taking longer to get places? I should not be surprised to learn that the slower driving is like vigorous exercise. Every hour of strenuous exercise indeed adds about an hour onto the end of your life. That's great if you enjoy it, but if you do not, you are swapping hours of youth for hours of age at a one-to-one rate. It is a hard thing if there is a law that forces you to do so.

Speaking of speeding tickets, I never spoken with anyone who received one who thought that the policernan's allegation was within five miles per hour of reality. Usually, they concede they. were speeding, but the police estimate is so regularly in error that it seems like deliberate policy. One should not be surprised. The policeman who goes after speeders makes his living hiding and sneaking. Stretching the truth would seem to go right along. Nor am I convinced that a radar instrument cannot be manipulated. Someone once described a test that got a substantial radar speed off a house, and greater than 55 Mph off a tree.

Let us approach safety from the ground up. There are three elements in safety: the driver, the car and the road.

There are five elements to be considered in the driver. Impairment, education, training, experience and fatigue.

It is obvious that a driver impaired in vision, hearing or reflexes, may be a danger to. himself and to others. The emphasis in such cases has, quite properly, been on circumventing the impairment rather than simply denying the person the right to drive. Such situations call for professional individual attention, and this, by and large, they receive.

It takes some education to handle a car properly. They try to standardize road signs, but there are times when nothing will replace the written word. Try do design a picture that iraplies, "Blasting ahead. Turn off radio transmitters." or "Bridges will ice before roads." You can do it, but will I understand it the first time?" Moreover, a driver needs some sort of introduction to the community he is among, enough to recognize that the important issue is not his pride but whether everyone arrives safely and proniptly in the end.

The driver needs to have specific training in the use of the car. This is widely provided and the driver is tested before he can get a license. Well and good, although I should not be sorry to have drivers education and even occasional refresher courses required. We all have to keep up.

There is no replacernent for experience, but training might prevent some experiences that would be better avoided.

Fatigue is partly a matter of the car and partly the matter of the road. Obviously ono avoids driving if one is starving or sleepy, and most modern roads have places to recover. But there are two things I would like to discuss under fatigue: alcohol and tobacco.

Alcohol is a general anesthetic agent. It inhibits the passage of electrical impulses along nerves by forming a loose cage-like barrier around each nerve fiber called a "clathrate". It is absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract and is uniformly distributed in total body water - about half of total body weight. In low doses, it causes increased excitement in an excited subject and increased depression in a depressed subject. With increasing doses, it eventually depresses any subject to the point of coma and even death. It is removed from the body by being metabolized in the liver at a constant rate of about one ounce per hour.

People who go about pulling people out of wrecked automobiles find a substantial number who have a blood alcohol level well over into the range that would depress anybody. The natural conclusion is that these people have been drinking '¹too much" and that was the cause of the accident. In Florida, "too much" is defined as enough to raise the blood alcohol level to one part per thousand. The assumption is that by imposing laws against driving after drinking "too much," the state can prevent a lot of people getting hurt. Let us try some numbers.

A 150 pound man has 75 pound of total body water. That adds up to 1200 ounces of water. If he takes a drink that contains 2 ounces of 100 proof whiskey (50% alcohol) or 8 ounces of 12% ale, he is legal to drive. If he waits an hour before his next drink, his liver should have metabolized virtually all the alcohol and he can start over.

Don't you believe it.

Sure, a normal liver can do it. But in the individual case, you can¹t be sure the liver is normal unless you have tested it. A 20% fall in the liver's function, say an unrecognized case of hepatitis in bygone years, would not be detectable in everyday life but would be enough to put you eventually over the legal limit using the scheme outlined above.

Second, if you have a drink at six o'clock, a drink at seven o'clock, a drink at eight o'clock and a drink at nine o'clock, do not tell me that you are as fresh as a daisy at ten o'clock. You may be legal, but you won't be top form. M says that after two drinks, it is three full days before he is back functioning at top efficiency. Even if you don't push yourself so hard, you will notice the difference for more than an hour.

Third, suppose you have an accident. You had a drink at six and one at seven and then started driving, still legal. Your last drink is still in your stomach. You swerve to miss a bicycle and instead hit a tree. They pull you out of your car unharmed but badly shaken. Now what happens?

The shock has forced your adrenaline levels up. Your splanchnic circulation (to things like intestines and liver) almost shuts down. That liver is no longer metabolizing alcohol at 1 ounce per hour. The residual circulation in your gut means that the alcohol is still being absorbed, that is a passive process, but it is no longer being distributed to total body water. It is going to the heart, to the lungs, to the brain, to the renal medulla and elsewhere only a trickle. Initially, it distributes in, say, twenty pounds of your body or ten pounds of water. If you still have a half ounce in your gut at the time of the accident, your concentration could conceivably reach S parts per thousand and stay there. when they come and measure your blood alcohol, they will wonder how you were coordinated enough to get the key in the ignition. You won't be able to challenge them, because you will be quite thoroughly drunk.

If you consider the history of witch hunts, it went like this. At one time, the Eastern Orthodox church and the Roman Catholic church counted all of Christendom between them. The Eastern church thought there was no problem with having two churches but the Roman church decided they were the true light and all others were non-believers. Then the Roman church, finding they had to deal with a far more rebellious flock, began to punish those whose religious persuasions were in error. One way of doing this was through convicting witches. Let us say heresy (wrong belief) could be ranked on a scale of one to ten. A "one" might be an Eastern Orthodox. A two might be a manichean. The three level might include agnostics and infidels. The four level might be atheists and pagans. A "five" would be a total sociopath, foaming at the mouth, murdering priests, molesting nuns, you get the idea. Well a witch, if one existed, would be a ten plus on such a scale.

If you have a problem with your flock drifting off toward one and two, you can reason with them, perhaps. But if you can convict a few witches, even in they are innocent, and really punish them terribly, you may be able to intimidate everyone else. There is a book, the Malleus Naleficarurn that goes into techniques for doing just that.

By that line of reasoning, the STOMP OUT DRUNK DRIVERS campaigns you will run into are, in part, witch hunts. The good news is that they may reduce the number of people who drink and drive, even within legal limits. The bad news is that such campaigns do so by intimidation. Bad news includes what may happen to at least a few people who were legal when they were driving but whose blood level went up after an accident. It is as if we had passed a law, not against drinking and driving (as we might), but against having an accident, which is by definition out of control of the individual.

The moral, of course, is don't seem to be a witch. Don't get accused. The way to avoid that is don't drink and drive. Or if you must, add one more rule to your routine. Give it one more hour. Do whatever else you need to to stay legal, use a commercially available breath alcohol tester if you have the slightest question, and then from the time you put down your last drink until the time you start a car, let another hour pass. Even if you do have an accident, there is no way the body can gather up the alcohol and concentrate it after it has been dispersed in total body water.

The breath alcohol tester is subject to some errors. For one thing, if you are starving, (or if you are a diabetic badly out of control, which in some ways is the same thing) your body will start to metabolize fat, and you will have blood ketones that the breath tester will mistake for alcohol. I do not know that it has been tested, but I would assume that your neurons would mistake it for alcohol too, and misfunction in the same way. It's a question that deserves some study. Meanwhile, if you drive don't starve or even fast.

Another fatigue-like condition that will affect driving is smoking. Nicotine, which seems to be the addicting agent in tobacco, also alters the transmission of nerve impulses. It does so, however, in a much more specific way, affecting the way acetyicholine reacts with its receptor sites at a synapse (a little gap over which one nerve cell sends a signal to another nerve cell.) Nicotine, because of the complex array of checks and balances in the nervous system, has a variety of effects, but mostly it is a depressant. If you shoot a cow full of enough nicotine, it will be prostrated, "tranquilized" if you will. A person who is smoking can generally suppress the depressant effects of the nicotine itself. Advertisements showing men undertaking hazardous and strenuous tasks with a fag dangling from the lip are not beyond all belief. That they are performing as well as they would without the cigarette just about is.

In addition to nicotine, the smoker takes on carbon monoxide. This combines with the normal hemoglobin in the blood to form methemoglobin. Hemoglobin does an excellent job of transporting oxygen for the body's needs. Methemoglobin is useless. Methemoglobin hangs around in the body for about a week. They say a smoker is already living at about five thousand feet. His body is as impaired as if he were breathing air at that altitude. Co much above ten thousand feet, and the body experiences lethargy, confusion, coma, and death. And that's for a non smoker.

Ignoring the distraction of the cigarette, smoking tobacco simply must reduce a driver's ability to function. You would not buy groceries where the check out clerk smoked, nor bank where the teller smoked while working with you. If you expect that much professionalisrn from a teller, surely you expect the same from a driver. Yet I have never heard the caution, don't smoke and drive. So I'll say it now. Don't smoke and drive. If you want to prove the contrary, do an experiment, but the burden of proof must be on proving no effect.

Not only is there no STOMP OUT SMOKED DRIVERS campaign, but at least in Clearwater, Florida, a policeman may actually smoke a cigarette while writing out a traffic ticket. Sort of boggles the mind, doesn't it? There he is, trying to handle a car, a gun and an irritated citizen, all in the name of safety, and he smokes while at it. You would expect a higher degree of professionalism from your barber, and you probably get it. In Largo, the police aren~t even supposed to chew gum, although I know of no way that that impairs judgement.

(The editor insists I make the reservation that it is all right to smoke a pipe while reading Wild Surmise. I say yes, as long as you are not also holding a loaded gun.)

Assuming a trained, rested, sober, non-smokinq, well fed driver, we consider the car. Everybody has his favorites. Mine include the Stanley Steamer, the Model A Ford, the Locomobile, the Pierce Arrow, the Stutz Bearcat, the 1949 Ford, the buck-toothed Buick, the classic MC, the Shelby Cobra probably because it looks like the car Donald Duck used to drive, the 1958 Oldsmobile, the last model of the Chrysler Imperial and the Rolls Royce Silver Cloud. The old Eldorado with the 500 cubic inch engine was fun, but there were some engineering problems with its enormous size.

But we want to build a car from the ground up, with safety as our guide -

The biggest single safety factor is weight. The last time I saw numbers, the lightest car had five times the fatal accident rate as the middle range car, and the middle range car five times that of the heaviest. In other words, the lightest car was twenty five times as deadly as the heaviest, and if you were killed in a light car, you would have had a 96% chance of surviving in a large one. Those numbers talk. Seat belts, padded dash, blinding brake lights, one more hour after the last drink, no smoking, structural modifications, 55 Mph speed limit, nothing else will increase your chance of living by twenty five fold. Anyone who builds a car that weighs less than six thousand pounds is doing so in defiance of the welfare of the occupants who will trust hirn, and must have some other very compelling and very specialized purpose in mind.

To understand why, you must consider what is dangerous in a motor vehicle accident. There is a chance of being crushed, obviously less in a sturdy car. There is a chance of fire, reduced if the gas tank is protected deep within a heavy frame. There is a chance of being cut on broken glass, reduced if the glass is farther froin you. And there is acceleration and deceleration, speeding up and slowing down.

Speed alone does no damage. We are all rushing around with the earth's crust generally at super sonic speeds. A change of speed alone is not bad. An airliner takes you comfortably to six hundred miles an hour. It is acceleration that hurts, the rate at which speed changes. There is also the concept "brisance" or shattering power, the rate at which acceleration changes. That is useful in thinking about explosive charges. Black powder can lift a stone out of a quarry without shattering it when dynamite cannot. we will consider the deceleration of a collision.

I am driving a two thousand pound car at twenty feet per second. I strike a wall and six inches of my car crumples before I stop. I have traveled six inches at an average speed of ten feet per second or 1/20 second. At that rate of deceleration, I could stop from four hundred feet per second in one second. we use the unit "g" in acceleration, being the rate of acceleration due to gravity at the surface of the earth. C is 32 feet per second per second. In my car, I experience deceleration of 400/32 = 12.5 g. My body will be subjected to a force of 12 1/2 times its own weight for an instant (assuming I am firmly fastened to the interior of my car.)

Your car weighs four thousand pounds and strikes the same wall, crumpling two feet. You have traveled two feet at an average speed of ten feet per second or 1/5 second. Your deceleration is 50 feet per second per second, or less than 2 g. The force on you is less than twice your weight. You begin to see how your big car may keep you alive.

Of course, if I hit my identical twin coming in an identical car at the exact same speed, it is the same as if I hit the wall. I have had the same change in speed and have crumpled the same amount. But suppose we hit each other, you and I.

With cars of unequal weight, of course the smaller car is thrown back. We don't come to a stop, we end up traveling in my direction. My momentum is two thousand pounds at twenty feet per second for forty thousand units. Your momentum is four thousand pounds at twenty feet per second for eighty thousand units. The difference is forty thousand units in my direction. Divide that by total weight of six thousand pounds and we are traveling at 6.7 feet per second. My car now has a total change of speed 6f 26.7 feet per second. That seems a lot worse.

Assume my car crumples the same six inches. (Actually, it won~t quite.) And assume that your car crumples the same two feet. That seems impossible. My little car makes just as deep a dent in the front of your car as a car twice my weight? Yes, because the dent is much narrower; my car is smaller and concentrates its force on a small part of your car, making a deep dent.

The total amount of distance crumpled is now 2.5 feet. The total approach speed is now 40 feet per second. The average speed during the crunch is now twenty feet per second. The time it takes to go 2.5 feet at 20 feet per second is .125 seconds. So I had a change of speed of 26.7 feet per second in .125 seconds, or an acceleration of 214 feet per second per second. Divide that by 32, and you get 7 g. That compares with 12.5 g that I would have experienced had I hit a car exactly like my own.

In other words, under these assuinptions, I, a small car driver, am more likely to live hitting a big car than hitting a little car. The owner of a little car is careless of the welfare of other drivers as well as of his own. Also, that reinforced bumper that prevents damage at low speeds becomes a weapon at higher speeds.

We will budget six thousand pounds for our car and resolve to make it big and crumplable. And we will resolve to ignore the abuse the American driver got for so many years for demanding a big crumplable car.

Next, consider the tires. There is a lot of pressure these days to get radial tires. The are supposed to last longer and, indeed, they usually do. They are supposed to give superior traction, but they can't be a lot better, because racers still use old standard bias ply tires. Radials are said to be easier to control in a blowout, and thereby hangs the enigma. You don't hear how bad bias ply tires handle in a blowout because bias ply tires rarely blow out. The radial tire fails by blowing out; the bias ply tire fails by going bald. The tendency for radials to blow out is greater when they carry a heavy car, because the heat is greater. If you want safety, you want a heavy car. If you want a heavy car, you don't want radials. Perhaps there have been changes since the last time I went through a pile of old tires, but that is the nature of the beast.

How many tires? The industry shouts a resounding "four." Three tires seems too precarious. Six wheels are used from time to time, either with four up front to steer with, with the idea that each front tire can be smaller and offer less wind resistance, or four in back, like a truck. I say that the arrangement of the tires is to keep the car under control. To do that over uneven ground, the best idea is to distribute the weight. Six wheels should be placed with a pair at the front corners, a pair at the back corners and a pair in the middle. No matter which tire fails or falls into a hole, the center of gravity of the car is still within the polygon of the remaining tires.

Most cars steer by pivoting the two front wheels; the rear axle is fixed. Thus, unless the car is traveling in a straight line, it is traveling in a circle, the center of which lies along the line of the rear axle (and well outside of the wheels). The farther forward the rear axle is placed, the smaller the circle the car will make; the farther back, the smoother the ride. In a six wheeled car, it is possible to~ steer with both the front and the back wheels and keep the center axle fixed. The car then can turn in a circle that would be expected of a machine of half the length.

In the design of the steering of an ordinary car, great care is taken to assure that the car turns properly. That is, when the car is turning, a line through the axle of the left front wheel must intersect a line through the rear axle at some point; the car is turning properly if a line through the axle of the right front wheel goes through the same point. To do this, the inside wheel must turn more than the outside wheel. To the extent that the car does not do this right, there is an increase in the amount of tire wear and an increased tendency to skid in a turn.

Ideally, the front wheels should be mounted to an axle that would swing. The two front wheel axles would always be aligned and turning would be perfect. That is not done because swinging the front axle narrows the wheel base of the car, making it unstable, and if one front wheel hits an obstacle, the front axle swings out of control. Stability in a six wheeled car is increased both by having more wheels on the ground and by the fact that turning around a center axle requires less swing of the steering axles. The problem of having the axle tend to swing when it hit something could be controlled by having a worm on the steering column engage a worm wheel on the arm that controls the movement of the axle. The worm and worm wheel need to be very heavily engineered to handle the forces, but then we are building a heavy car.

The power plant of the car must be adapted to whatever fuel is available. I have sometimes wondered if a motor could be built that burned oxygen and nitrogen to give nitric acid. Fuel would be cheap, but no doubt people would have something to say about pollution. The only thing your car can really burn around people is what people burn: carbon and hydrogen burning with atmospheric oxyqen.

Pound for pound, there is not a whole lot of difference between the power you get from hydrogen and the power you get from carbon. Carbon is a lot safer to handle than hydrogen. Consider the safety and handling problems of a hydrogen filled airship with handling a truck carrying the same weight of coal. On the other hand, the water vapor that hydrogen burns to is non-polluting and because of its light molecular weight will move about very quickly in whatever heat engine you design, more efficiently converting its thermal energy into mechanical energy than the heavy, sluggish carbon dioxide molecule. A reasonable fuel should combine the properties of the two.

As long as petroleum is as cheap as it seems just now, it is almost impossible not to use it. From it can be extracted easily handled liquids that deliver a tremendous amount of fairly clean power. Jt seems very odd that this one-time gift of nature is not more heavily taxed. Instead of saying, "You can use it, but you re going to pay for using it,'¹ the law says, "You're going to pay just a little bit for using it. And you're going to pay a 'gas-guzzler's' tax for buying a car than CAN use a lot of it, whether you drive that car or not. And you are going to be required to build a lot of cars that can't burn a lot for every car that can burn a lot, so your average is below some level. And you can't drive over 55 Mph. And your tag fee..." You would think they would just tax it and be done.

The diesel engine is very stable and reliable, but it runs rough, costs a lot and burns at such a high temperature that it makes a lot of nitric acid. A sociable car should not.

There are three kinds of gasoline engine: the gas turbine, the wankel engine and the piston engine. The turbine burns at high temperatures and makes a lot of noise. It's kind of hard to live with.

The wankel engine has been around for years. Mazda uses it. There was a rumor in the mid 1970's that they were about to release a car capable of 200 Mph costing $6,000. Since the car was to be made in Hiroshima, I suspected the car was Hiroshima's revenge. Before the machine could wipe out the youth of America, emission requirements and a fuel shortage changed the complexion of the industry. You can still get a wankel. The Mazda Rx-7 Turbo was tested by Popular Mechanics and found to be the best of '9 of the hottest cars sold in America." It's not so fast nor so cheap as the rumor of ten years ago. The article called it thirsty and so the beast has always been reputed. But one could do worse than going around to Mazda to buy one of their highly evolved engines.

The water cooled piston gasoline internal combustion engine with the electric spark ignition has had more attention than any power plant in history. Space craft and nuclear reactors are crude and unreliable by comparison. Modern motors are turbo charged, have multiple valves, and refined combustion patterns. If that is your choice of motor, I have but one suggestion. That is the cooling system.

The typical gas engine has a water jacket that circulates water around the engine. The water then goes out to the radiator to be cooled. All that takes weight and expense, and pushing a radiator along in front of the car is not the way to reduce air resistance. Instead, I would propose injecting water into the cylinder at the same time as the spark. The water should be directed at whatever hot spots the cylinder tends to get. The energy would then be available for driving the piston. This would mean carrying along a tank of water, but water is cheap and safe.

If petroleum is less available, coal dust could be suspended in gasoline. Adding naphthalene palmitate to gasoline gives it the odd characteristic of being a gel when standing still, but turning to a liquid when subjected to sufficient pressure. Ignoring all the unpleasant things people have done to each other with napalm, the gel could keep the carbon dust suspended until it was ready to be injected into the engine. The engine would need to be run hot enough to be sure all the carbon burned.

If petroleum is really hard to get, carbon dust could be suspended in water. It should probably be mixed in a little chamber just before being put into the cylinder.

For a given temperature, a steam engine is more efficient that an internal combustion engine. As structural materials for engines yet better, the temperature at which nitrogen burns will become the limiting factor in design. There are rumors of a new ignition system for internal combustion engines. It does something like put a strong electrostatic field across the air-fuel mixture, permitting a reliable combustion at such a lean mixture and such a low temperature that it makes hardly any nitric acid, yet it runs very efficiently. Once the mechanism is released, it will be seen whether it can be adapted to a steam engine with a similar increase in efficiency at given temperature.

A steam engine could burn any of the fuels described. And a steam engine built of titanium and ceramic could probably be run as hot as a gasoline engine. The steam engine takes more parts, a fire box, a boiler, a turbine and a condenser. The fire box and boiler can be combined as a unit, a ceramic box with titanium pipes containing the water to be boiled. Ceramic turbines are already being developed. And a condenser need be no more trouble than the radiator we already are familiar with in a standard car. I would say that the steam engine is the way to drive the car.

Modern permanent magnets make it possible to build very strong and light generators and motors. Rather than carrying power from the engine to the wheels with a complicated metal transmission, it would seem better to have the engine generate electricity and transmit that to electric motors on the wheels. In fact, that would make it easy to power all six wheels.

Carry a big fly wheel on the shaft of the electric generator, and design the generator so it will also run as a motor to turn the fly wheel. Put a magnetic coupling between the turbine and generator-plus-fly-wheel, so they can be disconnected at will. Now you can use the motors on the wheels in reverse as brakes. Instead of turning the energy of the moving car into heat, as ordinary brakes do, this would store the energy in the fly wheel in a form from which some of it could be recovered. This kind of brakes could be given non-skid characteristics by monitoring and governing them with a computer. The same arrangement would give you non-skid acceleration.

Two back up systems are needed. There must be mechanical brakes in case the system fails, and there must be a radiator after all. You are coming down a mountain. You have already put as much energy into your fly wheel as it is rated for. You want to unload more energy. Open a duct and let air pour over a big electric radiator. In this circumstance, you aren't worried about air resistance.

As long as you are already committed to a computer, fly wheel and generator system, there is another thing you can do. when the car hits a bump, one wheel is forced up, compressing a spring and storing energy. This energy is then converted to heat by a device known as a shock absorber. A linear induction generator-motor mounted in place of the shock absorber could convert some of the energy back into electricity and send it back to the fly wheel. The same device could also be used to lift the car higher off the road, lower it down to the road, lift one wheel in order to change tires, harden the ride or soften the ride as needed, lean into turns, lean back when braking, adapt to different load conditions, lift the two center wheels to reduce the chance of hydroplaning in puddles or freeze all the wheels in place for mincing over chuck holes. If you found any use for it (and I understand in California, a lot of them think it~s important) you could have your car rear like a colt or jump up and down in place.

The exterior of the car should permit it to slide though the air. Much of the power of the car goes to pushing past the friction of the air. That friction in turn heats up the outside of the car and warms the passengers. It also makes noise and wastes power.

Consider the air on top of a moving car. It has been compressed by the passage of the vehicle. As the back of the roof is reached, the air expands downward. There is a certain maximum acceleration that the air can undergo without causing turbulence. That acceleration defines a parabola, that is the maximum rate at which you can permit the roof to drop away. Thus:

Half way down to the middle of the car, you want the air to begin to stop coming down, so as to be quite still when the car has gone past. You use the same parabola to bring the air to a stop:

The width of the parabola is determined by the maximum speed for which you are designing the car. The height of the car is determined by the amount of comfort you are willing to offer your passengers. Assuming that the car is well clear of the ground, the bottom should have the same shape as the top, and the front the same shape as the back.

If you want to make the car longer, just stretch the middle.

You can take this shape and rotate it on its long axis to make a car shaped like a dart at both ends, or you can just make the sides flat and parallel to the direction of travel. In this case, you will want a sort of flange to keep air from swirling around from high pressure areas to low pressure areas. swirling is a good way to increase drag.

You can take your choice of none, one, two or three flat sides. I chose the two vertical sides, which with their flanges look like this (ignoring fairings for the wheels):

The advantage to this design is you know where your sides are in traffic. Also, if you want to increase the traction of your tires, say for stopping or cornering, just lower the car on its suspension. Air caught between the bottom of the car and the ground will produce downward aerodynamic lift and the car will push down on its tires harder.

The horizontal leading edge of the car would seem like the natural place for the air scoop for the needs of the engine and passenger. But where should the exhaust be? Most simply, it should go out the same slot in the rear. On the other hand, that exhausted air is going to be hotter than the air that came in. And hot air has less friction than cold air. It would be more efficient to put the exhaust out of slits in the front, where it would be swept over and under the car to rather lubricate it. In order not to bake the passengers, these parts of the car would need a double skin with a space between where cool air was circulated.

A golf ball has a dimpled surface. It turns out such a ball has less air resistance than a smooth ball. Before leaving the exterior of the car, we should experiment with a dimpled or pebbled surface to see if it reduces resistance for the car.

Interiors have had a lot of study. The interior should be cool, quiet, very well padded and have lots of room. All these things reduce driver fatigue. There should be no ash tray. The windshield should be clear in spite of the added load it puts on the air conditioner. Tinted windows are hard to see through at night. And not being able to see is dangerous. The driver should have not one best but three or four excellent positions in which to sit. Changing his posture will reduce fatigue.

My tastes tend to run toward leather and even fur for an interior. They say fur is getting unpopular because it requires killing anirnals. But kangaroo fur is very soft and you could hardly do the kangaroos a better favor than finding a commercial use for them. As far as the dash boards and other parts that need to be padded, I say pad them with feathers or down. And for parts that are not padded, use real wood. It's still available.

And for the instruments, make them anything but black and white. Black and white is very fatiguing for the eye. Make them earth colors like the rest of the interior, or all of a single saturated hue preferably blue with different brightnesses.

Such a car should slice silently though the air with a minimum of strain and punishment for the passengers.

The road is the other part of the formula.

Modern road surfaces are designed to be safe. But the view from them is often downright ugly. And ugliness means fatigue. Power lines, as long as they stay up there, cannot be blamed for any individual accident, but in the aggregate, I cannot belive they do not increase the overall wear on drivers. Barriers often look like they were designed to keep you in constant mind of your mortality. Street signs are often hard to read, poorly placed and neglect to tell you the name of the main road you are on while naming the side roads you pass. Every place of business tries to have an appealing sign for the customers. Some places overdo it, and some underdo it. Rarely is a street planned so that all signs can be read easily at a good distance, while none is obtrusive.

It is a pleasant thing to rest your eyes with the view from a bridge. It makes you a better driver. But the moment when you glance away from your task is, indeed, dangerous. So bridge designers make no effort to assure that a car has a good view. If anything, they seem to discourage it.

Recently people have been using a third brake light in the rear window. It is very bright. It is supposed to reduce rear end collisions, and perhaps it does. But somehow I don't see the long term advantage to adding another glare in a driver's eyes.

In Florida, after centuries of building roads up so that the roadbed was well drained, they have taken to dropping roads and depending on storm sewers for drainage. Initially, it seemed folly to me, particularly when they dropped a road that went right over the highest ridge in Pinellas county. This county is rather short on high ground and too crowded to evacuate in case of hurricane. But in the end, they did not drop it much, and the mood of the road really is nicer, flanked by grassy banks rather than by crowded parking lots.

Perhaps that principle could be carried farther. Special roads could be constructed, scenic roads, such as they have in national parks. But instead of requiring things to be wild, things along the right of way would only need to be scenic. Anyone who wanted to build there would just have to obey the rules. It would be interesting-to see whether the nuisance of having very stringent rules about the appearances that had to be maintained would outweigh the improved appearance that might result. It would also be interesting to know whether such roads were safer to drive.

Editor's note:

Wild Surmise is an occasional newsletter on speculative matter. Next month Booty will speculate about world peace, and the following month he will try do design an airplane. Again, many thanks for the help of all of you in keeping this project anonymous.

M came in the other day and said very quietly that he had once again seen his name written in the sky, this time in broad daylight. Booty came running in shouting that he had seen an oblong object floating in the sky. Moneybags said, good, now maybe Omni will rnention us. In the midst of all this, the official and dazzlingly beautiful Wild Surmise laboratory assistant said sbe thought she knew what it was, so we sent her and Cooter out to get a picture of it. The picture will appear like Cooter's other photographs on the last page of the issue.

copyright August, 1986 WILD SURMISE

Dear Ed,

The Kings of the Franks traced their descent from a granddaughter of Queen Boudicca of the Iceni, who lived in Norfolk. That Celtic people was defeated and enslaved by the Romans, because they rebelled under Boudicca. The granddaughter fled to Germany and married the king of the Franks.

Perhaps the Franks, originally, were also freedom-fighters who had gone to Germany to escape Roman domination. Adolf Bach, in his book Deutsche Volkskunde, describes the Franks as being different in facial appearance from other Germans. The appearance he describes tends toward the Celtic, or what we think of as Celtic, although it might have been Pictish.

The Frankish nobility learned to speak German from their mothers, who were German, although their paternal ancestors may have spoken the Celtic of the Gaul where they once lived.

"Frank" means "free," just as "Friesian" does. In ancient times, South Germany was Celtic, and perhaps those "Germans" got that name from the Romans because they were free. The Gaelic word for a free farmer is "Diarmuid," from which we get the name "McDermott." The Gaelic diminutive of that, which means "franklin," is "Diarmin," pronounced "Jarmeen."

I wonder if the Picts or other pre-Celtic Britons built Stonehenge to forecast the weather, especially the next Ice Age. Prof. Charles Hapgood in, the Maps of the Ancient Sea-Kings, presented evidence that the whole earth, including Antarctica, was mapped in prehistoric times.

In addition to "Scotland," the Picts seem to have lived in Northern Ireland under the name of "Cruithne," in Lincoinshire under the name "Coritani," and possibly in Gaul. I may have mentioned previously that the Etruscan city of ^t1Kurtun," (Italian "Cortona"), and many other similarly-named places in the LatinHelenic world have been related by scholars. "Croton" was the place in southern Italy where the philosopher Pythaqorus preached his "reincarnation" ideas. To get more far-fetched, when Sir Walter Raleigh's colony disappeared, all that was found was a mysterious word "Croatan," carved on a tree.

One early king of Rome was "Servius Tulliw." His first name indicates he was once a slave. Supposedly, he became king by marrying the daughter of Tarquinius Priscus, the previous king. To Robert Craves, that indicated the Roman kingship was originally matrilineal. (Perhaps because it was of Etruscan origin.) However, "Tullius" is a name that doesn't have apparent Latin origin. One might "wildly surmise" a relationship with "Ultima Thule," in the far north. In Etruscan, the root thule means "border." I've read that some famous Roman, perhaps Tullius, was called "Macstrna" in Etruscan.

June 22

(An excerpt from The Etruscans by Massimo Pallottino, Indiana University Press, 1975) An early Roman king (who had married into the kingship) may have introduced constitutional reforms that prepared the way for the Republic, and his name, began, perhaps, with Mac.

(An excerpt from Scottish Place-Names by W.F.H. Nicolaisen, B.T. Batsford, London, 1976 indicates that Picts settled neither on the coast nor river bottoms nor on high mountains, but almost entirely between 50 and 650 feet above sea level) The Piedmont?

Sincerely,

Reality is the Only Self

by Jerry Cox

All human beings are variations on a single theme, the one

authentic self.

The ancient experience of the whole Self has been forgotten.

For lack of this experience, our sense of being is insecure, we

compete for relative worth, and we fear death.

Faith in Self and faith in Reality enhance each other. In the end, there is no opposition or division between Self and Reality. Reality is self-conscious from many points of view, such as you

and me.

The pastime of Reality is to experience itself from all these

points of view.

Experience requires resistance; when that resistance is very

great, we call it "Evil."

Evil is necessary if Reality wishes to explore all its

possibilities.

The path of return is not self-rejection, but acceptance 0+

oneself as he now is.

As the self becomes more secure, Reality seems more and more

hospitable.

Unconditional loyalty to the Self eliminates the necessity for

illusions about self and world.

If you were to live a rnillion years, you would in no wise

resemble the person you are today, and the baby you once were is

now "dead."

"The Avatar" is a perfect expression of the character of Reality, living without fear of God or man. Such were Christ and Buddha.

An honest heart is the surest moral guide.

Spiritual life is an ordinary life well savored.

Ultimately, happiness is the only sensible measure of wealth.

* * *

Only persons of intermediate honesty tell a consistent tale.

Liars contradict themselves in order to betray the truth.

Exceptionally honest people do so in order to be faithful to it.

Guest Writer

The Potential Impact of a New Cosmology

Twentieth century cosmology deals with such immense measures of space, time and energy that theories which best fit the facts don't seem to match the scope of their subject. It seems that we can no longer avoid facing a choice between two fundamental points of view: 'A' the "scientific", and 'B' the "trans-scientific."

A. If we regard cosmology as a branch of science which deals with the physical universe and is subject to the scientific method and discipline, then the result, in the most general terms, is already determined. The result is the description of a super solar system". Although this system is at least 1022 times greater than our solar system, it is still an "object" which meaninglessly "floats", as it were₁ in an otherwise unknowable total concept of Existence.

B. If, however, we assume that the frontiers of cosmology interface with a total concept of Existence, then additional questions must be addressed, requiring for their answer the extension of both the scientific method and the inventory and role of the dimensions.

The result is the outline of a concept of Existence/Universe in terms of relationships between dimensions. In such an Outline energy states and complexity assume dimensional characteristics and, with space and time, all dimensions are mutually the functions of each other. Furthermore, the dimensions transcend any specific finite value, since Existence cannot be conceived as being limited in any respect.

In this paper, point of view 'B' is expanded. It will be shown that, unlike 'A', 'B' fully satisfies two complementary and decisive criteria. These are:

1. The criterion of complete decentralization of Than S position.

A view of Universe, in which no observer has privileged positionin-principle in any respect, is the only plausible one. According to this view man has no unique situation in space, nor in time, nor in degree of complexity and development. This view completes the historical development of decentralization which, in Western thought, belatedly gained momentum since Copernicus.

A view of Universe, which is free from any arbitrary barrier-in-principle to knowledge, though experience, observation and test, is the only one worth following with investigation. According to this view, Existence is a continuous and universal process, therefore all knowledge is available in principle everywhere. at all times. Any barrier to a better understanding is due to the limitations of the investigator's particular state of development. According to this view, there is no arbitrary upper limit to development, therefore, eventually all such barriers can be broken.

Although the scientific view sympathizes with these two criteria, it is apparent that the leading modern cosmological theories, Expanding Universe and the Big Bang theory, do not satisfy them. Observations, which led to these theories, including the observation of the red shift since Hubble and the observation of a background radiation by Wilson and Penzias, and other, are unassailable -- however, their interpretation led away from these criteria.

It can be shown how these two criteria can be satisfied by a concept of Universe/Existence, which is open and limitless, yet which can be readily comprehended by making use of our capability for "directional" knowledge which complements the "territorial" knowledge of science.

The significance of observations made so far attain even greater significance in this concept, this being more general than prevailing models of the universe.

In addition, it can be shown, by an exploration of implication, how this concept envelopes our intuitions and higher emotional make-up thereby achieving a complete synthesis. This synthesis absorbs and supercedes the contradiction-ridden mosaic of contemporary views, therefore, it is conducive to the attainment of inner harmony. It has the potential to become an intermediary, a neutral reference level, to which conflicting views and beliefs can relate for the sake of resolution. Unlike the detached, cold view which limits itself to the investigation of physical aspects of universe in isolation, this concept fuses human existence and this Spaceship Earth into a greater scheme of things. It is, therefore, conducive to the attainment of harmony among people.

The following describes the concept of Existence in terms of the dimensions and their relationship. In addition to the dimensions of space and time, the concept incorporates energy states and complexity as dimensions. Existence is conceived as six-dimensional space-time-energy-complexity pattern and process. This concept is illustrated by the model.

Diagram, part one:

Space is conceived as a composite of superimposed subspaces. For illustration, these subspaces are segregated and represented by cut-out cubes noted, for convenience, as A to z. Each subspace is of limitless extent and exists eternally.

Space does not have an independent existence of its own. Space is determined by · things' which create it. Let us call these things entities. For now, let us not be concerned what these entities are except to say that they manifest themselves in degrees of complexity. Complexity varies from infinitely simple (A) to infinitely complex (Z)>

Varying complexity is indicated by spheres of varying size. Space is absolutely divided into points in A and absolutely unified in z. Dividedness and unification are complementary aspects of space. Between the homogeneous states of A and z space is granular' in varying degrees. This model completely fills and completely defines space. It is assumed that the concept of space cannot be anything less.

Diagram, part two:

Let us introduce time and change into the spatial model described above.

For illustration, subspaces are flattened into planes and one space dimension is replaced by time. Time is flowing from left to right.

Like space, time does not have an independent existence of its own. Time is determined by 'happenings' characterized by a process of integration of entities leading to entities of ever more complexity.

The process in accelerating because complexity is cumulative in that the process of integration is carried on with larger and larger, and with fewer and fewer entities, increasingly ⁹¹efficiently". This is illustrated by the crowding of space-planes toward the right.

Time is conceived in two inversely related aspects: duration and change content.

The amount of change in entities tends to infinity approaching z. (Infinite complexity also rneans infinite richness in change.)

The duration of entities tends to infinity close to A. (Nothing much happens with simple things for a very long time.)

It is assumed the the concept of time cannot be anything less.

Diagram, part three:

For illustration, subspaces are further reduced from planes into straight lines and Diagram, part two, is wrapped around into a cylinder so as to bring z in contact with A. At this line the infinitely complex entity, consuming itself, generates the infinitely simple and, though the vast process of integration, generates itself. This way the model is seen as its own cause and own effect.

In this model complexity appears as a dimension having equal status with space and time. These dimensions are mutually the functions of each other.

Space and time do not have uniform, universal measure because they both vary according to complexity. Also, as the limits of complexity, space and time assume singularities, in the following sense: For the infinitely complex entity there is no outside' or elsewhereness therefore space, as we know it, disappears. Time also disappears since, due to an infinite change content, everything is given at once.

The model contains both evolutionary and steady state characteristics. Evolutionary, because simple entities transform into complex ones: in steady state, because all degrees of complexity are eternally represented.

The essence of Existence is transforrnation of energy. At A the energy is entirely potential'. This stage is absolutely homogeneous and the energy is absolutely organized (zero entropy.)

The original potential energy gradually changes into 'kinetic~ energy manifested by an accelerating process of integration.

At Z the energy is entirely kinetic. This stage is again absolutely homogeneous and the energy is absolutely organized, perpendiclarly' to the organization of A.

In between, energy does not become disorganized. The process is really manifested by the continuous loss - and replacement - of one kind of organization in favour of another kind.

It is assumed that the concept of Existence cannot be anything less.

Besides completeness, the model possesses unity, beauty and symmetry. The dimensions or parameters which describe it assume all values, indeed, what happens with these parameters in the model is the most that can happen with them. such must be the role of these parameters in a total concept of Existence where parameters cannot appear as arbitrary contaminations locked between finite limits. Existence cannot be partial in any respect.

Urged by our age-old desire to understand the world around us, we may come to understand that the Universe is like this mode. 'Then our knowledge and beliefs suddenly appear as fragments in the foreground against a background outlined by the model. Indeed, it is possible to plot on this model anything from the eastern metaphysics to the big bang theory of contemporary cosmology.

ed note: Louis Mathe has condensed this from his 155 page illustrated book "The Transcendental Structure of the Universe," available through "Polymath Systems" Box 795, Berkeley CA 94701.

More Books

Moneybags carne in the other. day and put down a little stack of books in front of me. He said to say something nice about them. I asked if he could assure me they were not books by friends or anyone he had had any business dealings with or wanted to do a favor for. He said of course it was all that sort of thing. I told him I couldn't ethically do that sort of thing. He pointed out that he wasn't paying me anyway, so there was no ethical issue. I said a person could still be honest. He pointed out that I am a habitual liar. I said, of course, I have to cover for the rest of them to keep them anonymous. He said he rested his case. So here they are.

These books were all written by Floridians. Florida has long been a land of dreamers and artists. North America, the greatest discovery in the entire age of discovery, was found by Ponce de Leon. He named it Florida, land of flowers. The place he landed he named after his nose, Canaveral. The say "'The Kubla Kahn" by Coleridge was written after reading a book of travels in Florida, and Poe in "Landor's Cottage" could think of no tree more beautiful than the cypress along the Itchiatuckanee. Hither have come such painters as Winslow Homer and Audubon. Here have lived writers like Hemingway, Lovecraft, and Rawlings. Here now live Anthony and Woodruff.

The first book is The Chickenhawk by Robert Mason, published by Penguin Books. It is a stunning and brilliantly written story of the experiences of a helicopter pilot in the Vietnam war. It also has a very disturbing 13 page epilogue. Try to figure it out.

The second book is the Dollar Collar by Ed l'Heureux, published by Janus Press. You can get in touch with the author at box 3633, Winter Springs, Fl 32708. The book is a collection of short stories. If you like adverbs, this is your book. It describes an interior world where mature characters in ordinary surroundings display surprising strengths and face hidden trials unguessed at by those they come into contact with.

The third book is Florida's Aviation History by Warren J~ Brown, published by Aero-Medical Consultants, Inc. 10912 Hamlin Blvd., W., Largo, Florida 33540. Solidly documented, blessedly objective, it ties local interest so thoroughly to world history that the reader tends to forget the narrower scope of the work. The tone is warm in humor, but unblinking toward the many tragedies while acknowledging the moments of joy in early aviation. If you like hangar stories, this book is for you. If you like a terse but unhurried history told by a writer who lets the inherent drama of his tale provide his emphasis, so much the better.

The last book is an adventure story. It is The Messiah Stone by Martin Caidin, published by flaen Books. If you want bare, raw, flayed, flensed action, this is your bodk. There are airplanes in this book, too. The book hints that the "stone" actually exists. Moneybags suggested he might have or have had some indirect interest in it at some time or another. M says he has never seen it and can't comment. Booty thinks it may~be the "yellow sign" of Robert W. Chambers, once more making its presence felt in the

world.

Ed

MILD SURPRISE

I would drop by and visit my older friend periodically and listen to his tales. He would spin yarns of the uncoordinated exuberance of football. Of the indifferent violence of black belt Karate. Of the anguished excellence of the United States Marines. He had not, however, actually had combat experience, and to that fact one or the other of us may now owe his life.

His wife was slender, pretty, intelligent, sweet tempered, with lambent brown eyes and short black hair. So in several respects, she was in striking contrast with him, and with me for that matter. I was sorry when they got divorced, but I continued to call, expecting some day he would return to his senses and the home.

On the night in question, I drove my sports car down the steep drive, which was perched on the side of a dark narrow ravine in a deep forest. I rapped on the solid hardwood door, and she opened it with the enthusiasm of one who has resigned not without a fight to a dull lonely evening. She held the big police dog on a short choke leash. The dog grinned and drooled and dragged her a few inches forward on the smooth concrete hall floor. Between speaking to and whacking at the dog, she explained that the beast had recently gone vicious so she would close him up in the back of the house- This she did. when she returned, and while she was bolting the door, I produced the occasion of rny visit, a catalogue.

It was a catalogue of clothing for motorcyclists. She was planning to go on a motorcycle trip out west with a friend, and the last time J was over, she asked about what to wear. Clothes are more important to a motorcycle rider than to an automobile rider. In the first place, they must serve as protection against the routine wear of the trip. The wind, the bugs, the dust, the rain, the sunlight, the heat, the cold - the body of a car protects you. On a motorcycle, you rely on a few ounces of cloth and leather. Second, you need to be much freer in your motions on a motorcycle; there are more different parts of the machine you will need to get to to make it behave; like you have to climb onto

it. Third, of course, your clothing must protect you from accident, from flyinq pebbles, and from having to put a foot down at speed, and from the effects of a fall or, perish the thought, a wreck. Last, and not all that trivial, people see more of you when you are on a motorcycle. People see more of your clothing, they are rnore likely to relate to your clothing, and how they behave may make a difference in how your trip goes.

I had a favorite riding outfit. But that night I was wearing, a tan bush jacket, a pair of hideous red and white double knit slacks and a beat up pair of loafers. I was dressed for comfort, not action.

She sat on the couch in front of the fireplace. I sat in an easy chair beside the couch. The living roorn had a high ceiling. The wall behind me was solid brick except for the door to the entrance hall and bedrooms beyond. The front wall of the room was the front of the house toward the steep drive. It was brick as well. The corner was occupied by the kitchen and dinette. The kitchen door actually opened on the inside into the living room. There was a machete perched on nails over the door, a long heavy bladed knife invented by the British for cutting grass in tropical countries, pressed into service as a sword in many parts of the world to this very day. Outside, the door opened into the garage. The next wall was solid until the ground level had dropped below floor level. Then it was plate glass as far as the corner, with drapes in front. The back wall, well back from the back of the fire place. was also plate glass, and looked into the ravine. The hearth stood in the center. There were two low steps that ran the breadth of the roorn at the back of the fire place, so that the floor back there overlooking the ravine was a few inches lower than the better lit part of the room where we sat.

We talked about motorcycles, about clothes and about her planned trip for maybe half an hour. Then a car pulled up and we heard footsteps in the garage. That, she explained, would be her ex husband. He had moved back in.

What she could no more explain than I could was why it was taking him so long to come in. Presently the door opened. He entered, holding a beer bottle. He turned and locked the door. I jumped to my feet and greeted him cheerily, but he seemed most intent on locking the door and did not answer. Presently, still without a word he started toward the hall. About the middle of the room he lurched and staggered as if extremely drunk. I still had the sensation of waiting for him to arrive, but I said, "Watch it," as he almost fell. Recovering his balance, he moved to a point about midway between me and the locked door with its machete.

He delivered an opinion on my ancestry, sexual habits and probably state of grace. Although, by his estimate, they were all intimately intwined, they gave no clue as to the cause for the angry manner in which he rattled them off. (I'm not mad. Why should you be mad?)

He mentioned a painful memory from his days in the marines. It hadn't involved me at all. (That still doesn't explain why you should be angry with me.)

He said, "I'm going to make you famous. (No thanks. I hate crowds.)

He said, 'I'm going to make you another baroque curse famous."

(If I could manage all that at the same time, I might well become famous.)

He spat out another.

(I wish you would get to the point.)

He broke the beer bottle on the mantle piece.

(Oh. I see.)

The perspective of the room suddenly changed. The furniture, too light for protection and to heavy to throw, vanished. My corner, formed by the brick wall behind me and the low steps to my side rose three or four feet about the rest of the room. "This is my corner," I thought. "If you come into my corner, you are a suicide case." I shuffled about possessively, looking down at him.

Reaching out with my rnind, I could feel the good qritty texture of the fire place. An ax could not hack through it in half a day. somewhere in the room moved the wraith of the woman. Reaching out farther, I sensed the hallway with one heavy front door and lighter doors, behind one of which was the unpredictable dog. In the other direction were curtained windows and behind them the cool dark safety of the wooded ravine.

I could move through a forest by day as well as any, and at night, I conceded no equal. I could move faster and more silently through night woods than most can on a track. But between the room and the ravine were heavy plate glass, many seconds to kick through with boots, and I had neither many seconds nor boots. That left the locked kitchen door and the machete.

I was still edging back and forth, and he mirrored my movements, holding the remains of his beer bottle by the neck. Had he gone for the machete, I would have had no choice but to close with him. A sword is deadly.

Although he hesitated to start up the hill to my corner, there was no way to hold him for long, and there was only one way past him. I would have to draw him. That would mean accurately guessing how fast he would react and how fast he could run. He started up. I started toward the back of the fire place, slowly, then gaining speed as he committed to following.

Down, down off the elevation. Bank around the corner behind the fire place. Start the next corner.

But I was too slow. A hand closed onto the back of my bush jacket as I turned onto the straight away. I do not know how my bush jacket came off. I remember the abrupt tension on it, and I remember it tearing and myself thrashing free of it. Perhaps it was the force with which he pulled. Perhaps he slashed it with the broken bottle. I do know that when I emerged from behind the fire place, I was naked to the waist, and that my car keys remained in the pocket of the ruined bush jacket.

Meanwhile she, silent until now, had moved to a place in front of the hearth. It wasn't turning out to be such a dull evening for her after all. In fact, if half an hour before you had asked her whether she was about to have two elephants doing battle in her living room, she would probably have said she doubted it. At all events, by positioning herself in front of the fire place, she cut off that direction, so that the hunt would rush past her and straight toward the door. Whether she was reading my mind, or I hers, I cannot say.

I carne legging it past the mantle. It was a big room. In six strides, I would reach the machete and turn, right elbow against the locked door, heel of hand against the butt of the handle, left hand about four inches back from the point aiming it slightly up, left elbow out as far as possible. Unless he could break his momentum, I would geg him like a frog. There just wasn't enough time for anything else, even though everything inside me was looking for a way to break the pattern of the developing drama. I was not so much thinking as trying to feel a way through.

Then, on stride four, she called out, "Come back." She was talking to me. I could tell by the tone. I never did go back. But it meant more than I could say that she spoke. Because if she was talking to me, it meant I was leaving. And if I was leaving, it was by the kitchen door. And if I was leaving by the kitchen door even though it was locked, then it could be opened from the inside, even though it was locked. On stride six, I put my hand, not up to the machete but down to the door knob. It began to turn. The next thing I knew, I ran into the side of his parked car, rolled away, ran again.

A voice below me said, "Where did he go? Be was speaking to her, and I seemed to be hovering above them in the night. In fact, I had run to the top of the drive. I listened to the tone of the voice. There was no threat in it for her. She would be all right. And I was free to go, into the wind and the dark and the silent starlight and the trees. My apartment was a few miles run away, but I was already home.