Impossible Places by Alan Dean Foster Read Free Book Online Page A

distance
among the dreaming gum trees and grass, ever in need of
upkeep and repair. We passed many road repair crews;
sometimes wiry, sometimes large, always muscular men
clad in light-gray shorts and white undershirts and
floppy-brimmed hats, leaning on shovels or picks or in
the seats of downsized backhoes and graders, cigarettes
dangling from their mouths or beers from their hands.
We rarely saw them working, and tut-tutted at their singular lack of energy.
    Without wondering if there might be reasons for it beyond the obvious.
    “Take it easy, mate. Have a beer.”
    Harbison was not mollified. “National Highway, my ass! National disgrace is more like it.”
    The foreman was not insulted. “You won’t get any argument from me. Maybe that’s why they decided to try bringing in some people from the States.” He proffered a cold can.
    The engineer deliberately pushed it aside. “Frankly I’m not surprised. I’ve driven over a thousand miles this past week, and I didn’t see one road crew that wasn’t squatting on their butts guzzling that stuff. When they weren’t drinking beer, they were swilling wine for lunch and hard liquor for dinner and after. No wonder your so-called National Highway is falling apart.”
    Kent glanced out the window. Moreton Bay was clear of clouds. That meant it would be calm out on the reef. Good fishing. With an effort he forced himself to turn back to the American engineer.
    “Your first time Down Under, isn’t it?”
    “So?”
    Kent sipped brew. “Despite what you’ve seen and what you may think, we can build roads, Mr. Harbison. Look around Sydney or Melbourne.”
    “I have. The roads there are fine. That’s not why I was sent for.” He stared unforgivingly at the foreman. “If you can build there, why not everyplace else?”
    Kent looked away. “It’s this country. You get out away from the cities, there’s nothing. I mean, you’re talking five million people scattered over empty territory the size of the continental U.S. The Outback isn’t kind to men, machinery, or plans. It doesn’t matter who you put on a job; pretty soon things start to slow down. Work gets sloppy. Machinery starts to act up, break down. So do men, if they’re not careful. Why do you think most of our roads outside the cities are still dirt? Because we like it that way?”
    “Because of lack of determination. Because somebody hasn’t been doing their job.”
    “They do what they can,” Kent argued. “You don’t know what it’s like out there, what you have to deal with. But you’ll find out. The Outback gets to everyone. It’ll get to you, too.”
    “Bullshit. I’ve built roads in the Amazon, in Africa, all over the world. There’s nothing special about the terrain here. I know. I’ve just driven a thousand miles of it. All I found was lousy work and excuses.” He smiled humorlessly. “That will change.”
    Kent shrugged. “That’s what you’ve been hired for. Believe me, I wish you the best of luck. The best. I don’t like driving that road in the condition it’s in any more than you did. Neither does anyone else.”
    “Then why haven’t you fixed it? Why go all the way to the States to find a supervisor?”
    The foreman eyed him over his beer. “Mate, don’t you think we’ve tried?”
    It was hot, but it had been hotter in Brazil. Harbison felt a stabbing pain in his leg, slapped fast, and saw the March fly tumble to the ground. He jammed it into the earth with the heel of his boot, looked up through his sunshades.
    They were twenty kilometers north of Rockhampton, working on the middle of the highway. Not far to the east was the portion of the Pacific aptly named the Coral Sea. To the west lay the mountains of the coast range and beyond, nothing. Nothing all the way to the Indian Ocean save sand and dry plains and gravel.
    It was bad enough here. Scattered gum trees (eucalyptus back home), a few bushes, desultory grasses, all bathed in sunlight that tinted everything