In a moment of desperation Tom turned to Mom. The sadness was still in her face, but it seemed over-shadowed by pride. What was it she'd once said? "It's terrible, Tom, to think of your becoming a Driver, but it'd be a hundred times more terrible _not_ to see you become one." He knew now that he was alone, an exile, and Mom and Dad were strangers. After all, how could one person, entrenched in his own little world of calm security, truly know another's fear and loneliness? "Just a little celebration," Dad was saying. "You wouldn't be a Driver unless we gave you a real send-off. All our friends are here, Tom. Uncle Mack and Aunt Edith and Bill Ackerman and Lou Dorrance--" No, Dad, Tom thought. Not our friends. _Your_ friends. Don't you remember that a man of twenty who isn't a Driver has no friends? A lank, loose-jowled man jostled between them. Tom realized that Uncle Mack was babbling at him. "Knew you'd make it, Tom. Never believed what some people said 'bout you being afraid. My boy, of course, enlisted when he was only seventeen. Over thirty now, but he still Drives now and then. Got a special license, you know. Only last week--" Dad exclaimed, "A toast to our new Driver!" Murmurs of delight. Clinkings of glasses. Gurglings of liquid. Someone bounded a piano chord. Voices rose: "A-Driving he will go, A-Driving he will go, To Hell and back in a coffin-sack A-Driving he will go." Tom downed his glass of champagne. A pleasant warmth filled his belly. A satisfying numbness dulled the raw ache of fear. He smiled bitterly. There was kindness and gentleness within the human heart, he thought, but like tiny inextinguishable fires, there were ferocity and savageness, too. What else could one expect from a race only a few thousand years beyond the spear and stone axe? Through his imagination passed a parade of sombre scenes: The primitive man dancing about a Paleolithic fire, chanting an invocation to strange gods who might help in tomorrow's battle with the hairy warriors from the South. The barrel-chested Roman gladiator, with trident and net, striding into the great stone arena. The silver-armored knight, gauntlet in gloved hand, riding into the pennant-bordered tournament ground. The rock-shouldered fullback trotting beneath an avalanche of cheers into the 20th Century stadium. Men needed a challenge to their wits, a test for their strength. The urge to combat and the lust for danger was as innate as the desire for life. Who was he to say that the law of Driving was unjust? Nevertheless he shuddered. And the singers continued: "A thousand miles an hour, A thousand miles an hour, Angels cry and devils sigh At a thousand miles an hour...." * * * * *