He tucked the rolls and orange inside his shirt, marched valiantly out of the dark little store, and continued on to the yards.
The heavy traffic there confused him briefly. Transcontinental freight was carried in long trains of rubber-tired cars towed on elevated beamways by remotely-controlled, nuclear-fueled steam tractors. Here at the San Francisco yards the trains were broken up and the individual cars hauled by turbo-tractor on city streets and suburban roads for delivery at the addressees' doors.
The cars were huge, the noise and bustle awe-inspiring. Ollie stood outside the main exit watching the little tractors and big cars emerge, till a beamway bull came over, flashed a badge, and told him to move on.
He did. He was a fugitive from so many things; he couldn't afford resentments.
He went on around the yards. They were vast. He felt sure that somewhere there must be an unguarded entry, and set out to find it, moving cautiously from shadow to shadow along the high plasti-board fence.
Twice he blundered into watchmen. Once he nearly got himself run over. But after a couple of hours he saw a bindlestiff slip through an unguarded gate, and in half a minute he was right behind the man.
Ollie moved away from him. There was safety in solitude. Besides, he had to find a Salt Lake train.
The sealed cars were addressed like so many packages. But he had to have light to read by, and he risked discovery every time he moved into the light and took his stance behind the reading glass.
There were other hazards; television beams for the yard clerks to read numbers by, invisible beams for the bulls to catch him with, headlights that suddenly flashed on blindingly, humped cars rolling unattended on silent, murderous tires.