Code Three

FREEWAYS TO HELL

Ben Martin and Clay Ferguson have got a tough job. In Car 56 -- "Beulah" -- they patrol the super-highways of a future that might have been. Along with Medical-Surgical Officer Kelly Lightfoot, they help keep an insane road system as safe as possible. Here is a startling and excitingly realistic portrait of regular folks in a future extrapolated from a time when technology was changing at an explosive rate. What if highways just got bigger and bigger, cars faster and faster? How could such be patrolled, when crashes, jams and road rage are the norm? The answer is an elite paramilitary corp. These dedicated officers, trying to keep reign on a crazed vehicle culture with sixty foot long tank-like patrol cars with 25mm cannon, cranes and full medical suites.

Nominated for a Hugo Award, Code Three is a gripping tale for all fans of "If This Go On" stories.

Rick Raphael (1919-1994) was an American author and journalist who began publishing science fiction with "A Filbert is a Nut" for Astounding in November 1959 and established a considerable reputation in the field with a comparatively small output of about ten stories, most of them assembled in The Thirst Quenchers (coll 1965) and Code Three. The first contains four good stories, the best of which is the title story about professionals in a future where Earth's water is carefully rationed, their job being its proper allocation. Code Three describes, in three long episodes, the way of life of the police who patrol the superhighways of the future in enormously complex vehicles made to cope with the huge speeds and corresponding irresponsibility on the roads; it is one of the first science fiction genre tales to treat the burgeoning superhighway system in America as a subject worth focusing on. Raphael was at his best when describing, in positive terms, the life of those who must deal professionally with a technological world. The President Must Die (1981) is a Near Future thriller.