Once they were beyond Newark, Mike began to relax. He settled back comfortably in the big bucket seat and, for the hundredth time in the past hour, his eyes swept the array of gauges and indicators set in the padded, black vinyl-clad console which curved across in front of the driver seat and wrapped around it on the right. All systems were working perfectly and the big diesel engine in the brand new Peterbuilt tractor purred smoothly and quietly after they had finally been able to hit cruising speed and Mike had shifted into the highest of the fourteen forward gears.
He dropped back some fifty or Sixty feet behind Dave’s older, but almost identical rig, studied the outlines of the gleaming white trailer ahead of him and fixed in his mind the proper spacing - and brightness of the amber running lights on the sides and top, and red lights across the lower line of the...