The Nameless Something

The Nameless Something by Murray Leinster - Bud Gregory was something there isn't any word for. With bulging eyes the truck-driver saw the rattletrap vehicle swerve out over space, until only its inner wheels were on the road.

It should have toppled instantly and horribly, only it didn't. It rode exactly as if there were an invisible highway surface over emptiness. The Diesel driver saw it swerve placidly back into the road behind him, and go on. And he braked his monster truck to a stop and had a perfectly good fit of the shakes. He made up his mind to take a week off to be spent in rest and quiet. He did.

On that day, it was said in Washington that a grave international crisis threatened, and eminent statesmen went about in spectacular silence, refusing to speak for publication but privately tipping off their favorite newspapermen to monstrous events due to occur.

On yet another day Bud Gregory arrived at yet another place where further dirt-track automobile racing was in progress, and attempted negotiations with a dejected driver who had not been in the money for weeks. The driver laughed at him, bitterly, and Bud Gregory was indignant. He bet on the races and lost two dollars.

On the same day, four satellite nations of a certain European Power revealed that for several months they had been running atomic piles, and now had a sufficient stock of atomic bombs for their own defense. The rest of the United Nations erupted into frenzied protests—which cut off short when they realized it was too late to object.