Highways in Hiding
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George Oliver Smith >> Highways in Hiding
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"That, if anything, should do it," I said flatly. "Now go out and get
some iodine for the cut. Human-bite is likely to become infected with
something bad. And I don't think antiseptic will hurt the Mekstrom
Infection if it's taken place." They'd given me the antiseptic works in
Homestead, I recalled. "Now, Miss Nameless, you sit over there and tell
me how come this distressing tableau?"
"Oh--I can't," she cried. Then she left in a hurry sucking on her
bleeding finger.
I didn't need any explanation; I'd just wanted my suspicions confirmed.
Someone had a lever on her. Maybe someone she loved was a Mekstrom and
her loyalty was extracted because of it. The chances were also high that
she'd been given to understand that they'd accept her as a member if she
ever caught Mekstrom's; and they'd taken my arrival as a fine chance to
check me and get her at the same time.
I wondered about her; she was no big-brain. I couldn't quite see the
stratified society outlined by Scholar Phelps as holding a position open
for her in the top echelon. Except she was a woman, attractive if you
like your women beautiful and dull-minded, and she probably would be
happy to live in a little vacuum-type world bounded on all sides with
women's magazines, lace curtains, TV soap opera, and a corral full of
little Mekstrom kids. I grinned. Funny how the proponents of the
stratified society always have their comeuppance by the need of women
whose minds are bent on mundane things like homes and families.
Well, I hoped she caught it, if that's what she wanted. I was willing to
bet my life that she cared a lot more for being with her man than she
did for the cockeyed society he was supporting.
I finished my breakfast and went out to watch a couple of telepaths
playing chess until lunch time and then gave up. Telepathic chess was
too much like playing perceptive poker.
Then after lunch came the afternoon full of laboratory tests,
inspections, experiments, and so forth; they didn't do much that hadn't
been tried at Homestead, and I surprised them again by being able to
help in their never-ending blood counts and stuff of that sort.
They did not provide me with a new room mate, so I wandered around after
dinner hoping that I could avoid both Thorndyke and Phelps. I didn't
want to get into another fool social-structure argument with them and
the affair of the little scared receptionist was more than likely to
make me say a few words that might well get me cast into the Outer
Darkness for their mere semantic content.
Once more I hit the sack early.
And, once more, there came a tap on my door about eight o'clock. It was
not a tentative little frightened tap this time, it was more jovial and
eager sounding. My reaction was about the same. Since it was their show
and their property, I couldn't see any reason why they made this odd
lip-service to politeness.
It was the receptionist again. She came in with a big wistful smile and
dropped my tray on the bed table.
"Look," she cried. She held up her hand. The bleeding had stopped and
there was a thin film over the cut. I dug at it and nodded; it was the
first show of Mekstrom Flesh without a doubt.
"That's it, kid."
"I know," she said happily. "Golly, I could kiss you."
Then before I could think of all the various ways in which the word
"Golly" sounded out of character for her, she launched herself into my
arms and was busily erasing every attempt at logical thought with one of
the warmest, no-holds-barred smoocheroo that I'd enjoyed for what seemed
like years. Since I'd held Catherine in my arms in her apartment just
before we'd eloped, I'd spent my time in the company of Nurse Farrow who
held no emotional appeal to me, and the rest of my female company had
been Mekstroms whose handholding might twist off a wrist if they got a
thrill out of it. About the time I began to respond with enthusiasm and
vigor, she extricated herself from my clutch and slid back to the foot
of the bed out of reach.
A little breathlessly she said, "Harry will thank you for this." _This_
meant the infection in her finger.
Then she was gone and I was thinking, _Harry should drop dead_!
Then I grinned at myself like the Cheshire Cat because I realized that I
was so valuable a property that they couldn't afford to let me die. No
matter what, I'd be kept alive. And after having things go so sour for
so long a time, things were about to take a fast turn and go my way.
I discounted the baby-bite affair. Even if the baby were another
carrier, it would take a long time before the kid was old enough to be
trusted in his aim.
I discounted it even more because I hadn't been roaring around the
countryside biting innocent citizens. Mere contact was enough; if the
bite did anything, it may have hastened the process.
So here I was, a nice valuable property, with a will of my own. I could
either throw in with Phelps and bite only Phelps' Chosen Aristocrats, or
I could go back to the Highways and bite everybody in sight.
I laughed at my image in the mirror. I am a democratic sort of soul, but
when it comes to biting, there's some I'd rather bite than others.
I bared my teeth at my image, but it was more of a leering smile of the
tooth-paste ad than a fierce snarl.
My image looked pensive. It was thinking, _Steve, old carnivore, ere you
go biting anybody, you've first got to bite your way out of the Medical
Center._
XIX
One hour later they pulled my fangs without benefit of anaesthesia.
Thorndyke came in to inspect the progress of my infection and allowed as
how I'd be about ready for the full treatment in a few days. "We like to
delay the full treatment as long as possible," he told me, "because it
immobilizes the patient too long as it is." He pressed a call bell,
waited, and soon the door opened to admit a nurses' helper pushing a
trundle cart loaded with medical junk. I still don't know what was on
the cart because I was too flabbergasted to notice it.
I was paying all my attention to Catherine, cheerful in her Gray Lady
uniform, being utterly helpful, bright, gay, and relaxed. I was tongue
tied, geflummoxed, beaten down, and--well, just speechless.
Catherine was quite professional about her help. She loaded the
skin-blast hypo and slapped it into Thorndyke's open hand. Her eyes
looked into mine and they smiled reassuringly. Her hand was firm as she
took my arm; she locked her strength on my hand and held it immobile
while Thorndyke shot me in the second joint. There was a personal touch
to her only briefly when she breathed, "Steve, I'm so glad!" and then
went on about her work. The irony of it escaped me; but later I did
recall the oddity of congratulating someone who's just contracted a
disease.
Then that wave of agony hit me, and the only thing I can remember
through it was Catherine folding a towel so that the hem would be on the
inside when she wiped the beads of sweat from my face. She cradled my
head between her hands and crooned lightly to me until the depths of the
pain was past. Then she got efficient again and waved Thorndyke aside to
see to the little straps on the manipulator herself. She adjusted them
delicately. Then she poured me a glass of ice water and put it where I
could reach it with my other hand. She left after one long searching
look into my eyes, and I knew that she would be back later to talk to me
alone. This seemed all right with Dr. Thorndyke, the wily telepath who
would be able to dig a reconstruction of our private talk with a little
urging on his part.
After Catherine was gone, Thorndyke smiled down at me with cynical
self-confidence. "There's your lever, Steve," he said.
The dope helped to kill all but the worst waves of searing pain; between
them I managed to grind out, "How did you sell her that bill of goods,
Thorndyke?"
His reply was scornful. "Maybe she likes your hide all in one piece," he
grunted.
He left me with my mind a-whirl with thoughts and pain. The little
manipulator was working my second finger joint up and down rhythmically,
and with each move came pain. It also exercised the old joint, which had
grown so rigid that my muscles hadn't been able to move it for several
hours. That added agony, too.
The dope helped, but it also dimmed my ability to concentrate.
Up to a certain point everything was quite logical and easy to
understand. Catherine was here because they had contacted her through
some channel and said, "Throw in with us and we'll see that your lover
does not die miserably." So much was reasonable, but after that point
the whole thing began to take on a mad puzzle-like quality. Given normal
circumstances, Catherine would have come to me as swiftly as I'd have
gone to her if I'd known how. Not only that, but I'd probably have sworn
eternal fealty to them for their service even though I could not stand
their way of thinking.
But Catherine was smart enough to realize that I, as the only known
carrier of Mekstrom's Disease, was more valuable live than dead.
Why, then, had Catherine come here to place herself in their hands?
Alone, she might have gone off half-cocked in an emotional tizzy. But
the Highways had good advisers who should have pointed out that Steve
Cornell was one man alive who could walk with impunity among friend or
foe. Why, they hadn't even tried to collect me until it became evident
that I was in line for the Old Treatment. Then they had to take me in,
because the Medical Center wanted any information they could get above
and beyond the fact that I was a carrier. If someone from Homestead had
been in that courtroom, I'd now be among friends.
Then the ugly thought hit me and my mind couldn't face it for some time.
_Reorientation._
Catherine's cheerful willingness to help them must be reorientation and
nothing else.
Now, although I've mentioned reorientation before, what I actually know
about it is meager. It makes Dr. Jekylls out of former Mr. Hydes and the
transformation is complete. It can be done swiftly; the rapidity depends
upon the strength of the mind of the operator compared to the mind of
the subject. It is slightly harder to reorient a defiant mind than a
willing one. It sticks unless someone else begins to tinker again. It is
easier to make a good man out of a bad one than the reverse, although
the latter is eminently possible. This is too difficult a problem to
discuss to the satisfaction of everybody, but it seems to go along with
the old theory that "Good" does benefit the tribe of mankind in the long
run, while "Bad" things cause trouble. I'll say no more than to point
out that no culture based upon theft, murder, piracy, and pillage, has
ever survived.
The thought of Catherine's mind being tampered with made me seethe with
anger. I forgot my pain and began to probe around wildly, and as I
probed I began to know the real feeling of helpless futility.
For here I was, practically immobilized and certainly dependent upon
them for help. This was no time to attempt a rescue of my
sweetheart--who would only be taken away kicking and screaming all the
way from here to the first place where I could find a haven and have her
re-reoriented. The latter would not be hard; among the other things I
knew about reorientation was that it could be negated by some strong
emotional ties and a personal background that included worthy objection
to the new personality.
For my perceptive digging I came up with nothing but those things that
any hospital held. Patients, nurses, interns, orderlies; a couple of
doctors, a scholar presiding over a sheaf of files. And finally
Catherine puttering over an autoclave. She was setting out a string of
instruments under the tutelage of a superintendent of nurses who was
explaining how the job should be done.
I took a deep, thankful breath. Her mind was occupied enough to keep her
from reading the dark thoughts that were going through mine. I did not
even want a loved one to know how utterly helpless and angry I felt.
And then, because I was preoccupied with Catherine and my own thoughts,
the door opened without my having taken a dig at the opener beforehand.
The arrival was all I needed to crack wide open in a howling fit of
hysteria. It was so pat. I couldn't help but let myself go: "Well! This
looks like Old Home Week!"
Miss Gloria Farrow, Registered Nurse, did not respond to my awkward
joviality. Her face, if anything, was darker than my thoughts. I doubted
that she had her telepathy working; people who get that wound up find it
hard to even see and hear straight, let alone think right. And telepathy
or perception goes out of kilter first because the psi is a very
delicate factor.
She eyed me coldly. "You utter imbecile," she snarled. "You--"
"Whoa, baby!" I roared. "Slow down. I'm a bit less than bright, but what
have I done now?"
I'd have slapped her across the face as an anodyne if she hadn't been
Mekstrom.
Farrow cooled visibly, then her face sort of came apart and she sort of
flopped forward onto the bed and buried her face in my shoulder. I
couldn't help but make comparisons; she was like a hunk of marble, warm
and vibrant. Like having a statue crying on my shoulder. She sagged
against me like a loose bag of cement and her hands clutched at my
shoulder blades like a pair of C-clamps. A big juicy tear dropped from
her cheek to land on my chest, and I was actually surprised to find that
a teardrop from a Mekstrom did not land like a drop of mercury. It just
splashed like any other drop of water, spread out, and made my chest
wet.
Eventually I held her up from me, tried to shake her gently, and said,
"Now what's the shooting all about, Farrow?"
She shook her head as if to clear her thinking gear.
"Steve," she said in a quietly serious tone, "I've been such an utter
fool."
"You're not unique, Farrow," I told her. "People have been doing damfool
stunts since--"
"I know," she broke in. Then with an effort at light-heartedness, she
added, "There must be a different version of that Garden of Eden story.
Eve is always blamed as having tempted Adam. Somewhere, Old Adam must
have been slightly to blame--?"
I didn't know what she was driving toward, but I stroked her hair and
waited. She was probably right. It still takes two of a kind to make one
pair.
"Steve--get out of here! While you're safe!"
"Huh?" I blurted. "What cooks, Farrow?"
"I was a nice patsy," she said. She sat up and wiped her eyes. "I was a
fool. Steve, if James Thorndyke had asked me to jump off the roof, I'd
have asked him 'what direction?' That's how fat-headed I am."
"Yes?" Something was beginning to form, now.
"I--led you on, Steve."
That blinkoed me. The phrase didn't jell. The half a minute she'd spent
bawling on my shoulder with my arms around her had been the first
physical contact I'd ever had with Nurse Farrow. It didn't seem--
"No, Steve. Not that way. I couldn't see you for Thorndyke any more than
you could see me for Catherine." Her telepathy had returned, obviously;
she was in better control of herself. "Steve," she said, "I led you on;
did everything that Thorndyke told me to. You fell into it like a rock.
Oh--it was going to be a big thing. All I had to do was to haul you
deeper into this mess, then I'd disappear strangely. Then we'd
be--tog--ether--we'd be--"
She started to come unglued again but stopped the dissolving process
just before the wet and gooey stage set in. She seemed to put a set in
her shoulders, and then she looked down at me with pity. "Poor esper,"
she said softly, "you couldn't really know--"
"Know what?" I asked harshly.
"He fooled me--too," she said, in what sounded like a complete
irrelevancy.
"Look, Farrow, try and make a bit of sense to a poor perceptive who
can't read a mind. Keep it running in one direction, please?"
Again, as apparently irrelevant, she said, "He's a top grade telepath;
he knows control--"
"Control--?" I asked blankly.
"You don't know," she said. "But a good telepath can think in patterns
that prevent lesser telepaths from really digging deep. Thorndyke is
brilliant, of scholar grade, really. He--"
"Let's get back to it, Farrow. What's cooking?"
Sternly she tossed her head. It was an angry motion, one that showed her
disdain for her own tears and her own weakness. "Your own sweet
Catherine."
I eyed her, not coldly but with a growing puzzlement. I tried to
formulate my own idea but she went on, briskly, "That accident of yours
was one of the luckiest things that ever happened to you, Steve."
"How long have I been known to be a Mekstrom Carrier?" I asked bluntly.
"No more than three weeks before you met Catherine Lewis," she told me
as bluntly. "It took the Medical Center that long to work her into a
position to meet you, Steve."
That put the icing on the cake. If nothing else, it explained why
Catherine was here willingly. I didn't really believe it because no one
can turn one hundred and eighty degrees without effort, but I couldn't
deny the fact that the evidence fits the claim. If what Farrow said were
true, my marriage to Catherine would have provided them with the same
lever as the little blonde receptionist. The pile-up must have really
fouled up their plans.
"It did, Steve," said Farrow, who had been following my mental
ramblings. "The Highways had to step in and help. This fouled things up
for both sides."
"Both sides?" I asked, completely baffled.
She nodded. "Until the accident, the Medical Center did not know that
the Highways existed. But when Catherine dropped completely out of
sight, Thorndyke did a fine job of probing you. That's when he came upon
the scant evidence of the Highway Sign and the mental impression of the
elder Harrison lifting the car so that Phillip could get you out. Then
he knew, and--"
"Farrow," I snapped, "there are a lot of holes in your story. For
instance--"
She held up a hand to stop me. "Steve," she said quietly, "you know how
difficult it is for a non-telepath to find someone he can trust. But I'm
trying to convince you that--"
I stopped Farrow this time. "How can I believe you now?" I asked her
pointedly. "You seem to have a part in this side of the quiet warfare."
Nurse Farrow made a wry face as though she'd just discovered that the
stuff she had in her mouth was a ball of wooly centipedes. "I'm a
woman," she said simply. "I'm soft and gullible and easily talked into
complacency. But I've just learned that their willingness to accept
women is based upon the fact that no culture can thrive without women to
propagate the race. I find that I am--" She paused, swallowed, and her
voice became strained with bitterness, "--useful as a breeding animal.
Just one of the peasants whose glory lies in carrying their heirs. But I
tell you, Steve--" and here she became strong and her voice rang out
with a vigorous rejection of her future, "I'll be forever damned if I
will let my child be raised with the cockeyed notion that he has some
God-Granted Right to Rule."
My vigilant sense of perception had detected a change in the
human-pattern in the building. People were moving--no, it was one person
who was moving.
Down in the laboratory below, and at the other end of the building,
Catherine was still working over the autoclave and instruments. The
waspish-looking superintendent had taken off for somewhere else, and
while Catherine was alone now, she was about to be joined by Dr.
Thorndyke. Half afraid that my perception of them would touch off their
own telepathic sense of danger, I watched deliberately.
The door opened and Thorndyke came in; Catherine turned from her work
and said something, which of course I could not possibly catch.
#What are they saying, Farrow?# I snapped mentally.
"I don't know. They're too far for my range."
I swore, but I didn't really have to have a dialog script. Nor did they
do the obvious; what they did was far more telling.
Catherine turned and patted his cheek. They laughed at one another, and
then Catherine began handing Thorndyke the instruments out of the
autoclave, which he proceeded to mix in an unholy mess in the surgical
tray. Catherine saw what he was doing and made some remark; then
threatened him with a pair of haemostats big enough to clamp off a
three-inch fire hose. It was pleasant enough looking horseplay; the sort
of intimacy that people have when they've been together for a long time.
Thorndyke did not look at all frightened of the haemostats, and
Catherine did not really look as though she'd follow through with her
threat. They finally tangled in a wrestle for the instrument, and
Thorndyke took it away from her. They leaned against a cabinet side by
side, their elbows touching, and went on talking as if they had
something important to discuss in the midst of their fun. It could have
been reorientation or it could have been Catherine's real self. I still
couldn't quite believe that she had played me false. My mind spinned
from one side to the other until I came up with a blunt question that
came to my lips without any mental planning. I snapped, "Farrow, what
grade of telepath is Catherine?"
"Doctor grade," she replied flatly. "Might have taken some pre-scholar
training if economics hadn't interfered. I'd not really call her Rhine
Scholar material, but I'm prejudiced against her."
If what Farrow said was true, Catherine was telepath enough to control
and marshall her mind to a faretheewell. She could think and plan to
herself in the presence of another telepath without giving her plots
away.
She was certainly smart enough to lead one half-trained perceptive
around by a ring in my nose. Me? I was as big a fool as Farrow.
XX
Nurse Farrow caught my hand. "Steve," she snapped out in a rapid, flat
voice, "Think only one thought. Think of how Catherine is here; that she
came here to protect your life and your future!"
"Huh?"
"Think it!" she almost cried. "She's coming!"
I nearly fumbled it. Then I caught on. Catherine was coming; to remove
the little finger manipulator and to have a chit-chat with me. I didn't
want to see her, and I was beginning to wish--then I remembered that one
glimmer out of me that I knew the truth and everything would be higher
than Orbital Station One.
I shoved my mind into low gear and started to think idle thoughts,
letting myself sort of daydream. I was convincing to myself; it's hard
to explain exactly, but I was play-thinking like a dramatist. I fell
into it; it seemed almost truth to me as I roamed on and on. I'd been
trapped and Catherine had come here to hand herself over as a hostage
against my good behavior. She'd escaped the Highways bunch or maybe she
just left them quietly. Somehow Phelps had seen to it that Catherine got
word--I didn't know how, but that was not important. The important thing
was Catherine being here as a means of keeping me alive and well.
I went on thinking the lie. Catherine came in shortly and saw what Nurse
Farrow was doing.
"I was supposed to do that," said Catherine.
Nurse Farrow straightened up from her work of loosening the straps on
the manipulator. "Sorry," she said in a cool, crisp voice. "I didn't
know that. This is usually my job. It's a rather delicate proposition,
you know." There was a chill of professional rebuff in Farrow's voice.
It was the pert white hat and the gold pin looking down upon the gray
uniform with no adornment. Catherine looked a bit uncomfortable but she
apparently had to take it.
Catherine tried lamely, "You see, Mr. Cornell is my fiancee."
Farrow jumped on that one hard. "I'm aware of that. So let's not forget
that scholars of medicine do not treat their own loved ones for ethical
reasons."
Catherine took it like a slap across the face with an iced towel. "I'm
sure that Dr. Thorndyke would not have let me take care of him if I'd
not been capable," she replied.
"Perhaps Dr. Thorndyke did not realize at the time that Mr. Cornell
would be ready for the Treatment Department. Or," she added slyly, "have
you been trained to prepare a patient for the full treatment?"
"The full treatment--? Dr. Thorndyke did not seem to think--"
"Please," said Farrow with that cold crispness coming out hard, "As a
nurse I must keep my own opinion to myself, as well as keeping the
opinions of doctors to myself. I take orders only and I perform them."
That was a sharp shot; practically telling Catherine that she, as a
nurses' helper, had even less right to go shooting off her mouth.
Catherine started to reply but gave it up. Instead she came over and
looked down at me. She cooed and stroked my forehead.
"Ah, Steve," she breathed, "So you're going for the treatment. Think of
me, Steve. Don't let it hurt too much."
I smiled thinly and looked up into her eyes. They were soft and warm, a
bit moist. Her lips were full and red and they were parted slightly; the
lower lip glistened slightly in the light. These were lips I'd kissed
and found sweet; a face I'd held between my hands. Her hair fluffed
forward a trifle; threatened to cascade down over her shoulders. No, it
was not at all hard to lie there and go on thinking all the soft-sweet
thoughts I'd once hoped might come true--
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