Highways in Hiding
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George Oliver Smith >> Highways in Hiding
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We whipped past the other end of the horseshoe area just as a jeepster
came roaring down out of the thickened part into the region where my
perception could make out the important things (Like three burly gents
wearing hunting rifles, for instance.) They jounced over the rough
ground and onto the lead-in road just behind us; another few seconds of
gab with our friends and they'd have been able to cut us off.
"Pour it on, Farrow!"
I knew I was a bit of a cowboy, but Farrow made me look like a
tenderfoot. We rocketed down the winding road with our wheels riding up
on either side like the course in a toboggan run and Farrow rode that
car like a test pilot in a sudden thunderstorm.
I was worried about the hunting rifles, but I need not have been
concerned. We were going too fast to make good aim, and their jeepster
was not a vehicle known for its smooth riding qualities. They lost one
character over a rough bounce and he went tail over scalp into the grass
along the way. He scared me by leaping to his feet, grabbing the rifle
and throwing it up to aim. But before he could squeeze off a round we
were out of the lead-in road and on the broad highway.
Once on the main road again, Farrow put the car hard down by the nose
and we outran them. The jeepster was a workhorse and could have either
pulled over the house or climbed the wall and run along the roof, but it
was not made for chase.
"That," I said, "seems to be that."
"Something is bad," agreed Farrow.
"Well, I doubt that they'll be able to clean out a place as big as
Homestead. So let's take our careful route to Homestead and find out
precisely what the devil is cooking."
"Know the route?"
"No, but I know where it is on the map and we can figure it out from--"
"Steve, stop. Take a very careful and delicate view over to the right."
"Digging for what?"
"Another car pacing us along a road on the other side of that field."
I tried and failed. Then I leaned back in the seat and closed my eyes
and tried again. On this second try I got a very hazy perception of a
large moving mass that could only have been a car. In the car I received
a stronger impression of weapons. It was the latter that cinched it.
I hauled out my roadmap and turned it to Texas. I thumbed the sectional
maps of Texas until I located the sub-district through which we were
passing and then I identified this section of U.S. 87 precisely. There
was another road parallel and a half mile to the right, a dirt road
according to the map-legend. It intersected our road a few miles ahead.
My next was a thorough covering of the road behind; as I expected
another car was pacing us just beyond the range of my perception for
anything but a rifle aimed at my hide.
Pacing isn't quite the word, I use it in the sense of their keeping up
with us. Fact is that all of us were going about as fast as we could go,
with safety of tertiary importance. Anyway, they were pacing us and
closing down from that parallel road on the right.
I took a fast and very careful scanning of the landscape to our left but
couldn't find anything. I spent some time at it then, but still came up
with a blank.
#Turn left at that feeder road a mile ahead,# I thought at Farrow and
she nodded.
There was one possibility that I did not like to face. We had definitely
detected pursuit to our right and behind, but not to our left. This did
not mean that the left-side was not covered. It was quite likely that
the gang to the rear were in telepathic touch with a network of other
telepaths, the end of which mental relay link was far beyond range, but
as close in touch with our position and action as if we'd been in sight.
The police make stake-out nets that way, but the idea is not exclusive.
I recall hazing an eloping couple that way once.
But there was nothing to do but to take the feeder road to the left,
because the devil we could see was more dangerous than the devil we
couldn't.
Farrow whipped into the side road and we tore along with only a slight
slowing of our headlong speed. I ranged ahead, worried, suspicious of
everything, scanning very carefully and strictly on the watch for any
evidence of attempted interception.
I caught a touch of danger converging up from the South on a series of
small roads. This I did not consider dangerous after a fast look at my
roadmap because this series of roads did not meet our side road for a
long time and only after a lot of turning and twisting. So long as we
went Easterly, we were okay from that angle.
The gang behind, of course, followed us, staying at the very edge of my
range.
"You'll have to fly, Farrow," I told her. "If that gang to our South
stays there, we'll not be able to turn down Homestead way."
"Steve, I'm holding this crate on the road by main force and awkwardness
as it is."
But she did step it up a bit, at that. I kept a cautious and suspicious
watchout, worrying in the back of my mind that someone among them might
turn up with a jetcopter. So long as the sky remained clear--
As time went on, I perceived that the converging car to the South was
losing ground because of the convolutions of their road. Accordingly we
turned to the South, making our way around their nose, sort of, and
crossing their anticipated course to lead South. We hit U.S. 180 to the
West of Breckenridge, Texas and then Farrow really poured on the coal.
The idea was to hit Fort Worth and lose them in the city where fun,
games, and telepath-perceptive hare-and-hounds would be viewed dimly by
the peaceloving citizens. Then we'd slope to the South on U.S. 81, cut
over to U.S. 75 somewhere to the South and take 75 like a cannonball
until we turned off on the familiar road to Homestead.
Fort Worth was a haven and a detriment to both sides. Neither of us
could afford to run afoul of the law. So we both cut down to sensible
speeds and snaked our way through the town, with Farrow and me probing
the roads to the South in hope of finding a clear lane.
There were three cars pacing us, cutting off our retreat Southward. They
hazed us forward to the East like a dog nosing a bunch of sheep towards
pappy's barn.
Then we were out of Forth Worth and on U.S. 180. We whipped into Dallas
and tried the same circumfusion as before and we were as neatly barred.
So we went out of Dallas on U.S. 67 and as we left the city limits, we
poured on the oil again, hoping to get around them so that we could turn
back South towards Homestead.
"Boxed," I said.
"Looks like it," said Farrow unhappily.
I looked at her. She was showing signs of weariness and I realized that
she'd been riding this road for hours. "Let me take it," I said.
"We need your perception," she objected. "You can't drive and keep a
ranging perception, Steve."
"A lot of good a ranging perception will do once you drop for lack of
sleep and we tie us up in a ditch."
"But--"
"We're boxed," I told her. "We're being hazed. Let's face it, Farrow.
They could have surrounded us and glommed us any time in the past six
hours."
"Why didn't they?" she asked.
"You ask that because you're tired," I said with a grim smile. "Any
bunch that has enough cars to throw a barrier along the streets of
cities like Forth Worth and Dallas have enough manpower to catch us if
they want to. So long as we drive where they want us to go, they won't
cramp us down."
"I hate to admit it."
"So do I. But let's swap, Farrow. Then you can use your telepathy on
them maybe and find out what their game is."
She nodded, pulled the car down to a mere ramble and we swapped seats
quickly. As I let the crate out again, I took one last, fast dig of the
landscape and located the cars that were blocking out the passageways to
the South, West, and North, leaving a nice inviting hole to the
Easterly-North way. Then I had to haul in my perception and slap it
along the road ahead, because I was going to ramble far and fast and see
if I could speed out of the trailing horseshoe and cut out around the
South horn with enough leeway to double back towards Homestead.
"Catch any plans from them?" I asked Farrow.
There was no answer. I looked at her. Gloria Farrow was semi-collapsed
in her seat, her eyes closed gently and her breath coming in long,
pleasant swells. I'd known she was tired, but I hadn't expected this
absolute ungluing. A damned good kid, Farrow.
At that last thought, Farrow moved slightly in her sleep and a wisp of a
smile crossed her lips briefly. Then she turned a bit and snuggled down
in the seat and really hit the slumber-path.
A car came roaring at me with flashing headlamps and I realized that
dusk was coming. I didn't need the lights, but oncoming drivers did, so
I snapped them on. The beams made bright tunnels in the light and we
went along and on and on and on, hour after hour. Now and then I caught
a perceptive impression the crescent of cars that were corralling us
along U.S. 67 and not letting us off the route.
I hauled out my roadmap and eyed the pages as I drove by perception.
U.S. 67 led to St. Louis and from there due North. I had a hunch that by
the time we played hide and seek through St. Louis and got ourselves
hazed out to their satisfaction, I'd be able to give a strong guess as
to our ultimate destination.
I settled down in my seat and just drove, still hoping to cut fast and
far around them on my way to Homestead.
XXIII
Three times during the night I tried to flip around and cut my way
through their cordon, and each time I faced interception. It was evident
that we were being driven and so long as we went to their satisfaction
they weren't going to clobber us.
Nurse Farrow woke up along about dawn, stretched, and remarked that she
could use a toothbrush and a tub of hot water and amusedly berated
herself for not filling the back seat before we took off. Then she
became serious again and asked for the details of the night, which I
slipped her as fast as I could.
We stopped long enough to swap seats, and I stretched out but I couldn't
sleep.
Finally I said, "Stop at the next dog wagon, Farrow. We're going to eat,
comes anything."
"Won't that be dangerous?"
"Shucks," I grunted angrily. "They'll probably thank us. They're
probably hungry too."
"We'll find out."
The smell of a roadside diner is usually a bit on the thick and greasy
side, but I was so hungry that morning that it smelled like mother's
kitchen. We went in, ordered coffee and orange juice, and then
disappeared into the rest rooms long enough to clean up. That felt so
good we ordered the works and watched the guy behind the fryplate handle
the bacon, eggs, and home-fries with a deft efficient manner.
We pitched in fast, hoping to beat the flies to our breakfast. We were
so intent that we paid no attention to the car that came into the lot
until a man came in, ordered coffee and a roll, and then carried it over
to our table.
"Fine day for a ride, isn't it?"
I eyed him; Farrow bristled and got very tense. I said, "I doubt that I
know you, friend."
"Quite likely. But I know you, Cornell."
I took a fast dig; there was no sign of anything lethal except the usual
collection of tire irons, screwdrivers, and other tools which, oddly
enough, seldom come through as being dangerous because they're not
weapons-by-design.
"I'm not heeled, Cornell. I'm just here to save us all some trouble."
#Telepath?#
He nodded imperceptibly. Then he said, "We'll all save time, gasoline,
and maybe getting into grief with the cops if you take Route 40 out of
St. Louis."
"Suppose I don't like U.S. 40?"
"Get used to it," he said with a crooked smile. "Because you'll take
U.S. 40 out of St. Louis whether you like it or not."
I returned his crooked smile. I also dug his hide and he was a Mekstrom,
of course. "Friend," I replied, "Nothing would convince me, after what
you've said, that U.S. 40 is anything but a cowpath; slippery when wet;
and impassible in the Early Spring, Late Summer, and the third Thursday
after Michelmas."
He stood up. "Cornell, I can see your point. You don't like U.S. 40. So
I'll help you good people. If you don't want to drive along such a lousy
slab of concrete, just say the word and we'll arrange for you to take it
in style, luxury, and without a trace of pain or strain. I'll be seein'
you. And a very pleasant trip to you, Miss Farrow."
Then the character got up, went to the cashier and paid for our
breakfast as well as his own. He took off in his car and I have never
seen him since.
Farrow looked at me, her face white and her whole attitude one of
fright. "U.S. 40," she said in a shaky voice, "runs like a stretched
string from St. Louis to Indianapolis."
She didn't have to tell me any more. About sixty miles North of
Indianapolis on Indiana State Highway 37 lies the thriving metropolis of
Marion, Indiana, the most important facet of which (to Farrow and me) is
an establishment called the Medical Research Center.
Nothing was going to make me drive out of St. Louis along U.S. 40.
Period; End of message; No answer required.
Nothing, because I was very well aware of their need to collect me alive
and kicking. If I could not roar out of St. Louis in the direction I
selected, I was going to turn my car end for end and have at them. Not
in any mild manner, but with deadly intent to do deadly damage. If I'd
make a mild pass, they'd undoubtedly corral me by main force and carry
me off kicking and screaming. But if I went at them to kill or get
killed, they'd have to move aside just to prevent me from killing
myself. I didn't think I'd get to the last final blow of that
self-destruction. I'd win through.
So we left the diner after a breakfast on our enemy's expense account
and took off again.
I was counting on St. Louis. The center of the old city is one big
shapeless blob of a dead area; so nice and cold that St. Louis has
reversed the usual city-type blight area growth. Ever since Rhine, the
slum sections have been moving out and the new buildings have been
moving in. So with the dead area and the brand-new, wide streets and
fancy traffic control, St. Louis was the place to go in along one road,
get lost in traffic, and come out, roaring along any road desirable. I
could not believe that any outfit, hoping to work under cover, could
collect enough manpower and cars to block every road, lane, highway and
duckrunway that led out of a city as big as St. Louis.
Again they hazed us by pacing along parallel roads and behind us with
the open end of their crescent aimed along U.S. 67. We went like hell;
without slowing a bit we sort of swooped up to St. Louis and took a fast
dive into that big blob-shaped dead area. We wound up in traffic and
tied Boy Scout knots in our course. I was concerned about overhead
coverage from a 'copter even though I've been told that the St. Louis
dead area extends upward in some places as high as thirteen thousand
feet.
The only thing missing was some device or doodad that would let us use
our perception or telepathy in this deadness while they couldn't. As it
was, we were as psi-blind as they were, so we had to go along the
streets with our eyes carefully peeled for cars of questionable
ownership. We saw some passenger cars with out-of-state licenses and
gave them wide clearances. One of them hung on our tail until I
committed a very neat coup by running through a stoplight and
sandwiching my car between two whopping big fourteen-wheel moving vans.
I'd have enjoyed the expression on the driver's face if I could have
seen it. But then we were gone and he was probably cussing.
I stayed between the vans as we wound ourselves along the road and
turned into a side street.
I stayed between them too long.
Because the guy in front slammed on his air-brakes and the big van came
to a stop with a howl of tires on concrete. The guy behind did not even
slow down. He closed in on us like an avalanche. I took a fast look
around and fought the wheel of my car to turn aside, but he whaled into
my tail and we went sliding forward. I was riding my brakes but the mass
of that moving van was so great that my tires just wore flats on the
pavement-side.
We were bearing down on that stopped van and it looked as though we were
going to be driving a very tall car with a very short wheelbase in a
very short time.
Then the whole back panel of the front van came tumbling towards me from
the top, pivoting on a hinge at the bottom, making a fine ramp. The van
behind me nudged us up the ramp and we hurtled forward against a thick,
resilient pad that stopped my car without any damage either to the car
or to the inhabitants.
Then the back panel closed up and the van took off.
Two big birds on each side opened the doors of our car simultaneously
and said "Out!"
The tall guy on my side gave me a cocksure smile and the short guy said,
"We're about to leave St. Louis on U.S. 40, Cornell. I hope you won't
find this journey too rough."
I started to take a swing, but the tall one caught my elbow and threw me
off balance. The short one reached down and picked up a baseball bat.
"Use this, Cornell," he told me. "Then no one will get hurt."
I looked at the pair of them, and then gave up. There are odd characters
in this world who actually enjoy physical combat and don't mind getting
hurt if they can hurt the other guy more. These were the type. Taking
that baseball bat and busting it over the head of either one would be
the same sort of act as kids use when they square off in an alley and
exchange light blows which they call a "cardy" just to make the fight
legal. All it would get me was a sore jaw and a few cracked ribs.
So after my determination to take after them with murderous intent,
they'd pulled my teeth by scooping me up in this van and disarming me.
I relaxed.
The short one nodded, although he looked disappointed that I hadn't
allowed him the fun of a shindy. "You'll find U.S. 40 less rough than
you expected," he said. "After all, it's like life; only rough if you
make it rough."
"Go to hell and stay there," I snapped. That was about as weak a
rejoinder as I've ever emitted, but it was all I could get out.
The tall one said, "Take it easy, Cornell. You can't win 'em all."
I looked across the nose of our trapped car to Farrow. She was leaning
against the hood, facing her pair. They were just standing there at
ease. One of them was offering a cigarette and the other held a lighter
ready. "Relax," said the one with the smokes. The other one said, "Might
as well, Miss Farrow. Fighting won't get nobody nowhere but where you're
going anyway. Might as well go on your own feet."
Scornfully, Farrow shrugged. "Why should I smoke my own?" she asked
nobody in particular.
Mentally I agreed: #Take 'em for all they're worth, Farrow!# And then I
reached for one, too. Along the side of the van were benches. I sat
down, stretched out on my back and let the smoke trickle up. I finished
my cigarette and then found that the excitement of this chase, having
died so abruptly, left me with only a desire to catch up on sleep.
I dozed off thinking that it wasn't everybody who started off to go to
Homestead, Texas, and ended up in Marion, Indiana.
* * * * *
Scholar Phelps did not have the green carpet out for our arrival, but he
was present when our mobile prison cell opened deep inside of the
Medical Center grounds. So was Thorndyke. Thorndyke and three nurses of
Amazon build escorted Farrow off with the air of captors collecting a
traitor.
Phelps smiled superciliously at me and said, "Well, young sir, you've
given us quite a chase."
"Give me another chance and we'll have another chase," I told him
grumpily.
"Not if we can help it," he boomed cheerfully. "We've big plans for
you."
"Have I got a vote? It's 'Nay!' if I do."
"You're too precipitous," he told me. "It is always an error, Mr.
Cornell, to be opinionated. Have an open mind."
"To what?"
"To everything," he said with an expansive gesture. "The error of all
thinking, these days, is that people do not think. They merely follow
someone else's thinking."
"And I'm to follow yours?"
"I'd prefer that, of course. It would indicate that you were possessed
of a mind of your own; that you weren't merely taking the lazy man's
attitude and following in the footsteps of your father."
"Skip it," I snapped. "Your way isn't--"
"Now," he warned with a wave of a forefinger like a prohibitionist
warning someone not to touch that quart, "One must never form an opinion
on such short notice. Remember, all ideas are not to be rejected just
because they do not happen to agree with your own preconceived notions."
"Look, Phelps," I snapped, deliberately omitting his title which I knew
would bite a little, "I don't like your personal politics and I deplore
your methods. You can't go on playing this way--"
"Young man, you err," he said quietly. He did not even look nettled that
I'd addressed him in impolite (if not rough) terms. "May I point out
that I am far ahead of your game? Thoroughly outnumbered, and in
ignorance of the counter-movement against me until you so vigorously
brought it to my attention; within a year I have fought the
counter-movement to a standstill, caused the dispersement of their main
forces, ruined their far-flung lines of communication, and have so
consolidated my position that I have now made open capture of the main
roving factor. The latter is you, young man. A very disturbing influence
and so very necessary to the conduct of this private war. You prate of
my attitude, Mr. Cornell. You claim that such an attitude must be
defeated. Yet as you stand there mouthing platitudes, we are preparing
to make a frontal assault upon their main base at Homestead. We've waged
our war of attrition; a mere spearhead will break them and scatter them
to the far winds."
"Nice lecture," I grunted. "Who are your writers?"
"Let's not attempt sarcasm," he said crisply. "It sits ill upon you, Mr.
Cornell."
"I'd like to sit on you," I snapped.
"Your humor is less tolerable than your sarcasm."
"Can it!" I snapped. "So you've collected me. I'll still--"
"You'll do very little, Mr. Cornell," he told me. "Your determination to
attack us tooth and nail was an excellent program, and with another type
of person it might have worked. But I happen to know that your will to
live is very great, young man, and that in the final blow, you'd not
have the will to die great enough to carry your assault to its
completion."
"Know a lot, don't you."
"Yes, indeed I do. So now if you're through trying to fence at words,
we'll go to your quarters."
"Lead on," I said in a hollow voice.
With an air of stage-type politeness, he indicated a door. He showed me
out and followed me. He steered me to a big limousine with a chauffeur
and offered me cigarettes from a box on the arm rest as the driver
started the turbine. The car purred with that muted sound of
well-leashed power.
"You could be of inestimable value to us," he said in a conversational
tone. "I am talking this way to you because you can be of much more
value as a willing ally than you would be if unwilling."
"No doubt," I replied dryly.
"I suggest you set aside your preconceived notions and employ a modicum
of practical logic," suggested Scholar Phelps. "Observe your position
from a slightly different reign of vantage. Be convinced that no matter
what you do or say, we intend to make use of you to the best of our
ability. You are not entertaining any doubts of that fact, I'm sure."
I shrugged. Phelps was not asking me these things, the inquisitor was
actually telling me. He went right on telling me:
"Since you will be used no matter what, you might consider the
advisability of being sensible, Mr. Cornell. In blunt words, we are
prepared to meet cooperation with certain benefits which will not be
proffered otherwise."
"In blunter words you are offering to hire me."
Scholar Phelps smiled in a superior manner. "Not that blunt, Mr.
Cornell, not that crude. The term 'hire' implies the performance of
certain tasks in return for stipulated remuneration. No, my intention is
to give you a position in this organization the exact terms of which are
not clearly definable. Look, young man, I've indicated that your willing
cooperation is more valuable to us than otherwise. Join us and you will
enjoy the freedom of our most valued and trusted members; you will take
part in upper level planning; you will enjoy the income and advantages
of top executive personnel." He stopped short and eyed me with a
peculiar expression. "Mr. Cornell, you have the most disconcerting way.
You've actually caused me to talk as if this organization were some sort
of big business instead of a cultural unit."
I eyed him with the first bit of humor I'd found in many days. "You seem
to talk just as though a cultural unit were set above, beyond, and
spiritually divorced from anything so sordid as money, position, and the
human equivalent of the barnyard pecking order," I told him. "So now
let's stop goofing off, and put it into simple terms. You want me to
join you willingly, to do your job for you, to advance your program. In
return for which I shall be permitted to ride in the solid gold
cadillac, quaff rare champagne, and select my own office furniture.
Isn't that about it?"
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