Highways in Hiding
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George Oliver Smith >> Highways in Hiding
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I did not meet any of the patients, but Phelps let me stand in the
corridor outside a couple of rooms and use my esper on the flesh. It was
both distressing and instructive.
He explained, "The usual thing after someone visits this way, is that
the visitor goes out itching. In medical circles this is a form of what
we call 'Sophomore's Syndrome.' Ever heard of it?"
I nodded. "That's during the first years at pre-med. Knowing all too
little of medicine, every disease they study produces the same symptoms
that the student finds in himself. Until tomorrow, when they study the
next. Then the symptoms in the student change."
"Right. So in order to prevent 'Sophomore's Syndrome' among visitors we
usually let them study the real thing. Also," he added seriously, "we'd
like to have as many people as possible recognize the real thing as
early as possible. Even though we can't do anything for them at the
present time, someday we will."
He stopped before a closed door. "In here is a girl of eighteen, doomed
to die in a month." His voice trailed off as he tapped on the door of
the room.
I froze. A few beads of cold sweat ran down my spine, and I fought
myself into a state of nervous calmness. I put the observation away,
buried it as deep as I could, tried to think around it, and so far as I
knew, succeeded.
The tap of Scholar Phelps' finger against the door panel was the
rap-rap-rap sound characteristic of hard-tanned leather tapping wood.
Scholar Phelps was a Mekstrom!
* * * * *
I paid only surface attention to the rest of my visit. I thanked my
personal gods that esper training had also given me the ability to
dissemble. It was impossible to not think of something but it is
possible to keep the mind so busy with surface thoughts that the
underlying idea does not come through the interference.
Eventually I managed to leave the Medical Center without exciting
anyone, and when I left I took off like a skyrocket for Chicago.
VII
Nurse Gloria Farrow waved at me from the ramp of the jetliner, and I ran
forward to collect her baggage. She eyed me curiously but said no more
than the usual greetings and indication of which bag was hers.
I knew that she was reading my mind like a psychologist all the time,
and I let her know that I wanted her to. I let my mind merely ramble on
with the usual pile of irrelevancies that the mind uses to fill in blank
spaces. It came up with a couple of notions here and there but nothing
definite. Miss Farrow followed me to my car without saying a word, and
let me install her luggage in the trunk.
Then, for the first time, she spoke: "Steve Cornell, you're as healthy
as I am."
"I admit it."
"Then what is this all about? You don't need a nurse!"
"I need a competent witness, Miss Farrow."
"For what?" She looked puzzled. "Suppose you stay right here and start
explaining."
"You'll listen to the bitter end?"
"I've two hours before the next plane goes back. You'll have that time
to convince me--or else. Okay?"
"That's a deal." I fumbled around for a beginning, and then I decided to
start right at the beginning, whether it sounded cockeyed or not.
Giving information to a telepath is the easiest thing in the world.
While I started at the beginning, I fumbled and finally ended up by
going back and forth in a haphazard manner, but Miss Farrow managed to
insert the trivia in the right chronological order so that when I
finished, she nodded with interest.
I posed the question: #Am I nuts?#
"No, Steve," she replied solemnly. "I don't think so. You've managed to
accept data which is obviously mingled truth and falsehood, and you've
managed to question the validity of all of it."
I grunted. "How about the crazy man who questions his own sanity, using
this personal question as proof of his sanity since real nuts _know_
they're sane?"
"No nut can think that deep into complication. What I mean is that they
cannot even question their own sanity in the first premise of postulated
argument. But forget that, what I wanted to know is where you intend to
go from here."
I shook my head unhappily. "When I called you I had it all laid out like
a roadmap. I was going to show you proof and use you as an impartial
observer to convince someone else. Then we'd go to the Medical Center
and hand it to them on a platter. Since then I've had a shock that I
can't get over, or plan beyond. Scholar Phelps is a Mekstrom. That means
that the guy knows what gives with Mekstrom's Disease and yet he is
running an outfit that professes to be helpless in the face of this
disease. For all we know Phelps may be the head of the Highways in
Hiding, an organization strictly for profit of some sort at the expense
of the public welfare."
"You're certain that Phelps is a Mekstrom?"
"Not absolutely positive. I had to close my mind because there might be
a telepath on tap. But I can tell you that nobody with normal flesh-type
fingers ever made that solid rap."
"A fingernail?"
I shook my head at her. "That's a click. With an ear at all you'd note
the difference."
"I'll accept it for the moment. But lacking your original plan, what are
you going to do now?"
"I'm not sure beyond showing you the facts. Maybe I should call up that
F.B.I. team that called on me after Thorndyke's disappearance and put it
in their laps."
"Good idea. But why would Scholar Phelps be lying? And beyond your basic
suspicions, what can you prove?"
"Very little. I admit that my evidence is extremely thin. I saw Phillip
Harrison turning head bolts on a tractor engine with a small end wrench.
It should require a crossbar socket and a lot of muscle. Next is the
girl in Ohio who should be a bloody mess from the way she was treated.
Instead she got up and tried to chase me. Then answer me a puzzler: Did
the Harrisons move because Marian caught Mekstrom's, or did they move
because they felt that I was too close to discovering their secret? The
Highway was relocated after that, you'll recall."
"It sounds frightfully complicated, Steve."
"You bet it does," I grunted. "So next I meet a guy who is supposed to
know all the answers; a man dedicated to the public welfare, medicine,
and the ideal of Service. A man sworn to the Hippocratic Oath. Or," I
went on bitterly, "is it the Hypocritic Oath?"
"Steve, please--"
"Please, Hell!" I stormed. "Why is he quietly sitting there in Mekstrom
hide while he is overtly grieving over the painful death of his fellow
man?"
"I wouldn't know."
"Well, I'm tired of being pushed around," I growled.
"Pushed around?" she asked quietly.
With a trace of scorn, I said, "Miss Farrow, I can see two possible
answers. Either I am being pushed around for some deliberate reason, or
I'm too smart, too cagey and too dangerous for them to handle directly.
It takes only about eight weeks for me to reluctantly abandon the second
in favor of the first."
"But what makes you think you are being pushed?" she wanted to know.
"You can't tell me that I am so important that they couldn't erase me as
easily as they did Catherine and Dr. Thorndyke. And now that his name
comes up, let's ask why any doctor who once met a casual patient would
go to the bother of sending a postcard with a message on it that is
certain to cause me unhappiness. He's also the guy who nudged me by
calling my attention to my so-called 'shock hallucination' about Father
Harrison lifting my car while Phillip Harrison raced into the fire to
make the rescue. Add it up," I told her sharply. "Next he is invited to
Medical Center to study Mekstrom's. Only instead of landing there, he
sends me a postcard with one of the Highways in the picture, after which
he disappears."
Miss Farrow nodded thoughtfully. "It is all tied up with your Highways
and your Mekstrom People."
"That isn't all," I said. "How come the Harrisons moved so abruptly?"
"You're posing questions that I can't answer," complained Miss Farrow.
"And I'm not one hundred percent convinced that you are right."
"You are here, and if you take a look at what I'll show you, you'll be
convinced. We'll put it this way, to start: Something cockeyed is going
on. Now, one more thing I can add, and this is the part that confuses
me: Everything that has been done seems to point to me. So far as I can
see they are operating just as though they want me to start a big hassle
that will end up by getting the Highways out of their Hiding."
"Why on earth would they be doing that?" she wanted to know.
"I don't have the foggiest notion. But I do have that feeling and there
is evidence pointing that way. They've let me in on things that normally
they'd be able to conceal from a highly trained telepath. So I intend to
go along with them, because somewhere at the bottom of it all we'll find
the answer."
She nodded agreement.
Now I started up the car, saying, "I'm going to find us one of the
Highways in Hiding, and we'll follow it to one of the way stations. Then
you'll see for yourself that there is something definitely fishy going
on."
"This I'd like to see," she replied quietly. Almost too quietly. I took
a dig at her as I turned the car out through a tight corner of the lot
onto the road. She was sitting there with a noncommittal expression on
her face and I wondered why. She replied to my thought: "Steve, you must
face one thing. Anything you firmly believe will necessarily pass across
your mind as fact. So forgive me if I hold a few small doubts until I
have a chance to survey some of the evidence at first hand."
"Sure," I told her. "The first bit won't be hard."
I drove eagerly across Illinois into Iowa watching for road signs. I
knew that once I convinced someone else, it would be easier to convince
a third, and a fourth, and a fiftieth until the entire world was out on
the warpath. We drove all day, stopping for chow now and then, behaving
like a couple out on a vacation tour. We stopped in a small town along
about midnight and found a hotel without having come upon any of the
hidden highways.
We met at breakfast, talked our ideas over mildly, and took off again.
We crossed into Nebraska about noon and continued to meander until late
in the afternoon when we came upon our first giveaway road sign.
"There," I told her triumphantly.
She nodded. "I see the sign, Steve. That much I knew. Now all you have
to do is to show me the trial-blazes up in that emblem."
"Unless they've changed their method," I told her, "this one leads West,
slightly south of." I stopped the car not many yards from the sign and
went over it with my sense of perception. #You'll note the ease with
which the emblem could be turned upside down,# I interjected. #Note the
similar width of the top and bottom trefoil, so that only a trained and
interested observer can tell the difference.#
I drove along until we saw one on the other side of the road and we
stopped again, giving the sign a thorough going over. #Note that the
signs leading away from the direction are upside down,# I went on. I
didn't say a word, I was using every ounce of energy in running my
perception over the sign and commenting on its various odds and ends.
#Now,# I finished, #we'll drive along this Highway in Hiding until we
come to some intersection or hideout. Then you'll be convinced.#
She was silent.
We took off along that road rather fast and we followed it for miles,
passing sign after sign with its emblem turned up along the right side
of the road and turned upside-down when the sign was on the left.
Eventually we came to a crossing highway, and at that I pointed
triumphantly. "Note the missing spoke!" I said with considerable
enthusiasm. "Now, Miss Farrow, we shall first turn against it for a few
miles and then we shall U-turn and come back along the cross highway
with it."
"I'm beginning to be convinced, Steve."
We turned North against the sign and went forty or fifty miles, just to
be sure. The signs were all against us. Eventually I turned into a gas
station and filled the carte up to the scuppers. As we turned back
South, I asked her, "Any more comment?"
She shook her head. "Not yet."
I nodded. "If you want, we'll take a jaunt along our original course."
"By all means."
"In other words you are more than willing to be convinced?"
"Yes," she said simply. She went silent then and I wondered what she was
thinking about, but she didn't bother to tell me.
Eventually we came back to the crossroad, and with a feeling of having
been successful, I continued South with a confidence that I had not felt
before. We stopped for dinner in a small town, ate hastily but well, and
then had a very mild debate.
"Shall we have a drink and relax for a moment?"
"I'd like it," she replied honestly. "But somehow I doubt that I could
relax."
"I know. But it does seem like a good idea to take it easy for a half
hour. It might even be better if we stopped over and took off again in
the morning."
"Steve," she told me, "the only way I could relax or go to sleep would
be to take on a roaring load so that I'd pass out cold. I'd rather not
because I'd get up tomorrow with a most colossal hangover. Frankly, I'm
excited and I'd prefer to follow this thing to a finish."
"It's a deal," I said. "We'll go until we have to stop."
It was about eight o'clock when we hit the road again.
* * * * *
By nine-forty-five we'd covered something better than two hundred miles,
followed another intersection turn according to the missing spoke, and
were heading well toward the upper right-hand corner of Colorado on the
road map.
At ten o'clock plus a few minutes we came upon the roadsign that pointed
the way to a ranch-type house set prettily on the top of a small knoll
several hundred yards back from the main road. I stopped briefly a few
hundred feet from the lead-in road and asked Miss Farrow:
"What's your telepath range? You've never told me."
She replied instantly, "Intense concentration directed at me is about a
half mile. Superficial thinking that might include me or my personality
as a by-thought about five hundred yards. To pick up a thought that has
nothing to do with me or my interests, not much more than a couple of
hundred feet. Things that are definitely none of my business close down
to forty or fifty feet."
That was about the average for a person with a bit of psi training
either in telepathy or in esper; it matched mine fairly well, excepting
that part about things that were none of my business. She meant
_thoughts_ and not _things_. I had always had a hard time
differentiating between things that were none of my damned business,
although I do find it more difficult to dig the contents of a letter
between two unknown parties at a given distance than it is to dig a
letter written or addressed to a person I know. _Things_ are, by and
large, a lot less personal than thoughts, if I'm saying anything new.
"Well," I told her, "this is it. We're going to go in close enough for
you to take a 'pathic look-around. Keep your mind sensitive. If you dig
any danger, yell out. I'm going to extend my esper as far as I can and
if I suddenly take off like a startled spacecraft, it's because I have
uncovered something disagreeable. But keep your mind on them and not me,
because I'm relying on you to keep posted on their mental angle."
Miss Farrow nodded. "It's hard to remember that other people haven't the
ability to make contact mentally. It's like a normal man talking to a
blind man and referring constantly to visible things because he doesn't
understand. I'll try to remember."
"I'm going to back in," I said. "Then if trouble turns up, I'll have an
advantage. As soon as they feel our minds coming in at them, they'll
know that we're not in there for their health. So here we go!"
"I'm a good actor," she said. "No matter what I say, I'm with you all
the way!"
I yanked the car forward, and angled back. I hit the road easily and
started backing along the driveway at a rather fast speed with my eyes
half-closed to give my esper sense the full benefit of my concentration
along the road. When I was not concentrating on how I was going to turn
the wheel at the next curve I thought, #I hope these folks know the best
way to get to Colorado Springs from here. Dammit, we're lost!#
Miss Farrow squeezed my arm gently, letting me know that she was
thinking the same general thoughts.
Suddenly she said, "It's a dead area, Steve."
It was a dead area, all right. My perception came to a barrier that made
it fade from full perception to not being able to perceive anything in a
matter of yards. It always gives me an eerie feeling when I approach a
dead area and find that I can see a building clearly and not be able to
cast my perception beyond a few feet.
I kept on backing up into the fringe of that dead area until I was deep
within the edge and it took all my concentration to perceive the road a
few feet ahead of my rear wheels so that I could steer. I was inching
now, coming back like a blind man feeling his way. We were within about
forty feet of the ranch house when Miss Farrow yelped:
"They're surrounding us, Steve!"
My hands whipped into action and my heavy right foot came down on the
gas-pedal. The car shuddered, howled like a wounded banshee, and then
leaped forward with a roar.
A man sprang out of the bushes and stood in front of the car like a
statue with his hand held up. Miss Farrow screamed something
unintelligible and clutched at my arm frantically. I threw her hand off
with a snarl, kept my foot rammed down hard and hit the man dead center.
The car bucked and I heard metal crumple angrily. We lurched, bounced
viciously twice as my wheels passed over his floundering body, and then
we were racing like complete idiots along a road that should not have
been covered at more than twenty. The main road came into sight and I
sliced the car around with a screech of the rear tires, controlled the
deliberate skid with some fancy wheel-work and some fast digging of the
surrounding dangers.
Then we were tearing along the broad and beautifully clear concrete with
the speedometer needle running into the one-fifteen region.
"Steve," said Miss Farrow breathlessly, "That man you hit--"
In a hard voice I said, "He was getting to his feet when I drove out of
range."
"I know," she said in a whimper. "I was in his mind. He was not hurt!
God! Steve--what are we up against?" Her voice rose to a wail.
"I don't know, exactly," I said. "But I know what we're going to do."
"But Steve--what can we do?"
"Alone or together, very little. But we can bring one person more out
along these Highways and then convince a fourth and a fifth and a
fiftieth and a thousandth. By then we'll be shoved back off the stage
while the big wheels grind painfully slow but exceedingly meticulous."
"That'll take time."
"Certainly. But we've got a start. Look how long it took getting a start
in the first place."
"But what is their purpose?" she asked.
"That I can't say. I can't say a lot of things, like how, and why and
wherefore. But I know that now we have a front tooth in this affair
we're not going to let go." I thought for a moment. "I could use
Thorndyke; he'd be the next guy to convince if we could find him. Or
maybe Catherine, if we could find her. The next best thing is to get
hold of that F.B.I. Team that called on me. There's a pair of
cold-blooded characters that seem willing to sift through a million tons
of ash to find one valuable cinder. They'll listen. I--"
Miss Farrow looked at her watch; I dug it as she made the gesture.
#Eleven o'clock.#
"Going to call?" she asked.
"No," I said. "It's too late. It's one in New York now and the F.B.I.
Team wouldn't be ready for a fast job at this hour."
"So?"
"I have no intention of placing a 'When you are ready' call to a number
identified with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Not when a full
eight hours must elapse between the call and a reply. Too much can
happen to us in the meantime. But if I call in the morning, we can
probably take care of ourselves well enough until they arrive if we stay
in some place that is positively teeming with citizens. Sensible?"
"Sounds reasonable, Steve."
I let the matter drop at that; I put the go-pedal down to the floor and
fractured a lot of speed laws until we came to Denver.
We made Denver just before midnight and drove around until we located a
hotel that filled our needs. It was large, which would prevent overt
operations on the part of the 'enemy' and it was a dead area, which
would prevent one of them from reading our minds while we slept, and so
enable them to lay counterplans against us.
The bellhop gave us a knowing leer as we registered separately, but I
was content to let him think what he wanted. Better that he get the
wrong idea about us than the right one. He fiddled around in Miss
Farrow's room on the ninth, bucking for a big tip--not for good service,
but for leaving us alone, which he did by demonstrating how big a
nuisance he could be if not properly rewarded. But finally he got tired
of his drawer-opening and lamp-testing and towel-stacking, and escorted
me up to the twelfth. I led him out with a five spot clutched in his
fist and the leer even stronger.
If he expected me to race downstairs as soon as he was out of ear-shot,
he was mistaken, for I hit the sack like the proverbial ton of crushed
mortar. It had been literally weeks since I'd had a pleasant, restful
sleep that was not broken by fitful dreams and worry-insomnia. Now that
we had something solid to work on, I could look forward to some concrete
action instead of merely feeling pushed around.
VIII
I'd put in for an eight o'clock call, but my sleep had been so sound and
perfect that I was all slept out by seven-thirty. I was anxious to get
going so I dressed and shaved in a hurry and cancelled the eight o'clock
call. Then I asked the operator to connect me with 913.
A gruff, angry male voice snarled out of the earpiece at me. I began to
apologize profusely but the other guy slammed the phone down on the hook
hard enough to make my ear ring.
I jiggled my hook angrily and when the operator answered I told her that
she'd miscued. She listened to my complaint and then replied in a
pettish tone, "But I did ring 913, sir. I'll try again."
I wanted to tell her to just try, that there was no 'again' about it,
but I didn't. I tried to dig through the murk to her switchboard but I
couldn't dig a foot through this area. I waited impatiently until she
re-made the connections at her switchboard and I heard the burring of
the phone as the other end rang. Then the same mad-bull-rage voice
delivered a number of pointed comments about people who ring up honest
citizens in the middle of the night; and he hung up again in the middle
of my apology. I got irked again and demanded that the operator connect
me with the registration clerk. To him I told my troubles.
"One moment, sir," he said. A half minute later he returned with,
"Sorry, sir. There is no Farrow registered. Could I have mis-heard you?"
"No, goddammit," I snarled. "It's Farrow. F as in Frank; A as in Arthur;
Double R as in Robert Robert; O as in Oliver; and W as in Washington. I
saw her register, I went with her and the bellhop to her room, Number
913, and saw her installed. Then the same 'hop took me up to my room in
1224 on the Twelfth."
There was another moment of silence. Then he said, "You're Mr. Cornell.
Registered in Room 1224 last night approximately four minutes after
midnight."
"I know all about me. I was there and did it myself. And if I registered
at four after midnight, Miss Farrow must have registered about two after
midnight because the ink was still wet on her card when I wrote my name.
We came in together, we were travelling together. Now, what gives?"
"I wouldn't know, sir. We have no guest named Farrow."
"See here," I snapped, "did you ever have a guest named Farrow?"
"Not in the records I have available at this desk. Perhaps in the past
there may have been--"
"Forget the past. What about the character in 913?"
The registration clerk returned and informed me coldly, "Room 913 has
been occupied by a Mr. Horace Westfield for over three months, Mr.
Cornell. There is no mistake." His voice sounded professionally
sympathetic, and I knew that he would forget my troubles as soon as his
telephone was put back on its hook.
"Forget it," I snapped and hung up angrily. Then I went towards the
elevators, walking in a sort of dream-like daze. There was a cold lump
of something concrete hard beginning to form in the pit of my stomach.
Wetness ran down my spine and a drop of sweat dropped from my armpit and
hit my body a few inches above my belt like a pellet of icy hail. My
face felt cold but when I wiped it with the palm of a shaking hand I
found it beaded with an oily sweat. Everything seemed unreally
horrifying.
"Nine," I told the elevator operator in a voice that sounded far away
and hoarse.
I wondered whether this might not be a very vivid dream, and maybe if I
went all the way back to my room, took a short nap, and got up to start
all over again, I would awaken to honest reality.
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