Highways in Hiding

by George O. Smith

  XI

  As the miles separated me from the Macklins, my mind kept whirlingaround in a tight circle. I had a lot of the bits, but none of themseemed to lock together very tight. And unhappily, too many of the bitsthat fit together were hunks that I did not like.

  I knew the futility of being non-telepath. Had Mr. Macklin given me thetruth or was I being sold another shoddy bill of goods? Or had he spunme a yarn just to get me out of his house without a riot? Of course,there had been a riot, and he'd been expecting it. If nothing else, itproved that I was a valuable bit of material, for some undisclosedreason.

  I had to grin. I didn't know the reason, but whatever reason they had,it must gripe the devil out of them to be unable to erase me.

  Then the grin faded. No one had told me about Catherine. They'd neatlyavoided the subject. Well, since I'd taken off on this still hunt tofind Catherine, I'd continue looking, even though every corner I lookedinto turned out to be the hiding place for another bunch of mad spooks.

  My mind took another tack: Admitting that neither side could rub me outwithout losing, why in heck didn't they just collect me and put me in acage? Dammit, if I had an organization as well oiled as either of them,I could collect the President right out of the New White House and puthim in a cage along with the King of England, the Shah of Persia, andthe Dali Lama to make a fourth for bridge.

  This was one of those questions that cannot be answered by theapplication of logic, reasoning, or by applying either experience orknowledge. I did not know, nor understand. And the only way I would everfind out was to locate someone who was willing to tell.

  Then it occurred to me that--aside from my one experience inhousebreaking--that I'd been playing according to the rules. I'm prettymuch a law-abiding citizen. Yet it did seem to me that I learned moreduring those times when the rules, if not broken, at least were bentrather sharply. So I decided to try my hand at busting a couple ofrather high-level rules.

  There was a way to track down Catherine.

  So I gassed up the buggy, turned the nose East, and took off like a manwith a purpose in mind. En route, I laid out my course. Along thatcourse there turned out to be seven Way Stations, according to theHighway signs. Three of them were along U.S. 12 on the way fromYellowstone to Chicago. One of them was between Chicago and Hammond,Indiana. There was another to the south of Sandusky, Ohio, one wassomewhere south of Erie, Pa., and the last was in the vicinity ofNewark. There were a lot of the Highways themselves, leading into andout of my main route--as well as along it.

  But I ignored them all, and nobody gave me a rough time.

  Eventually I walked into my apartment. It was musty, dusty, andlonesome. Some of Catherine's things were still on the table where I'ddropped them; they looked up at me mutely until I covered them with thewalloping pile of mail that had arrived in my long absence. I got abottle of beer and began to go through the mail, wastebasketing theadvertisements, piling the magazines neatly, and filing some offers ofjobs (Which reminded me that I was still an engineer and that my fundswouldn't last indefinitely) and went on through the mail until I came toa letter--The Letter.

  _Dear Mr. Cornell:_

  _We're glad to hear from you. We moved, not because Marian caught Mekstrom's, but because the dead area shifted and left us sort of living in a fish-bowl, psi-wise._

  _Everybody is hale and hearty here and we all wish you the best._

  _Please do not think for a moment that you owe us anything. We'd rather be free of your so-called debt. We regret that Catherine was not with you, maybe the accident might not have happened. But we do all think that we stand as an association with a very unhappy period in your life, and that it will be better for you if you try to forget that we exist. This is a hard thing to say, Steve, but really, all we can do for you is to remind you of your troubles._

  _Therefore with love from all of us, we'd like to make this a sincerely sympathetic and final--_

  _Farewell, Philip Harrison._

  I grunted unhappily. It was a nice-sounding letter, but it did not ringtrue, somehow. I sat there digging it for hidden meanings, but nonecame. I didn't care. In fact, I didn't really expect any more than this.If they'd not written me at all, I'd still have done what I did. I satdown and wrote Phillip Harrison another letter:

  _Dear Philip:_

  _I received your letter today, as I returned from an extended trip through the west. I'm glad to hear that Marian is not suffering from Mekstrom's Disease. I am told that it is fatal to the--uninitiated._

  _However, I hope to see you soon._

  _Regards, Steve Cornell._

  _That_, I thought, _should do it!_

  Then to help me and my esper, I located a tiny silk handkerchief ofCatherine's, one she'd left after one of her visits. I slipped it intothe envelope and slapped a stamp and a notation on the envelope thatthis letter was to be forwarded to Phillip Harrison. I dropped it in thebox about eleven that night, but I didn't bother trying to follow ituntil the morning.

  Ultimately it was picked up and taken to the local post office, and fromthere it went to the clearing station at Pennsylvania Station at 34thSt., where I hung around the mail-baggage section until I attracted theattention of a policeman.

  "Looking for something, Mr. Cornell?"

  "Not particularly," I told the telepath cop. "Why?"

  "You've been digging every mailbag that comes out of there."

  "Am I?" I asked ingeniously.

  "Can it Buster, or we'll let you dig your way out of a jail."

  "You can't arrest a man for thinking."

  "I'll be happy to make it loitering," he said sharply.

  "I've a train ticket."

  "Use it, then."

  "Sure. At train time I'll use it."

  "Which train?" he asked me sourly. "You've missed three already."

  "I'm waiting for a special train, officer."

  "Then please go and wait in the bar, Mr. Cornell."

  "Okay. I'm sorry I caused you any trouble, but I've a bit of a personalproblem. It isn't illegal."

  "Anything that involves taking a perceptive dig at the U.S. Mail isillegal," said the policeman. "Personal or not, it's out. So either youstop digging or else."

  I left. There was no sense in arguing with the cop. I'd just end upshort. So I went to the bar and I found out why he'd recommended it. Itwas in a faintly-dead area, hazy enough to prevent me from taking asquint at the baggage section. I had a couple of fast ones, but Icouldn't stand the suspense of not knowing when my letter might take offwithout me.

  Since I'd also pushed my loitering-luck I gave up. The only thing Icould hope for was that the sealed forwarding address had been made outat that little town near the Harrisons and hadn't been moved. So I wentand took a train that carried no mail.

  It made my life hard. I had to wander around that tank town for hours,keeping a blanket-watch on the post office for either the income or theoutgo of my precious hunk of mail. I caught some hard eyes from thelocal yokels but eventually I discovered that my luck was with me.

  A fast train whiffled through the town and they baggage-hooked a mailbagoff the car at about a hundred and fifty per. I found out that the nextstop of that train was Albany. I'd have been out of luck if I'd hoped toride with the bag.

  Then came another period of haunting that dinky post office (I'vementioned before that it was in a dead area, so I couldn't watch theinsides, only the exits) until at long last I perceived my favorite bitof mail emerging in another bag. It was carted to the railroad stationand hung up on another pick-up hook. I bought a ticket back to New Yorkand sat on a bench near the hook, probing into the bag as hard as mysense of perception could dig.

  I cursed the whole world. The bag was merely labelled "Forwarding Mail"in letters that could be seen at ninety feet. My own letter, of course,I could read very well, to every dotted 'i' and crossed 't' and thestitching in Catherine's little kerchief. But
I could not make out theaddress printed on the form that was pasted across the front of theletter itself.

  As I sat there trying to probe that sealed address, a fast train camealong and scooped the bag off the hook.

  I caught the next train. I swore and I squirmed and I groaned becausethat train stopped at every wide spot in the road, paused to take onmilk, swap cars, and generally tried to see how long it could take tomake a run of some forty miles. This was Fate. Naturally, any train thatstopped at my rattle burg would also stop at every other point along theroad where some pioneer had stopped to toss a beer bottle off of hiscovered wagon.

  At long last I returned to Pennsylvania Station just in time to perceivemy letter being loaded on a conveyor for LaGuardia.

  Then the same damned policeman collared me.

  "This is it," he said.

  "Now see here, officer. I--"

  "Will you come quietly, Mr. Cornell? Or shall I put the big arm on you?"

  "For what?"

  "You've been violating the 'Disclosure' section of the FederalCommunications Act, and I know it."

  "Now look, officer, I said this was not illegal."

  "I'm not an idiot, Cornell!" I noted uncomfortably that he had droppedthe formal address. "You have been trailing a specific piece of mailwith the express purpose of finding out where it is going. Since itsdestination is a sealed forwarding address, your attempt to determinethis destination is a violation of the act." He eyed me coldly as if todare me to deny it. "Now," he finished, "Shall I read you chapter andverse?"

  He had me cold. The 'Disclosure' Act was an old ruling that anytransmission must not be used for the benefit of any handler. When Rhinecame along, 'Disclosure' Act was extended to everything.

  "Look officer, it's my girl," hoping that would make a difference.

  "I know that," he told me flatly. "Which is why I'm not running you in.I'm just telling you to lay off. Your girl went away and left you asealed forwarding address. Maybe she doesn't want to see you again."

  "She's sick," I said.

  "Maybe her family thinks you made her sick. Now stop it and go away. Andif I ever find you trying to dig the mail again, you'll dig iron bars.Now scat!"

  He urged me towards the outside of the station like a sheep-dog hazinghis flock. I took a cab to LaGuardia, even though it was not as fast asthe subway. I was glad to be out of his presence.

  I connected with my letter again at LaGuardia. It was being loadedaboard a DC-16 headed for Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Hawaii, andManila. I didn't know how far it was going so I bought a ticket for theroute with my travel card and I got aboard just ahead of the closingdoor.

  My bit of mail was in the compartment below me, and in the hour traveltime to Chicago, I found out that Chicago was the destination for themailbag, although the superscript on the letter was still hazy.

  I followed the bag off the plane at Chicago and stopped long enough tocancel the rest of my ticket. There was no use wasting the money for theunused fare from Chicago to Manila. I rode into the city in acombination bus-truck less than six feet from my littlepoint-of-interest. During the ride I managed to dig the superscript.

  It forwarded the letter to Ladysmith, Wisconsin, and from there to arural route that I couldn't understand although I got the number.

  Then I went back to Midway Airport and found to my disgust that theChicago Airport did not have a bar. I dug into this oddity for a momentuntil I found out that the Chicago Airport was built on Public SchoolProperty and that according to law, they couldn't sell anything harderthan soda pop within three hundred feet of public school property, nomatter who rented it. So I dawdled in the bar across Cicero Avenue untilplane time, and took an old propeller-driven Convair to Eau Claire on adaisy-clipping ride that stopped at every wide spot on the course. FromEau Claire the mail bag took off in the antediluvian Convair but I tookoff by train because the bag was scheduled to be dropped by guidedglider into Ladysmith.

  At Ladysmith I rented a car, checked the rural routes, and took offabout the same time as my significant hunk of mail.

  Nine miles from Ladysmith is a flagstop called Bruce, and not far fromBruce there is a body of water slightly larger than a duck pond calledCaley Lake.

  A backroad, decorated with ornamental metal signs, led me from Bruce,Wisconsin, to Caley Lake, where the road signs showed a missing spoke.

  I turned in, feeling like Ferdinand Magellan must have felt when hefinally made his passage through the Strait to discover the open seathat lay beyond the New World. I had done a fine job of tailing and Iwanted someone to pin a leather medal on me. The side road wound in andout for a few hundred yards, and then I saw Phillip Harrison.

  He was poking a long tool into the guts of an automatic pump, built tolift water from a deep well into a water tower about forty feet tall. Hedid not notice my arrival until I stopped my rented car beside him andsaid:

  "Being a mechanical engineer and an esper, Phil, I can tell you that youhave a--"

  "A worn gasket seal," he said. "It doesn't take an esper engineer tofigure it out. How the heck did you find us?"

  "Out in your mailbox there is a letter," I told him. "I came with it."

  He eyed me humorously. "How much postage did you cost? Or did you comesecond class mail?"

  I was not sure that I cared for the inference, but Phillip was kiddingme by the half-smile on his face. I asked, "Phil, please tell me--whatis going on?"

  His half-smile faded. He shook his head unhappily as he said, "Why can'tyou leave well-enough alone?"

  My feelings welled up and I blew my scalp. "Let well enough alone?" Iroared. "I'm pushed from pillar to post by everybody. You steal my girl.I'm in hokus with the cops, and then you tell me that I'm to stay--"

  "Up the proverbial estuary lacking the customary means of locomotion,"he finished with a smile.

  I couldn't see the humor in it. "Yeah," I drawled humorlessly.

  "You realize that you're probably as big a liability with us as you weretrying to find us?"

  I grunted. "I could always blow my brains out."

  "That's no solution and you know it."

  "Then give me an alternative."

  Phillip shrugged. "Now that you're here, you're here. It's obvious thatyou know too much, Steve. You should have left well enough alone."

  "I didn't know well enough. Besides, I couldn't have been pushed betterif someone had slipped me--" I stopped, stunned at the idea and then Iwent on in a falter, "--a post-hypnotic suggestion."

  "Steve, you'd better come in and meet Marian. Maybe that's whathappened."

  "Marian?" I said hollowly.

  "She's a high-grade telepath. Master of psi, no less."

  My mind went red as I remembered how I'd catalogued her physical charmson our first meeting in an effort to find out whether she were esper ortelepath. Marian had fine control; her mind must have positively seethedat my invasion of her privacy. I did not want to meet Marian face toface right now, but there wasn't a thing I could do about it.

  Phillip left his pump and waved for me to follow. He took off in hisjeep and I trailed him to the farmhouse. We went through a dim area thatwas almost the ideal shape for a home. The ring was not complete, butthe open part faced the fields behind the house so that good privacy wasensured for all practical purposes.

  On the steps of the verandah stood Marian.

  Sight of her was enough to make me forget my self-accusation of a fewmoments ago. She stood tall and lissome, the picture of slender, robusthealth.

  "Come in, Steve," she said, holding out her hand. I took it. Her gripwas firm and hard, but it was gentle. I knew that she could have pulpedmy hand if she squeezed hard.

  "I'm very happy to see that rumor is wrong and that you'renot--suffering--from Mekstrom's Disease," I told her.

  "So now you know, Steve. Too bad."

  "Why?"

  "Because it adds a load to all of us. Even you." She looked at methoughtfully for a moment, then said, "Well, come on in and relax,Stev
e. We'll talk it out."

  We all went inside.

  On a divan in the living room, covered by a light blanket, resting in avery light snooze, was a woman. Her face was turned away from me, butthe hair and the line of the figure and the--

  #Catherine!#

  She turned and sat up at once, alive and shocked awake. She rubbed thesleep from her eyes with swift knuckles and then looked over her handsat me.

  "Steve!" she cried, and all the world and the soul of her was in thethrob of her voice.