Highways in Hiding

by George O. Smith

  XVII

  It would please me no end to report here that the gang at the MedicalCenter were crude, rough, vicious, and that they didn't give a damnabout human suffering. Unfortunately for my sense of moral balance, Ican't. They didn't cut huge slices out of my hide without benefit ofanaesthesia. They didn't shove pipe-sized needles into me, or strap meon a board and open me up with dull knives. Instead, they treated me asif I'd been going to pay for my treatment and ultimately emerge from theCenter to go forth and extol its virtues. I ate good food, slept in aclean and comfortable bed, smoked free cigarettes, read the bestmagazines--and also some of the worst, if I must report the wholetruth--and was permitted to mingle with the rest of the patients,guests, victims, personnel, and so forth that were attached to my ward.

  I was not at any time treated as though I were anything but a willingand happy member of their team. It was known that I was not, but if anyemotion was shown, it was sympathy at my plight in not being one ofthem. This was viewed in the same way as any other accident of birth orupbringing.

  In my room was another man about my age. He'd arrived a day before me,with an early infection at the tip of his middle toe. He was, if I'vegot to produce a time-table, about three-eights of an inch ahead of me.He had no worries. He was one of their kind of thinkers.

  "How'd you connect?" I asked him.

  "I didn't," he said, scratching his infected toe vigorously. "Theyconnected with me."

  "Oh?"

  "Yeah. I was sleeping tight and not even dreaming. Someone rapped on myapartment door and I growled myself out of bed and sort of felt my way.It was three in the morning. Guy stood there looking apologetic. 'Got amessage for you,' he tells me. 'Can't it wait until morning?' I snarlback. 'No,' he says. 'It's important!' So I invite him in. He doesn'twaste any time at all; his first act is to point at an iron floor lampin the corner and ask me how much I'd paid for it. I tell him. Then thisbird drops twice the amount on the coffee table, strides over to thecorner, picks up the lamp, and ties the iron pipe into a fancy-lookingbowknot. He didn't even grunt. 'Mr. Mullaney,' he asks me, 'How wouldyou like to be that strong?' I didn't have to think it over. I told himright then and there. Then we spent from three ayem to five thirty goingthrough a fast question and answer routine, sort of like a complicatedword-association test. At six o'clock I've packed and I'm on my way herewith my case of Mekstrom's Disease."

  "Just like that?" I asked Mr. Mullaney.

  "Just like that," he repeated.

  "So now what happens?"

  "Oh, about tomorrow I'll go in for treatment," he said. "Seems as howthey've got to start treatment before the infection creeps to the firstjoint or I'll lose the joint." He contemplated me a bit; he was aperceptive and I knew it. "You've got another day or more. That'sbecause your ring finger is longer than my toe."

  "What's the treatment like?" I asked him.

  "That I don't know. I've tried to dig the treatment, but it's too faraway from here. This is just a sort of preliminary ward; I gather thatthey know when to start and so on." He veiled his eyes for a moment. Hewas undoubtedly thinking of my fate. "Chess?" he asked, changing thesubject abruptly.

  "Why not?" I grinned.

  My mind wasn't in it. He beat me three out of four. I bedded down abouteleven, and to my surprise I slept well. They must have been shovingsomething into me to make me sleep; I know me very well and I'm surethat I couldn't have closed an eye if they hadn't been slipping me theold closeout powder. For three nights, now, I'd corked off solid untilseven ack emma and I'd come alive in the morning fine, fit, and fresh.

  But on the following morning, Mr. Mullaney was missing. I never saw himagain.

  At noon, or thereabouts, the end of the ring finger on my left hand wasas solid as a rock. I could squeeze it in a door or burn it with acigarette; I got into a little habit of scratching kitchen matches on itas I tried to dig into the solid flesh with my perception. I growled abit at my fate, but not much.

  It was about this time, too, that the slight itch began to change. Youknow how a deep-felt itch is. It can sometimes be pleasant. Like theitch that comes after a fast swim in the salty sea and a dry-out in thebright sun, when the drying salt water makes your skin itch with thevibrant pleasure of just being alive. This is not like the bite of anybug, but the kind that makes you want to take another dive into theocean instead of trying to scratch it with your claws. Well, the itch inmy finger had been one of the pleasant kinds. I could sort of scratch itaway by taking the steel-hard part of my finger in my other hand andwiggle, briskly. But now the itch turned into a deep burning pain.

  My perception, never good enough to dig the finer structure clearly, wasgood enough to tell me that my crawling horror had come to the boundaryline of the first joint.

  It was this pause that was causing the burning pain.

  According to what I'd been told, if someone didn't do something about meright now, I'd lose the end joint of my finger.

  Nobody came to ease my pain, nor to ease my mind. They left me strictlyalone. I spent the time from noon until three o'clock examining myfingertip as I'd not examined it before. It was rock hard, but strangelyflexible if I could exert enough pressure on the flesh. It still movedwith the flexing of my hands. The fingernail itself was like a chip ofchilled steel. I could flex the nail neither with my other hand nor bybiting it; between my teeth it had the uncomfortable solidity of a sheetof metal that conveyed to my brain that the old teeth should not try tobite too hard. I tried prying on a bit of metal with the fingernail;inserting the nail in the crack where a metal cylinder had been formedto make a table leg. I might have been able to pry the crack wider, butthe rest of my body did not have the power nor the rigidity necessary todrive the tiny lever that was my fingertip.

  I wondered what kind of tool-grinder they used for a manicure.

  At three-thirty, the door to my room opened and in came Scholar Phelps,complete with his benign smile and his hearty air.

  "Well," he boomed over-cheerfully, "we meet again, Mr. Cornell."

  "Under trying circumstances," I said.

  "Unfortunately so," he nodded. "However, we can't all be fortunate."

  "I dislike being a vital statistic."

  "So does everybody. Yet, from a philosophical point of view, you have nomore right to live at the expense of someone else than someone else hasa right to live at your expense. It all comes out even in the finalaccounting. And, of course, if every man were granted a guaranteedimmortality, we'd have one cluttered-up world."

  I had to admit that he was right, but I still could not accept hisstatistical attitude. Not while I'm the statistic. He followed mythought even though he was esper; it wasn't hard to follow anyway.

  "All right, I admit that this is no time to sit around discussingphilosophy or metaphysics or anything of that nature. What you areinterested in is you."

  "How absolutely correct."

  "You know, of course, that you are a carrier."

  "So I've come to believe. At least, everybody I seem to have any contactwith either turns up missing or comes down with Mekstrom's--or both."

  Scholar Phelps nodded. "You might have gone on for quite some time if ithadn't been so obvious."

  I eyed him. "Just what went on?" I asked casually. "Did you have aclean-up squad following me all the time, picking up the debris? Or didyou just pick up the ones you wanted? Or did the Highways make youindulge in a running competition?"

  "Too many questions at once. Most of which answers would be best thatyou did not know. Best for us, that is. Maybe even for you."

  I shrugged. "We seem to be bordering on philosophy again when theimportant point is what you intend to do to me."

  He looked unhappy. "Mr. Cornell, it is hard to remain unphilosophical ina case like this. So many avenues of thought have been opened, so manyideas and angles come to mind. We'll readily admit what you've probablyconcluded; that you as a carrier have become the one basic factor thatwe have been seeking for some twenty years and more. You are t
hedirigible force, the last brick in the building, the final answer. Or,and I hate to say it, were."

  "Were?"

  "For all of our knowledge of Mekstrom's we know so very little," hesaid. "In certain maladies the carrier is himself immune. In some weobserve that the carrier results from a low-level, incomplete infectionwith the disease which immunizes him but does not kill the bugs. Inothers, we've seen the carrier become normal after he has finallycontracted the disease. What we must know now is: Is Steve Cornell, theMekstrom Carrier, now a non-carrier because he has contracted thedisease?"

  "How are you going to find out?" I asked him.

  "That's a problem," he said thoughtfully. "One school feels that weshould not treat you, since the treatment itself may destroy whateverunknown factor makes you a carrier. The other claims that if we don'ttreat you, you'll hardly live long enough to permit comprehensiveresearch anyway. A third school believes that there is time to find outwhether you are still a carrier, make some tests, and then treat you,after which these tests are to be repeated."

  Rather bitterly, I said, "I suppose I have absolutely no vote."

  "Hardly," his face was pragmatic.

  "And to which school do you belong?" I asked sourly. "Do you want me toget the cure? Or am I to die miserably while you take tabs on my bloodpressure, or do I merely lose an arm while you're sitting with foldedhands waiting for the laboratory report?"

  "In any case, we'll learn a lot about Mekstrom's from you," he said."Even if you die."

  As caustically as I could, I said, "It's nice to know that I am notgoing to die in vain."

  He eyed me with contempt. "You're not afraid to die, are you, Mr.Cornell?"

  That's a dirty question to ask any man. Sure, I'm afraid to die. I justdon't like the idea of being not-alive. As bad as life is, it's betterthan nothing. But the way he put the question he was implying that Ishould be happy to die for the benefit of Humanity in general, andthat's a question that is unfairly loaded. After all, everybody isslated to kick off. There is no other way of resigning from theuniverse. So if I have to die, it might as well be for the Benefit ofSomething, and if it happens to be Humanity, so much the better. Butwhen the case is proffered on a silver tray, I feel, "Somebody else, notme!"

  The next argument Phelps would be tossing out would be the one thatgoes, "Two thousand years ago, a Man died for Humanity--" which alwaysmakes me sick. No matter how you look at us, there is no resemblancebetween Him and me.

  I cut him short before he could say it: "Whether or not I'm afraid todie, and for good or evil, now or later, is beside the point. I have,obviously, nothing to say about the time, place, and the reasons."

  We sat there and glared at one another; he didn't know whether to laughor snarl and I didn't care which he did. It seemed to me that he wasleading up to something that looked like the end. Then I'd get thestandard funeral and statements would be given out that I'd died becausemedical research had not been able to save me and blah blah blahcomplete with lack of funds and The Medical Center charity drive. Theresult would mean more moola for Phelps and higher efficiency for hisoperations, and to the devil with the rest of the world.

  "Let's get along with it," I snapped. "I've no opinion, no vote, noright of appeal. Why bother to ask me how I feel?"

  Calmly he replied, "Because I am not a rough-shod, unhuman monster, Mr.Cornell. I would prefer that you see my point of view--or at leastenough of it to admit that there is a bit of right on my side."

  "Seems to me I went through that with Thorndyke."

  "This is another angle. I'm speaking of my right of discovery."

  "You're speaking of what?"

  "My right of discovery. You as an engineer should be familiar with theidea. If I were a poet I could write an ode to my love and no one wouldforbid me my right to give it to her and to nobody else. If I were acook with a special recipe no one could demand that I hand it overunless I had a special friend. He who discovers something new should begranted the right to control it. If this Mekstrom business were somesort of physical patent or some new process, I could apply for a patentand have it for my exclusive use for a period of seventeen years. Am Inot right?"

  "Yes, but--"

  "Except that my patent would be infringed upon and I'd have nocontrol--"

  I stood up suddenly and faced him angrily. He did not cower; after allhe was a Mekstrom. But he did shut up for a moment.

  "Seems to me," I snarled, "that any process that can be used to savehuman life should not be held secret, patentable, or under the controlof any one man or group."

  "This is an argument that always comes up. You may, of course, becorrect. But happily for me, Mr. Cornell, I have the process and youhave not, and it is my own conviction that I have the right to use it onthose people who seem, in my opinion, to hold the most for the futureadvancement of the human race. However, I do not care to go over thisargument again, it is tiresome and it never ends. As one of the ancientGreek Philosophers observed, you cannot change a man's mind by arguingwith him. The other fact remains, however, that you do have something tooffer us, despite your contrary mental processes."

  "Do go on? What do I have to do to gain this benefit? Who do I have tokill?" I eyed him cynically and then added, "Or is it 'Whom shall Ikill?' I like these things to be proper, you know."

  "Don't be sarcastic. I'm serious," he told me.

  "Then stop pussyfooting and come to the point," I snapped. "You knowwhat the story is. I don't. So if you think I'll be interested, why nottell me instead of letting me find out the hard way."

  "You, of course, were a carrier. Maybe you still are. We can find out.In fact, we'll have to find out, before we--"

  "For God's Sake stop it!" I yelled. "You're meandering."

  "Sorry," he said in a tone of apology that surprised me all the way downto my feet. He shook himself visibly and went on from there: "You, ifstill a carrier, can be of use to The Medical Center. Now do youunderstand?"

  Sure I understand, but good. As a normal human type, they held nothingover me and just shoved me here and there and picked up the victimsafter me. But now that I was a victim myself, they could offer me their"cure" only if I would swear to go around the country deliberatelyinfecting the people they wanted among them. It was that--or lie thereand die miserably. This had not come to Scholar Phelps as a sudden flashof genius. He'd been planning this all along; had been waiting to popthis delicate question after I'd been pushed around, had a chance totorture myself mentally, and was undoubtedly soft for anything thatlooked like salvation.

  "There is one awkward point," said Scholar Phelps suavely. "Once we havecured you, we would have no hold on you other than your loyalty and yourpersonal honor to fulfill a promise given. Neither of us are naive, Mr.Cornell. We both know that any honorable promise is only as valid as thebasic honor involved. Since your personal opinion is that this medicaltreatment should be used indiscriminately, and that our program tobetter the human race by competitive selection is foreign to yourfeelings, you would feel honor-bound to betray us. Am I not correct?"

  What could I say to that? First I'm out, then I'm in, now I'm out again.What was Phelps getting at?

  "If our positions were reversed, Mr. Cornell, I'm sure that you'd seeksome additional binding force against me. I shall continue to seek somesuch lever against you for the same reason. In the meantime, Mr.Cornell, we shall make a test to see whether we have any real basis forany agreement at all. You may have ceased to be a carrier, you know."

  "Yeah," I admitted darkly.

  "In the meantime," he said cheerfully, "the least we can do is to treatyour finger. I'd hate to have you hedge a deal because we did notdeliver your cured body in the whole."

  He put his head out of the door and summoned a nurse who came with ablack bag. From the bag, Scholar Phelps took a skin-blast hypo and asmall metal box, the top of which held a small slender, jointed platformand some tiny straps. He strapped my finger to this platform and thenplugged in a length of line cord to the neares
t wall socket. The littleplatforms moved; the one nearest my wrist vibrated rapidly across a verysmall excursion that tickled like the devil. The end platform moved inan arc, flexing the finger tip from straight to about seventy degrees.This moved fairly slow but regularly up and down.

  "I'll not fool you," he said drily. "This is going to hurt."

  He set the skin-blast hypo on top of the joint and let it go. For amoment the finger felt cold, numb, pleasant. Then the shock wore awayand the tip of my finger, my whole finger and part of my hand shocked mewith the most excruciating agony that the hide of man ever felt. Flashesand waves of pain darted up my arm to the elbow and the muscles in myforearm jumped. The sensitive nerve in my elbow sang and sent dartingwaves of zigzag needles up to my shoulder. My hand was a source ofsearing heat and freezing cold and the pain of being crushed and twistedand wrenched out of joint all at the same time.

  Phelps wiped my wet face with a towel, loaded another hypo and let mehave it in the shoulder. Gradually the stuff took hold and the awfulpain began to subside. Not all the way, it just diminished fromabsolutely unbearable to merely terrible.

  I knew at that moment why a trapped animal will bite off its own forelegto get free of the trap.

  From the depths of his bag he found a bottle and poured a half-tumblerfor me; it went down like a whiskey-flavored soft drink. It had about asmuch kick as when you pour a drink of water into a highball glass thatstill holds a dreg of melted ice and diluted liquor. But it burned likefury once it hit my stomach and my mind began to wobble. He'd given me aslug of the pure quill, one hundred proof.

  As some sort of counter-irritant, it worked. Very gradually the awfulpain in my hand began to subside.

  "You can take that manipulator off in an hour or so," he told me. "Andin the meantime we'll get along with our testing."

  I gathered that they could stop this treatment anywhere along theprocess if I did not measure up.