Highways in Hiding

by George O. Smith

  XVIII

  Midnight. The manipulator had been off my hand for several hours, and itwas obvious that my Mekstrom's was past the first joint and creeping uptowards the next. I eyed it with some distaste; as much as I wanted tohave a fine hard body, I was not too pleased at having agony for acompanion every time the infection crossed a joint. I began to wonderabout the wrist; this is a nice complicated joint and should, ifpossible, exceed the pain of the first joint in the ring finger. I'dheard tell, of course, that once you've reached the top, additionaltorture does not hurt any greater. I'd accepted this statement as it wasprinted. But now I was not too sure that what I'd just been through wasnot one of those exceptions that take place every now and then to thebest of rules.

  I was still in a dark and disconsolate mood. But I'd managed to eat, andI'd shaved and showered, and I'd hit the hay because it was as good aplace to be as anywhere else. I could lie there and dig the premiseswith my esper.

  There were very few patients in this building, and none were done uplike the character in the Macklin place. They moved the patients to someother part of the grounds when the cure started. There weren't very manynurses, doctors, scholars, or other personnel around, either.

  Outside along one side of a road was a small lighted house that wasobviously a sort of guard, but it was casual instead of being formal andmilitary in appearance. The ground, instead of being patrolled by humanguards (which might have caused some comment) was carefully laid offinto checkerboard squares by a complicated system of photobeams andinduction bridges.

  You've probably read about how the job of casing a joint should be done.I did it the same way. I dug back and forth, collecting the layout fromthe back door of my building towards the nearest puff of dead area. Thiscoign of safety billowed outward from the pattern towards the buildinglike an arm of cumulus cloud and the top of it rose like a column to aheight above my range. It sort of leaned forward but it did not lean farenough to be directly above the building. The far side of the column wasjust like the rear side; even though I'm well trained, it alwaysstartles me when I perceive the far side of a smallish dead area. I'minclined like everybody else to consider perception on a line-of-sightbasis instead of on a sort of all-around grasp.

  I let my thinker run free. If I could direct a breakout from this jointwith a lot of outside help, I'd have a hot jetcopter pilot come down thedead-area column with a dead engine. The Medical Center did not have anyradar, probably on the proposition that too high a degree of securityindicated a high degree of top-secret material to hide. So I'd come downdead engine, land, and wait it out. Timing would have to be perfect,because I, the prisoner, would have to make a fast gallop across acouple of hundred yards of wide open psi area, scale a tall fence toppedwith barbed wire, cross another fifty yards into the murk, and then findmy rescuer. The take off would be fast once I'd located the 'copter inthe murk, and everything would depend upon a hot pilot who feltconfident enough in his engine and his rotorjets to let 'em go with aroar and a lift without warmup.

  During which time, unfortunately for all plans, the people at TheMedical Center would have been reading my mind and would probably havethat dead patch well patrolled with big, rough gentlemen armed withstuff heavy enough to stop a tank.

  Lacking any sort of device or doodad that would conceal my mind fromprying telepaths, about the only thing I could do was to lay here in mysoft bed and daydream of making my escape.

  Eventually I went to sleep and dreamed that I was hunting Mallards witha fly-rod baited with a stale doughnut. The only thing that bothered mewas a couple of odd-looking guys who thought that the way to huntMallards was with shotguns, and their dress was just as out of taste astheir equipment. Who ever hunted ducks from a canoe, dressed inwindbreakers and hightopped boots? Eventually they bought some ducksfrom me and went home, leaving me to my slumbers.

  * * * * *

  About eight in the morning, there was a tentative tap on my door. WhileI was growling about why they should bother tapping, the door opened anda woman came in with my breakfast tray. She was not my nurse; she wasthe enamelled blonde receptionist.

  She had lost some of her enamelled sophistication. It was not evident inher make-up, her dress, or her hair-do. These were perfection. In fact,she bore that store-window look that made me think of an automaton,triggered to make the right noises and to present the proper expressionat the correct time. As though she had never had a thought of her own oran emotion that was above the level of very mild interest. As if theperfection of her dress and the characterless beauty of her face weremore important than anything else in her life.

  But the loss of absolute plate-glass impersonality was gone, and it tookme some several moments to dig it out of her appearance. Then I saw it.Her eyes. They no longer looked glassily out of that clear oval face ata point about three inches above my left shoulder, but they werecentered on me from no matter what point in the room she'd be as shewent about the business of running open the blinds, checking the thisand that and the other like any nurses' helper.

  Finally she placed my tray on the bed-table and stood looking down atme.

  From my first meeting with her I knew she was no telepath, so I bluntlysaid, "Where's the regular girl? Where's my nurse?"

  "I'm taking over for the time," she told me. Her voice was strained;she'd been trying to use that too-deeply cultured tone she used as theprofessional receptionist but the voice had cracked through the trainingenough to let some of her natural tone come through.

  "Why?"

  Then she relaxed completely, or maybe it was a matter of coming unglued.Her face allowed itself to take on some character and her body ceasedbeing that rigid window-dummy type. "What's your trouble--?" I asked hersoftly. She had something on her mind that was a bit too big for her,but her training was not broad enough to allow her to get it out. Ihoped to help, if I could. I also wanted to know what she was doinghere. If Scholar Phelps was thinking about putting a lever on me of thefemale type, he'd guessed wrong.

  She was looking at me and I could see a fragment of fright in her face.

  "Is it terrible?" she asked me in a whisper.

  "Is what terrible?"

  "Me--Me--Mekstrom's D--Disease--" The last word came out with a coupleof big tears oozing from closed lids.

  "Why?" I asked. "Do I look all shot to bits?"

  She opened the eyes and looked at me. "Does it hurt?"

  I remembered the agony of my finger and tried to lie. "A little," I toldher. "But I'm told that it was because I'd waited too long for my firsttreatment." I hoped that I was correct; maybe it was wishful thinking,but I claim that right. I didn't want to go through the same agony everytime we crossed a joint.

  I reached over to the bedside table and found my cigarettes. I slippedtwo up and offered one of them to her. She put a tentative hand forward,slowly, a scared-to-touch reluctance in her motion. This changed as herhand came forward. It was the same sort of reluctance that you feel whenyou start out to visit the dentist for a roaring tooth. The closer youget to the dentist's office the less inclined you are to finish the job.Then at some indeterminate point you cross the place of no return andfrom that moment you go forward with increased determination.

  She finally made the cigarette package but she was very careful not totouch my hand as she took out the weed. Then, as if she'd reached thatpoint of no return, her hand slipped around the package and caught me bythe wrist.

  We were statue-still for three heartbeats. Then I lifted my other hand,took out the cigarette she'd missed, and held it forward for her. Shetook it. I dropped the pack and let my hand slip back until we wereholding hands, practically. She shuddered.

  I flipped my lighter and let her inhale a big puff before I put the nextquestion: "Why are you here and what goes on?"

  In a flat, dry voice she said, "I'm--supposed--to--" and let it trailaway without finishing it.

  "Guinea pig?" I blurted bluntly.

  She collapsed like a defla
ted balloon. Next, she had her face buried inmy shoulder, bawling like a hurt baby. I stroked her shoulder gently,but she shuddered away from my hand as though it were poison.

  I shoved her upright and shook her a bit. "Don't blubber like an idiot.Sit there and talk like a human being!"

  It took her a minute of visible effort before she said, "You're supposedto be a--carrier. I'm supposed to find out--whether you are--a carrier."

  Well, I'd suspected something of that sort.

  Shakily she asked me, "How do I get it, Mr. Cornell?"

  I eyed her sympathetically.

  Then I held up my left hand and looked at the infection. This was thefinger that had been gummed to bits by the Mekstrom infant back inHomestead. With a shrug of uncertainty, I lifted her hand to my mouth. Ifelt with my tongue and dug with my perception until I had a tiny foldof her skin between my front teeth. Then sharply, I bit down, drawingblood. She jerked, stiffened, closed her eyes and took a deep breath butshe did not cry out.

  "That, if anything, should do it," I said flatly. "Now go out and getsome iodine for the cut. Human-bite is likely to become infected withsomething bad. And I don't think antiseptic will hurt the MekstromInfection if it's taken place." They'd given me the antiseptic works inHomestead, I recalled. "Now, Miss Nameless, you sit over there and tellme how come this distressing tableau?"

  "Oh--I can't," she cried. Then she left in a hurry sucking on herbleeding 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 andher loyalty was extracted because of it. The chances were also high thatshe'd been given to understand that they'd accept her as a member if sheever caught Mekstrom's; and they'd taken my arrival as a fine chance tocheck me and get her at the same time.

  I wondered about her; she was no big-brain. I couldn't quite see thestratified society outlined by Scholar Phelps as holding a position openfor her in the top echelon. Except she was a woman, attractive if youlike your women beautiful and dull-minded, and she probably would behappy to live in a little vacuum-type world bounded on all sides withwomen's magazines, lace curtains, TV soap opera, and a corral full oflittle Mekstrom kids. I grinned. Funny how the proponents of thestratified society always have their comeuppance by the need of womenwhose 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 tobet my life that she cared a lot more for being with her man than shedid for the cockeyed society he was supporting.

  I finished my breakfast and went out to watch a couple of telepathsplaying chess until lunch time and then gave up. Telepathic chess wastoo 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'tbeen tried at Homestead, and I surprised them again by being able tohelp 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 afterdinner hoping that I could avoid both Thorndyke and Phelps. I didn'twant to get into another fool social-structure argument with them andthe affair of the little scared receptionist was more than likely tomake me say a few words that might well get me cast into the OuterDarkness 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 wasnot a tentative little frightened tap this time, it was more jovial andeager sounding. My reaction was about the same. Since it was their showand their property, I couldn't see any reason why they made this oddlip-service to politeness.

  It was the receptionist again. She came in with a big wistful smile anddropped my tray on the bed table.

  "Look," she cried. She held up her hand. The bleeding had stopped andthere was a thin film over the cut. I dug at it and nodded; it was thefirst 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 myarms and was busily erasing every attempt at logical thought with one ofthe warmest, no-holds-barred smoocheroo that I'd enjoyed for what seemedlike years. Since I'd held Catherine in my arms in her apartment justbefore we'd eloped, I'd spent my time in the company of Nurse Farrow whoheld no emotional appeal to me, and the rest of my female company hadbeen Mekstroms whose handholding might twist off a wrist if they got athrill out of it. About the time I began to respond with enthusiasm andvigor, she extricated herself from my clutch and slid back to the footof 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 Iwas so valuable a property that they couldn't afford to let me die. Nomatter what, I'd be kept alive. And after having things go so sour forso 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 anothercarrier, it would take a long time before the kid was old enough to betrusted in his aim.

  I discounted it even more because I hadn't been roaring around thecountryside biting innocent citizens. Mere contact was enough; if thebite did anything, it may have hastened the process.

  So here I was, a nice valuable property, with a will of my own. I couldeither throw in with Phelps and bite only Phelps' Chosen Aristocrats, orI 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, butwhen 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 thetooth-paste ad than a fierce snarl.

  My image looked pensive. It was thinking, _Steve, old carnivore, ere yougo biting anybody, you've first got to bite your way out of the MedicalCenter._