Highways in Hiding

by George O. Smith

  XX

  Nurse Farrow caught my hand. "Steve," she snapped out in a rapid, flatvoice, "Think only one thought. Think of how Catherine is here; that shecame here to protect your life and your future!"

  "Huh?"

  "Think it!" she almost cried. "She's coming!"

  I nearly fumbled it. Then I caught on. Catherine was coming; to removethe little finger manipulator and to have a chit-chat with me. I didn'twant to see her, and I was beginning to wish--then I remembered that oneglimmer out of me that I knew the truth and everything would be higherthan Orbital Station One.

  I shoved my mind into low gear and started to think idle thoughts,letting myself sort of daydream. I was convincing to myself; it's hardto explain exactly, but I was play-thinking like a dramatist. I fellinto it; it seemed almost truth to me as I roamed on and on. I'd beentrapped and Catherine had come here to hand herself over as a hostageagainst my good behavior. She'd escaped the Highways bunch or maybe shejust left them quietly. Somehow Phelps had seen to it that Catherine gotword--I didn't know how, but that was not important. The important thingwas Catherine being here as a means of keeping me alive and well.

  I went on thinking the lie. Catherine came in shortly and saw what NurseFarrow was doing.

  "I was supposed to do that," said Catherine.

  Nurse Farrow straightened up from her work of loosening the straps onthe manipulator. "Sorry," she said in a cool, crisp voice. "I didn'tknow that. This is usually my job. It's a rather delicate proposition,you know." There was a chill of professional rebuff in Farrow's voice.It was the pert white hat and the gold pin looking down upon the grayuniform with no adornment. Catherine looked a bit uncomfortable but sheapparently had to take it.

  Catherine tried lamely, "You see, Mr. Cornell is my fiancee."

  Farrow jumped on that one hard. "I'm aware of that. So let's not forgetthat scholars of medicine do not treat their own loved ones for ethicalreasons."

  Catherine took it like a slap across the face with an iced towel. "I'msure that Dr. Thorndyke would not have let me take care of him if I'dnot been capable," she replied.

  "Perhaps Dr. Thorndyke did not realize at the time that Mr. Cornellwould be ready for the Treatment Department. Or," she added slyly, "haveyou been trained to prepare a patient for the full treatment?"

  "The full treatment--? Dr. Thorndyke did not seem to think--"

  "Please," said Farrow with that cold crispness coming out hard, "As anurse I must keep my own opinion to myself, as well as keeping theopinions of doctors to myself. I take orders only and I perform them."

  That was a sharp shot; practically telling Catherine that she, as anurses' helper, had even less right to go shooting off her mouth.Catherine started to reply but gave it up. Instead she came over andlooked down at me. She cooed and stroked my forehead.

  "Ah, Steve," she breathed, "So you're going for the treatment. Think ofme, Steve. Don't let it hurt too much."

  I smiled thinly and looked up into her eyes. They were soft and warm, abit moist. Her lips were full and red and they were parted slightly; thelower lip glistened slightly in the light. These were lips I'd kissedand found sweet; a face I'd held between my hands. Her hair fluffedforward a trifle; threatened to cascade down over her shoulders. No, itwas not at all hard to lie there and go on thinking all the soft-sweetthoughts I'd once hoped might come true--

  She recoiled, her face changing swiftly from its mask of sweet concernto one of hard calculation. I'd slipped with that last hunk of thinkingand given the whole affair away.

  Catherine straightened up and turned to head for the door. She took onestep and caved in like a wet towel.

  Over her still-falling body I saw Nurse Farrow calmly reloading theskin-blast hypo, which she used to fire a second load into the base ofCatherine's neck, just below the shoulder blades.

  "That," said Farrow succinctly, "should keep her cold for a week. I justwish I'd been born with enough guts to commit murder."

  "What--?"

  "Get dressed," she snapped. "It's cold outside, remember?" I started todress as Farrow hurled my clothing out of the closet at me. She went onin the meantime: "I knew you couldn't keep it entirely concealed fromher. She's too good a telepath. So while you were holding her attention,I let her have a shot in the neck. One of the rather bad things aboutbeing a Mekstrom is that minor items like the hypo don't register toowell."

  I stopped. "Isn't that bad? Seems to me that I've heard that pain is anecessary factor for the preservation of the--"

  "Stop yapping and dress," snapped Farrow. "Pain is useful when it'sneeded. It isn't needed in the case of a pin pricking the hide of aMekstrom. When a Mekstrom gets in the way of something big enough todamage him physically, then it hurts him."

  "Sort of when a locomotive falls on their head?" I grunted.

  "Keep on dressing. We're not out of this jungle yet."

  "So have you any plans?"

  She nodded soberly. "Yes, Steve. Once you asked me to be your telepath,to complete your team. I let you down. Now I've picked you up again, andfrom here on--out--I--"

  I nodded. "Sold," I told her.

  "Good. Now, Steve, dig the hallway."

  I did. There was no one there. I opened my mouth to tell her so, andthen closed it foolishly.

  "Dig the hallway down to the left. Farther. To the door downthere--three beyond the one you're perceiving now--is there a wheelchairthere?"

  "Wheelchair?" I blurted.

  "Steve, this is a hospital. They don't even let a man with an achingtooth walk to the toothache ward. He rides. Now, you keep a good esperwatch on the hall and if anybody looks out while I'm gone, just cast adeep dig at their face. It's possible that at this close range I canidentify them from the perceived image in your mind. Although, Godknows, no two people ever _see_ anything alike, let alone perceive it."

  She slipped out, leaving me with the recumbent form of my formersweetheart. Her face had fallen into the relaxed expression of sleep,sort of slack and unbuttoned.

  #Tough, baby,# I thought as I closed my eyes so that all my energy couldbe aimed at the use of my perception.

  Farrow was going down the hall like a professional heading for thewheelchair on a strict order. No one bothered to look out; she reachedthe locker room and dusted the wheelchair just as if she'd been gettingit for a real patient. (The throb in my finger returned for a parthianshot and I remembered that I _was_ a real patient!) She trundled thechair back and into my room.

  "In," she said. "And keep that perception aimed on the hallway, theelevator, and the center corridor stairs."

  She packed me with a blanket, tucking it so that my shoes andoverclothing would not show, doing the job briskly. Then she scoopedCatherine up from the floor and dropped her into my bed, and then rolledCatherine into one of those hospital doodads that hospitals use for maleand female alike as bedclothing.

  "Anyone taking a fast dig in here will think she's a patient--unless thedigger knows that this room is supposed to be occupied by one SteveCornell, obviously male. Now, Steve, ready to steer?"

  "Steer?"

  "Steer by esper. I'll drive. Oh--I know the way," she told me with achuckle. "You just keep your perception peeled for characters who mightbe over-nosy. I'll handle the rest."

  We went along the hallway. I took fast digs at the rooms and hall aheadof us; the whole coast seemed clear. Waiting for the two-bit elevatorwas nerve wracking; hospitals always have such poky elevators. Buteventually it came and we trundled aboard. The pilot was no big-dome. Hesmiled at Nurse Farrow and nodded genially at me. He was probably ablank, jockeying an elevator is about the top job for a non-psi thesedays.

  But as the elevator started down, a doctor came out of one of the roomson the floor below. He took a fast look at the indicator above theelevator door and made a dash to thumb the button. The elevator came toa grinding halt and he got on.

  This bothered me, but Farrow merely simpered at the guy and melted himdown to size. She made some remark to him that I could
n't hear, but fromthe sudden increase of his pulse rate, I gathered that she'd really puthim off guard. He replied in the same unintelligible tone and reachedfor her hand. She held his hand, and if the guy was thinking of me, myname is Sing Hoy Low and I am a Chinese Policeman.

  He held her hand until we hit the first floor, and he debarked with acalf-like glance at Nurse Farrow. We went on to the ground floor anddown the lower corridor to the end, where Farrow spent another lifetimeand a half filling out a white cardboard form.

  The superintendent eyed me with a sniff. "I'll call the car," she said.

  I half-expected Farrow to make some objection, but she quietly noddedand we waited for another lifetime until a big car whined to a stopoutside. Two big guys in white coats came in, tripped the lever on backof the wheelchair and stretched me out flat and low-slung on the samewheels. It was a neat conversion from wheelchair to wheeled stretcher,but as Farrow trundled me out feet first into the cold, I felt a sort ofnervous chill somewhere south of my navel. She swung me around at thelast minute and I was shoved head first into the back of the car.

  Car? This was a full-fledged ambulance, about as long as a city blockand as heavy as a battleship. It was completely fitted for everythingthat anybody could think of, including a great big muscularturbo-electric power plant capable of putting many miles per behind thetail-pipe.

  The door closed on my feet, and we took off with Farrow sitting rightbehind the two big hospital attendants, one of whom was driving and theother of whom was ogling Farrow in a calculating manner. She invited theogle. Heck, she did it in such a way that I couldn't help ogling a bitmyself. If I haven't said that Farrow was an attractive woman, it wasbecause I hadn't really paid attention to her looks. But now I wentalong and ogled, realizing in the dimmer and more obscure recesses of mymind that if I ogled in a loudly lewd perceptive manner, I'd not bethinking of what she was doing.

  So while I was pleasantly occupied in ogling, Farrow slipped two morehypos out from under her clothing. She slipped her hands out sidewise onthe backs of their seats, put her face between them and said, "Anybodygot a cigarette, fellows?"

  The next that took place happened, in order of occurrence, as follows:

  The driver grunted and turned his head to look at her. The other guyfumbled for a cigarette. Driver poked at the lighter on the dash, stilldividing his attention between the road and Nurse Farrow. The man besidehim reached for the lighter when it popped out and he held it for herwhile she puffed it into action. Farrow fingered the triggers on theskin-blast hypos. The man beside the driver replaced the lighter in itssocket on the dash. The driver slid aside and to the floor, a secondbefore the other hospital orderly flopped down like a deflated balloon.

  The ambulance took a swoop to the right, nosed down into a shallow ditchand leaped like a shot deer out on the other side.

  Farrow went over the back of the seat in a flurry and I rolled off of mystretcher into the angle of the floor and the sidewall. There was arumble and then a series of crashes before we came to a shuddering halt.I came up from beneath a pile of assorted medical supplies, bracedmyself against the canted deck, and looked out the wind-shield. Thetrunk of a tree split the field of view as close to dead center as itcould be.

  "Out, Steve," said Farrow, untangling herself from the steering wheeland the two attendants. "Out!"

  "What next?" I asked her.

  "We've made enough racket to wake the statue of Lincoln. Out and run forit."

  "Which way?"

  "Follow me!" she snapped, and took off. Even in nurse's shoes with thosesemi-heels, Farrow made time in a phenomenal way. I lost groundsteadily. Luckily it was still early in the afternoon, so I used myperception to keep track of her once she got out of sight. She wasfollowing the gently rolling ground, keeping to the lower hollows andgradually heading toward a group of buildings off in the near-distance.

  I caught up with her just as we hit a tiny patch of dead area; justinside the area she stopped and we flopped on the ground and panted ourlungs full of nice biting cold air. Then she pointed at the collectionof buildings and said, "Steve, take a few steps out of this deadness andtake a fast dig. Look for cars."

  I nodded; in a few steps I could send my esper forward to dig the factthat there were several cars parked in a row near one of the buildings.I wasted no time in digging any deeper, I just retreated into the deadarea and told her what I'd seen.

  "Take another dig, Steve. Take a dig for ignition keys. We've got tosteal."

  "I don't mind stealing." I took another trip into the open section andgandered at ignition locks. I tried to memorize the ones with keyshanging in the locks but failed to remember all of them.

  "Okay, Steve. This is where we walk in boldly and walk up to a couple ofcars and get in and drive off."

  "Yeah, but why--"

  "That's the only way we'll ever get out of here," she told me firmly.

  I shrugged. Farrow knew more about the Medical Center than I did. Ifthat's the way she figured it, that's the way it had to be. We broke outof the dead area, and as we came into the open, Farrow linked her arm inmine and hugged it.

  "Make like a couple of fatuous mushbirds," she chuckled. "We've been outwalking and communing with nature and getting acquainted."

  "Isn't the fact that you're Mekstrom and I'm human likely to cause somerather pointed comment?"

  "It would if we were to stick around to hear it," she said. "And if theytry to read our minds, all we have to do is to think nice mushythoughts. Face it," she said quietly, "it won't be hard."

  "Huh?"

  "You're a rather nice guy, Steve. You're fast on the uptake, you'regenerally pleasant. You've got an awful lot of grit, guts anddetermination, Steve. You're no pinup boy, Steve, but--and this may comeas a shock to you--women don't put one-tenth the stock in pulchritudethat men do? You--"

  "Hey. Whoa," I bubbled. "Slow down, before you--"

  She hugged my arm again. "Steve," she said seriously, "I'm not in lovewith you. It's not possible for a woman to be in love with a man whodoes not return that love. You don't love me. But you can't help butadmit that I am an attractive woman, Steve, and perhaps under othercircumstances you'd take on a large load of that old feeling. I'll admitthat the reverse could easily take place. Now, let's forget all the oddangles and start thinking like a pair of people for whom the time, theplace, and the opposite sex all turned up opportunely."

  I couldn't help thinking of Nurse Farrow as--Nurse Farrow. The nameGloria did not quite come out. I tried to submerge this mental attitude,and so I looked down at her with what I hoped to resemble the expressionof a love-struck male. I think it was closer to the expression of awould-be little-theatre actor expressing lust, and not quite making thegrade. Farrow giggled.

  But as I sort of leered down at her, I had to admit upon properexamination of her charm that Nurse Farrow could very easily becomeGloria, if as she said, we had the time to let the change occur. Anotheridea formed in my mind: If Farrow had been kicked in the emotions byThorndyke, I'd equally been pushed in the face by Catherine. That madeus sort of kindred souls, as they used to call it in the early books ofthe Twentieth Century.

  Gloria Farrow chuckled. "Unlike the old torch-carriers of that day," shesaid, "we rebound a bit too fast."

  Then she let my arm go and took my hand. We went swinging across thefield in a sort of happy comradeship; it must have looked as though wewere long-term friends. She was a good egg, hurt and beaten down andshoved off by Thorndyke, but she had a lot of the good old bounce. Of asudden impulse I wanted to kiss her.

  "Go ahead, Steve," she said. "But it'll be for the probable onlookers.I'm Mekstrom, you know."

  So I didn't try. I just put an arm around her briefly and realized thatany attempt at affection would be like trying to strike sparks off flintwith a hunk of flannel.

  We walked hand in hand towards the buildings, strolled up saucilytowards two of the parked cars, made the sort of wave that lovers giveone another in goodbye when they don't really wan
t to demonstrate theiraffection before ten thousand people and stepped into two cars and tookoff.

  Gloria Farrow was in the lead.

  We went howling down the road, Farrow in the lead car by a hundred feetand me behind her. We went roaring around a curve, over a hill, and Ihad my perception out to its range, which was far ahead of her car. Themain gate came into range, and we bore down upon that wire and steelportal like a pair of madmen.

  Gloria Farrow plowed into the gate without letting up. The gate wentwhirling in pieces, glass flew and tires howled and bits of metal andplastic sang through the air. Her car weaved aside; I forgot the roadahead and put my perception into her car.

  Farrow was fighting the wheel like a racing driver in a spin. Her handswrenched the wheel with the swift strength of the Mekstrom Flesh shewore, and the wheel bent under her hands. Over and around she went, witha tire blown and the lower rail of the big gate hanging onto the fenderlike a dry-land sea-anchor. She juggled the wheel and made a snaky pathoff to one side of the road.

  Out of the guardhouse came a uniformed man with a riot gun. He did nothave time to raise it. Farrow ironed out her course and aimed thecareening car dead center. She mowed the guard down and ahalf-thousandth of a second later she plowed into the guardhouse. Thestructure erupted like a box of stove-matches hit with a heavy-calibersoft-nosed slug, like a house of cards and an air-jet. There was a roarand a small gout of flame and then out of the flying wreckage on the farside came Farrow and her stolen car. Out of the mess of brimstone andshingles she came, turning end for end in a crazy, metal-crushing twistand spin. She ground to a broken halt before the last of the debrislanded, and then everything was silent.

  And then for the first and only time in my life I felt the penetrant,forceful impact of an incoming thought; a mental contact from anothermind:

  #Steve!# it screamed in my mind, #Get out! Get going! It's your movenow----#

  I put my foot on the faucet and poured on the oil.