Highways in Hiding

by George O. Smith

  XXIV

  As soon as Phelps was gone, I took a careful look at my new livingquarters. The room itself was about fourteen by eighteen, but the end inwhich I was confined was only fourteen by ten, the other eight feet ofend being barred off by a very efficient-looking set of heavy metal rodsand equally strong cross-girdering. There was a sliding door that fit inplace as nicely as the door to a bank vault; it was locked by heavykeeper-bars that slid up from the floor and down from the ceiling andthey were actuated by hidden motors. In the barrier was a flathorizontal slot wide enough to take a tray and high enough to pass ateacup. The bottom of this slot was flush with a small table thatextended through the barrier by a couple of feet on both sides so that atray could be set down on the outside and slipped in.

  I tested the bars with my hands, but even my new set of muscles wouldn'tflex them more than a few thousandths of an inch.

  The walls were steel. All I got as I tried them was a set ofpaint-clogged fingernails. The floor was also steel. The ceiling was abit too high for me to tackle, but I assumed that it, too, was steel.The window was barred from the inside, undoubtedly so that any visitorfrom the outside could not catch on to the fact that this building was aprivate calaboose.

  The--er--furnishings of this cold storage bin were meager of minimumrequirements. A washstand and toilet. A bunk made of metal girderswelded to the floor. The bedding rested on wide resilient straps fixedto the cross-bars at top and bottom of the bed. A foam-rubber mattress,sheets, and one blanket finished off the bed.

  It was a cell designed by Mekstroms to contain Mekstroms and bywiseacres to contain other wiseacres. The non-metallic parts of the roomwere, of course, fireproof. Anything I could get hold of was totallyuseless as a weapon or lever or tool; anything that might have beenuseful to a prisoner was welded down.

  Having given up in the escape department, I sat on my bunk and lit acigarette. I looked for tell-tales, and found a television lens setabove the door of the room eight feet outside of my steel barrier.Beside the lens was a speaker grille and a smaller opening that lookedlike a microphone dust cover.

  With a grunt, I flipped my cigarette at the television lens. I hit justabove the hole, missing it by about an inch. Immediately atinny-sounding voice said,

  "That is not permitted, Mr. Cornell. You are expected to maintain somedegree of personal cleanliness. Since you cannot pick up that cigarettebutt, you have placed an unwelcome task upon our personnel. One moreinfraction of this nature and you will not be permitted the luxury ofsmoking."

  "Go to the devil!" I snapped.

  There was no reply. Not even a haughty chuckle. The silence was worsethan any reply because it pointed out the absolute superiority of theirposition.

  Eventually I dozed off, there being nothing else to do. When I awokethey'd shoved a tray of food in on my table. I ate unenthusiastically. Idozed again, during which time someone removed the tray. When I woke upthe second time it was night and time to go to bed, so I went. I woke upin the morning to see a burly guy enter with a tray of breakfast. Iattempted to engage him in light conversation but he did not even let onthat I was in the cell. Later he removed the tray as silently as he'dbrought it, and I was left with another four hours of utter boredomuntil the same bird returned with a light lunch. Six hours after lunchcame a slightly more substantial dinner, but no talk.

  By bedtime the second night I was getting stir-crazy.

  I hit the sack at about nine thirty, and tossed and turned, unable todrop off because I was not actually tired. I was also wondering whenthey'd come around with their brain-washing crew, or maybe someone who'denter with an ultimatum.

  On the following morning, the tray-bearer was Dr. Thorndyke, who sat onthe chair on the outside of my bars and looked at me silently. I triedgiving him stare for stare, but eventually I gave up and said, "So nowwhere do we go?"

  "Cornell, you're in a bad spot of your own making."

  "Could be," I admitted.

  "And yet, really, you're more of a victim of circumstances."

  "Forgetting all the sideplay, I'm a prisoner," I told him curtly. "Let'sface a few facts, Thorndyke, and stop tossing this guff."

  "All right," he said shortly, "The facts are these: We would prefer thatyou help us willingly. We'd further prefer to have you as you are. Thatis, un-reoriented mentally."

  "You couldn't afford to trust me," I grunted.

  "Maybe we can. It's no secret that we've latched on to quite a number ofyour friends. Let's assume that they will all be well-treated if youagree to join us willingly."

  "I'm sure that the attitude of any of my friends is such that they'dprefer me to stand my ground rather than betray their notions of rightand wrong." I told him.

  "That's a foolish premise," he replied. "You could no more prevailagainst us than you could single-handedly overthrow the Government.Having faced that fact, it becomes sound and sensible to accept thepremise and then see what sort of niche you can carve out of the neworder."

  "I don't like your new order," I grunted.

  "Many people will not," he admitted. "But then, people do not reallyknow what's good for them."

  I almost laughed at him. "Look," I said, "I'd rather make my ownignorant mistakes than to have some Great Father supervise my life. Andspeaking of fathers, we've both got to admit that God Himself permits usthe complete freedom of our wills."

  Thorndyke sneered at me. "If we're to quote the Scripture," he saidsourly, "I'll point out that 'The Lord Thy God is a jealous God,visiting His wrath even upon seven generations of those who hate Him.'"

  "Granted," I replied calmly, "But whether we love Him or hate Him isentirely up to our own particular notion. Now--"

  "Cornell, stop talking like an idiot. Here, too, you can take yourchoice. I'm not ordering you. I'm just trying to point out that whetheryou go on suffering or enjoying life is entirely up to your owndecision. And also your decision will help or hinder others."

  "You're entirely too Godlike," I told him.

  "Well," he said, "think it over."

  "Go to the devil!"

  "Now, that's a very weak response," he said loftily, "Doing nobody anygood or harm. Just talk. So stop gabbing and think."

  Thorndyke left me with my thoughts. Sure, I had bargaining power, but itwas no good. I'd be useful only until they discovered some method ofinoculating normal flesh with Mekstrom's Disease, and once that wastaken care of, Steve Cornell would be a burden upon their resources.

  So that was the morning of my third day of incarceration and nothingmore took place all day. They didn't even give me anything to read, andI almost went nuts. You have no idea of how long fourteen hours can beuntil you've been sitting in a cell with absolutely nothing to do. Iexercised by chinning myself on the bars and playing gymnastics. Iwanted to run but there was not enough room. The physical thrill I gotout of being able to chin myself with one hand wore off after a halfhundred pull-ups because it was no great feat for a Mekstrom. I didpush-ups and bridges and other stunts until I was bored again.

  And all the while, my thinking section was going around and around. Theone main point that I kept coming back to was a very unpleasant futureto face:

  It was certain that no matter what I did, nor how I argued, I was goingto help them out. Either I would do it willingly or they'd grow tired ofthe lecture routine and take me in for a mental re-evaluation, afterwhich (Being not-Steve Cornell any more) I'd join their ranks and dotheir bidding. About the only thing I could look at with self-confidencewas my determination to hold out. If I was going to join them, it wouldbe after I were no longer the man I am, but reoriented into whateverdesign they wanted. And that resolve was weakened by the normal humanwill to live. You can't make a horse drink water, but you can lead ahuman being to a well and he will drink it dry if you keep a shotgunpointed in his direction.

  And so it ended up with my always wondering if, when the cards were alldealt out face up, whether I would have the guts to keep on saying 'No'right up to the point where I walked
into their department ofbrain-washing. In fact, I was rather afraid that in the last moment I'dweaken, just to stay being me.

  That uncertainty of mine was, of course, just the idea they wanted tonourish in my mind. They were doing it by leaving me alone with mymental merry-go-round.

  Again I hit the sack out of sheer boredom and I turned and tossed forwhat seemed like hours before I dropped off to sleep, wondering anddreaming about who was to be the next visitor with a bill of goods tosell.

  The next visitor came in about midnight, or thereabouts. I woke up withthe realization that someone had come in through the outer door and wasstanding there in the semi-dark caused by a bright moon shining inthrough my barred window.

  "Steve," she said, in a near whisper.

  "Go away," I told her. "Haven't you done enough already?"

  "Oh, please, Steve. I've got to talk to you."

  I sat on the edge of my bunk and looked at her. She was fully dressed;her light printed silk was of the same general pattern and fit that shepreferred. In fact, Catherine looked as I'd always seen her, and as I'dpictured her during the long hopeless weeks of our separation.

  "You've got something to add?" I asked her coldly.

  "I've got to make you understand, Steve," she pleaded.

  "Understand what?" I snapped. "I know already. You deliberately set outto marry, or else-how tie some emotional cable onto me. God knows thatyou succeeded. If it hadn't been for that accident, I'd have been naileddown tight."

  "That part is true," she whispered.

  "Naturally, you've got justification."

  "Well, I have."

  "So has any burglar."

  She shook her head at me. "Steve, you don't really understand. If onlyyou could read my mind and know the truth--"

  She let this trail off in a helpless awkwardness. It was one of thosestatements that are meaningless because it can be said by either friendor foe and cannot be checked.

  I just looked at her and suddenly remembered something:

  This was the first time in my life that I was in a position to do someverbal fencing with a telepath on even terms. I could say 'Yes' andthink 'No' with absolute impunity. In fact, I might even have had anedge, since as a poor non-telepath I did have some training insubterfuge, falsehood, and diplomatic maneuver that the telepathcouldn't have. Catherine and I, at long last, were in the position ofthe so-called good old days when boys and girls couldn't really know thetruth about one another's real thoughts.

  "So what's this truth?" I demanded.

  "Steve, answer me truly. Have you ever been put on an odious job, onlyto find that the job is really pleasant?"

  "Yes."

  "Then hear me out. I--in fact, no woman--takes kindly to being directedto do what I did. I was told to meet you, to marry--" Her face lookedflustered and it might have been a bit flushed for all I knew. Icouldn't see color enough in the dim light to be sure. "--And then I metyou, Steve, and I found out that you were really a very nice sort ofguy."

  "Well, thanks."

  "Don't be bitter. Hear the truth. If Otto Mekstrom had not existed, ifthere were no such thing as Mekstrom's Disease, and I had met you freelyand openly as men and women meet, I'd have come to feel the same, Steve.I must make you understand that my emotional attachment to you was notincreased nor decreased by the fact that my physical actions weredirected at you. If anything, my job was just rendered pleasantlyeasier."

  I grunted. "And so you were made happy."

  "Yes," she whispered. "And I was going to marry you and live honestlywith you--"

  "Heck of a marriage with the wife in the Medical Center for Mekstrom'sDisease and our first child--"

  "Steve, you poor fool, don't you understand? If our child came aspredicted, the first thing I'd do would be to have the child inoculatethe father? Then we'd be--"

  "Um," I grunted. "I hadn't thought of that." This was a flat lie. I'dconsidered it a-plenty since my jailing here. Present the Medical Centerwith a child, a Mekstrom, and a Carrier, and good old pappy would be nolonger needed.

  "Well, after I found out all about you, Steve, that's what I had inmind. But now--"

  "Now what?" I urged her gently. I had a hunch that she was leading up tosomething, but ducking shy about it until she managed to find out how Ithought. It would have been all zero if we'd been in a clear area, butas it was I led her gently on.

  "But now I've failed," she said with a slight wail.

  "What do they do with failures?" I asked harshly. "Siberia? Or a gunnysack weighted down with an anvil? Or do they drum you out of the corps?"

  "I don't know."

  I eyed her closely. I was forced to admit that no matter how Catherinethought, she was a mighty attractive dish from the physical standpoint.And regardless of the trouble she'd put me through, I could not overlookthe fact that I had been deep enough in love to plan elopement andmarriage. I'd held her slender body close, and either her response hadbeen honestly warm or Catherine was an actress of very rare physicalability. Scholar Phelps could hardly have picked a warmer temptress inthe first place; putting her onto me now was a stroke of near-genius.

  I got up from the edge of my bunk and faced her through my bars. Shecame close, too, and we looked into each other's faces over a cross-railof the heavy fence.

  I managed a wistful grin at her. "You're not really a failure yet, areyou, kid?"

  "I don't quite know how to--to--" she replied.

  I looked around my little cell with a gruesome gesture. "This isn't myidea of a pleasant home. And yet it will be my home until someonedecides that I'm too expensive to keep."

  "I know," she breathed.

  Taking the bit in my teeth, I said, "Catherine even though--well, heck.I'd like to help you."

  "You mean that?" she asked in almost an eager voice.

  "It's not impossible to forget that we were eloping when all thisstarted."

  "It all seems so long ago," she said with a thick voice. "And I wish wewere back there--no, Steve, I wish Mekstrom's Disease had neverhappened--I wish--"

  "Stop wishing and think," I told her half-humorously. "If there were noMekstrom's Disease, the chances are that we'd never have met in thefirst place."

  "That's the cruel part of it all," she cried. And I mean _cried_.

  I rapped on the metal bars with a fist. "So here we are," I saidunhappily. "I can't help you now, Catherine."

  She put her hands through the bars and held my face between them. Shelooked searching into my eyes, as if straining to force her blockedtelepath sense through the deadness of the area. She leaned against thesteel but the barrier was very effective; our lips met through the coldmetal. It was a very unsatisfactory kiss because we had to purse ourlips like a pair of piccolo players to make them meet. It was likemaking love through a keyhole.

  This unsatisfactory lovemaking did not last long. Unsteadily, Catherinesaid, "I want you, Steve."

  Inwardly I grinned, and then with the same feeling as if I'd laughed outloud at a funeral, I said, "Through these steel bars?"

  She brought out a little cylindrical key. Then went to a brass wallplate beside the outer door, inserted the key, and turned. The slidingdoor to my cell opened on noiseless machined slides.

  Then with a careful look at me, Catherine slipped a little shutter overthe glass bull's eye in the door. Her hand reached up to a hidden toggleabove the door and as she snapped it, a thick cover surged out above thespeaker, television lens, and microphone grille, curved down and shutoff the tell-tales with a cushioned sound. Apparently the top managementof the joint used these cells for other things than mere containment ofunruly prisoners. I almost grinned; the society that Scholar Phelpsproposed was not the kind that flourished in an atmosphere of trust, orprivacy--except for the top brass.

  Catherine turned from her switch plate and came across the floor withher face lifted and her lips parted.

  "Hold me, Steve."

  My hand came forward in a short jab that caught her dead center in theplexus below
the ribs. Her breath caught in one strangled gasp and hereyes went glassy. She swayed stiffly in half-paralysis. My other handcame up, closing as it rose, until it became a fist that connected in ashoulder-jarring wallop on the side of her jaw. Her head snapped up andher knees caved in. She folded from the hips and went down bonelessly.From her throat came the bubbly sound of air being forced painfullythrough a flaccid wet tube.

  I jumped outside of the cell barrier because I was certain that they hadsome means of closing the cell from a master control center. I don'tknow much about penology, but that's the way I'd do it. I washalf-surprised that I'd been able to get away with this much.

  Catherine stirred and moaned, and I stopped long enough to take the keyout of the wall plate. The cell door closed on its silent slides.

  I had hardly been able to more than run the zipper up my shirt when thedoor opened and I had to dance like a fool to get behind it. The dooradmitted a flood of bright light from the corridor, and Dr. JamesThorndyke. The cell door must have been bugged.

  Thorndyke came in behind a large automatic clutched in one nervous fist.He strained his eyes at the gloom that was not cut by the ribbon oflight.

  And then I cut him down with a solid slice of my right hand to the baseof his neck. I remembered to jump off the ground as the blow went home;there was a sickening crunch of bone and muscle as Thorndyke cavedforward to the floor. He dropped the gun, luckily, as his body began totwitch and kick spasmodically as the life drained out of him.

  I re-swallowed a mouthful of bitter bile as I reached down to pick uphis gun. Then the room got hot and unbearably small and I felt a franticurge to leave, to close the door upon that sight.