IX
I put a lot of miles between me and my recent adventure before I stoppedto take stock. The answer to the mess was still obscure, but theelimination of Nurse Farrow fell into the pattern very neatly.
Alone, I was no problem. So long as my actions were restricted tomeandering up and down the highways and byways, peering into nooks andcrannies and crying, "Catherine," in a plaintive voice, no one cared.But when I teamed up with a telepath, they moved in with the efficiencyof a well-run machine and extracted the disturbing element. In fact,their machinations had been so smooth that I was beginning to believethat my 'Discoveries' were really an assortment of unimportant factsshown to me deliberately for some reason of their own.
The only snag in the latter theory was the fact of our accident.Assuming that I had to get involved in the mess, there were easier waysto introduce me than by planning a bad crack-up that could have beenfatal, even granting the close proximity of the Harrison tribe to cometo the rescue. The accident had to be an accident in the dictionarydefinition of the word itself. Under the circumstances, a plannedaccident could only be accepted under an entirely different set ofconditions. For instance, let's assume that Catherine was a Mekstrom andI was about to disclose the fact. Then she or they could plan such anaccident, knowing that she could walk out of the wreck with her hairbarely mussed, leaving me dead for sure.
But Catherine was not a Mekstrom. I'd been close enough to that satinskin to know that the body beneath it was soft and yielding.
Yet the facts as they stood did not throw out my theory. It merely hadto be revised. Catherine was no Mekstrom, but if the Harrisons haddetected the faintest traces of an incipient Mekstrom infection, theycould very well have taken her in. I fumed at the idea. I could almostvisualize them pointing out her infection and then informing her bluntlythat she could either swear in with them and be cured or she could diealone and miserably.
This could easily explain her disappearance. Naturally, being what theywere, they cared nothing for me or any other non-Mekstrom. I was nomenace. Not until I teamed up with a telepath, and they knew what to doabout that.
Completely angry, I decided that it was time that I made a noise like anerupting volcano. With plans forming, I took off again towardsYellowstone, pausing only long enough at Fort Collins to buy somearmament.
Colorado is still a part of the United States where a man can go into astore and buy a gun over the counter just like any other tool. I pickedout a Bonanza .375 because it is small enough to fit the hip pocket,light because of the new alloys so it wouldn't unballast me, and mostlybecause it packs enough wallop to stop a charging hippo. I did not knowwhether it would drill all the way through a Mekstrom hide, but theimpact would at least set any target back on the seat of his pants.
Then I drove into Wyoming and made my way to Yellowstone, and one day Iwas driving along the same road that had been pictured in Dr.Thorndyke's postcard. I drove along it boldly, loaded for bear, andwatching the Highway signs that led me nicely toward my goal.
Eventually I came to the inevitable missing spoke. It pointed to aranch-type establishment that lay sprawled out in a billow of dead area.I eyed it warily and kept on driving because my plans did not includemarching up to the front door like a rug peddler.
Instead, I went on to the next town, some twenty miles away, which Ireached about dark. I stopped for a leisurely dinner, saw a movingpicture at the drive-in, killed a few at the bar, and started back tothe way station about midnight.
The name, dug from the mailbox, was Macklin.
Again I did not turn in. I parked the car down the highway by aboutthree miles, figuring that only a psi of doctor's degree would be ableto dig anything at that distance. I counted on there being no suchmental giant in this out of the way place.
I made my way back toward the ranch house across the fields and amongthe rolling rock. I extended my perception as far as I could; I mademyself sensitive to danger and covered the ground foot by foot, diggingfor traps, alarm lines, photocell trips, and parties who might be lyingin wait for me.
I encountered no sign of any trip or trap all the way to the fringe ofthe dead zone.
The possibility that they knew of my presence and were comfortablyawaiting me deep within the zone occurred to me, and so I was verycautious as I cased the layout and decided to make my entry at the pointwhere the irregular boundary of the dead area was closest to the houseitself.
I entered and became completely psi-blind. Starlight cast just enoughlight so that I could see to walk without falling into a chuck hole orstumbling over something, but beyond a few yards everything lost shapeand became a murky blob. The night was dead silent except for anoccasional hiss of wind through the brush.
Esperwise I was not covering much more than my eyes could see. I steppeddeeper into the zone and lost another yard of perception. I kept probingat the murk, sort of like poking a finger at a hanging blanket. It movedif I dug hard enough in any direction, but as soon as I released thepressure, the murk moved right back where it was before.
I crouched and took a few more steps into the zone, got to a place whereI could begin to see the outlines of the house itself.
Dark, silent, it looked uninhabited. I wished that there had been acollege course in housebreaking, prowling and second-story operations. Iwent at it very slowly. I took my sweet time crossing the boards of theback verandah, even though the short hair on the back of my neck wasbeginning to prickle from nervousness. I was also scared. At any givenmoment, they had the legal right to open a window, poke out afield-piece, and blow me into bloody ribbons where I stood.
The zone was really a dead one. My esper range was no more than aboutsix inches from my forehead; a motion picture of Steve Cornell soundingout the border of a window with his forehead would have looked funny, itwas not funny at the time. But I found that the sash was not locked andthat the flyscreen could be unshipped from the outside.
I entered a dining room. Inside, it was blacker than pitch.
I crossed the dining room by sheer feel and instinct and managed to getto the hallway without making any racket. At this point I stopped andasked myself what the heck I thought I was trying to do. I had to admitthat I had no plan in definite form. I was just prowling the joint tosee what information I might be able to pick up.
Down the hall I found a library. I'd been told that you tell what kindof people folks are by inspecting their library, and so I conned thebook titles by running my head along a row of books.
The books in the library indicated to me that this was a family of somesize with rather broad tastes. There was everything from science fictionto Shakespeare, everything from philosophy to adventure. A short row ofkid's books. A bible. Encyclopedia Brittanica (Published in Chicago), infifty-four volumes, but there were no places that were worn that mightgive me an idea as to any special interest.
The living room was also blank of any evidence of anything out or theordinary. I turned away and stood in the hallway, blocked by indecision.I was a fool, I kept telling myself, because I did not have anyexperience in casing a joint, and what I knew had been studied out ofold-time detective tales. Even if the inhabitants of the place were tolet me go at it in broad daylight, I'm not too sure that I'd do a goodjob of finding something of interest except for sheer luck.
But on the other hand, I'd gotten nowhere by dodging and ducking. I wasin no mood to run quivering in fear. I was more inclined to emit abellow just to see what would happen next.
So instead of sneaking quietly away, I found the stairs and started togo up very slowly.
It occurred to me at about the third step that I must be right. Anybodywith any sense wouldn't keep anything dangerous in their downstairslibrary. It would be too much like a safe-cracker storing his nitro inthe liquor cabinet or the murderer who hangs his weapon over themantelpiece.
Yet everybody kept some sort of records, or had things in their homesthat were not shown to visiting firemen. And if it weren't on the secondfloor, then it might
be in the cellar. If I weren't caught first, I'dprowl the whole damned place, inch by inch--avoiding if possible thoserooms in which people slept.
The fifth step squeaked ever so faintly, but it sounded like someonepulling a spike out of a packing case made of green wood. I froze, halfaching for some perceptive range so that I could dig any sign of danger,and half remembering that if it weren't for the dead area, I'd not bethis far. I'd have been frightened to try it in a clear zone.
Eventually I went on up, and as my head came above the level of thefloor, everything became psi-clear once more.
Here was as neat a bit of home planning as I have ever seen. Just belowthe level of the second floor, their dead area faded out, so that thetop floor was clean, bright, and clear as day. I paused, startled at it,and spent a few moments digging outside. The dead area billowed abovethe rooftop out of my range; from what little I could survey of the darkpsi area, it must have been shaped sort of like an angel-food cake,except that the central hole did not go all the way down. Only to thefirst-floor level. It was a wonderful set-up for a home; privacy wasgranted on the first floor and from the road and all the surroundingterritory, but on the second floor there was plenty of pleasantesperclear space for the close-knit family and friends. Their dead areawas shaped in the ideal form for any ideal home.
Then I stopped complimenting the architect and went on about mybusiness, because there, directly in front of my nose, I could dig thefamiliar impression of a medical office.
I went the rest of the way up the stairs and into the medical office.There was no mistake. The usual cabinets full of instruments, alaboratory examination table, shelves of little bottles, and along onewall was a library of medical books. All it needed was a sign on thedoor: 'S. P. Macklin, MSch' to make it standard.
At the end of the library was a set of looseleaf notebooks, and I pulledthe more recent of them out and held it up to my face. I did not daresnap on a light, so I had to go it esper.
Even in the clear area, this told me very little. Esper is not likeeyesight, any more than you can hear printed words or perhaps carry on aconversation by watching the wiggly green line on an oscilloscope. Iwished it was. Instead, esper gives you a grasp of materials and shapesand things in position with regard to other things. It is sort of likeseeing something simultaneously from all sides, if you can imagine sucha sensation. So instead of being able to esper-read the journal, I hadto take it letter by letter by digging the shape of the ink on the pagewith respect to the paper and the other letters, and since the guy'shandwriting was atrocious, I could get no more than if the thing werewritten in Latin. If it had been typewritten, or with a stylized hand,it would have been far less difficult; or if it had been any of mydamned business I could have dug it easily. But as it was----
"Looking for something, Mr. Cornell?" asked a cool voice that drippedwith acid sarcasm. At the same instant, the lights went on.
I whirled, clutched at my hip pocket, and dropped to my knees at thesame time. The sights of my .375 centered in the middle of asilk-covered midriff.
She stood there indolently, disdainful of the cannon that was aimed ather. She was not armed; I'd have caught the esper warning of danger ifshe'd come at me with a weapon of some sort, even though I waspreoccupied with the bookful of evidence.
I stood up and faced her and let my esper run lightly over her body. Shewas another Mekstrom, which did not surprise me a bit.
"I seem to have found what I was looking for," I said.
Her laugh was scornful but not loud. "You're welcome, Mr. Cornell."
#Telepath?#
"Yes, and a good one."
#Who else is awake?#
"Just me, so far," she replied quietly. "But I'll be glad to call out--"
#Keep it quiet, Sister Macklin.#
"Stop thinking like an idiot, Mr. Cornell. Quiet or not, you'll notleave this house until I permit you to go."
I let my esper roam quickly through the house. An elderly couple sleptin the front bedroom. A man slept alone in the room beside them; a pairof young boys slept in an over-and-under bunk in the room across thehall. The next room must have been hers, the bed was tumbled but empty.The room next to the medical office contained a man trussed in tractionsplints, white bandages, and literally festooned with those littlehanging bottles that contain everything from blood plasma to food andwater, right on down to lubrication for the joints. I tried to dig hisface under the swath of bandage but I couldn't make out much more thanthe fact that it was a face and that the face was half Mekstrom Flesh.
"He is a Mekstrom Patient," said Miss Macklin quietly. "At this stage,he is unconscious."
I sort of sneered at her. "Good friend of yours, no doubt."
"Not particularly," she said. "Let's say that he is a poor victim thatwould die if we hadn't found his infection early." The tone andexpression of her voice made me seethe; she sounded as though she feltherself to be a real benefactor to the human race, and that she and heroutfit would do the same for any other poor guy that caughtMekstrom's--providing they learned about this unfortunate occurrence intime.
"We would, Mr. Cornell."
"Bah-loney," I grunted.
"Why dispute my word?" she asked in the same tone of innocent honesty.
I eyed her angrily and I felt my hand tighten on the revolver. "I've areason to become suspicious," I told her in a voice that I hoped was asmild-mannered as her own. "Because three people have disappeared in thepast half-year without a trace, but under circumstances that put me inthe middle. All of them, somehow, seem to be involved with your hiddenroad sign system and Mekstrom's Disease."
"That's unfortunate," she said quietly.
I had to grab myself to keep from yelling, "Unfortunate?" and managed tomuffle it down to a mere voice-volume sound. "People dying of Mekstrom'sbecause you're keeping this cure a secret and I'm batted from pillar topost because--" I gave up on that because I really did not know why.
"It's unfortunate that you had to become involved," she said firmly."Because you--"
"It's unfortunate for everybody," I snapped, "because I'm going to bustyou all wide open!"
"I'm afraid not. You see, in order to do that you'll have to get out ofhere and that I will not permit."
I grunted. "Miss Macklin, you Mekstroms have hard bodies, but do youthink your hide will stop a slug from this?"
"You'll never know. You see, Mr. Cornell, you do not have the cold,brittle, determined guts that you'd need to pull that trigger."
"No?"
"Pull it," she said. "Or do you agree, now that you're of age, that youcan't bluff a telepath."
I eyed her sourly because she was right. She held that strength thatlies in weakness; I could not pull that trigger and fire a .375 inchslug into that slender, silk-covered midriff. And opposite that, MissMacklin also had a strength that was strength itself. She could hold mealoft with one hand kicking and squirming while she was twisting my armsand legs off with her other hand.
She held all the big cards of her sex, too. I couldn't slug her with myfist, even though I knew that I'd only break my hand without evenbruising her. I was in an awkward situation and I knew it. If she'd beena normal woman I could have shrugged my way past her and left, but shewas determined not to let me leave without a lot of physical violence.Violence committed on a woman gets the man in dutch no matter howjustified he is.
Yet in my own weakness there was a strength; there was another way outand I took it. Abruptly and without forethought.