Macklin said, "Please put that weapon down, Mr. Cornell. Let's not add
attempted murder to your other crimes."
"Don't force me to it, then," I told him.
But I knew I couldn't do it. I hated them all. I wanted the whole
Highways in Hiding rolled up like an old discarded carpet, with every
Mekstrom on Earth rolled up in it. But I couldn't pull the trigger. The
survivors would have enough savvy to clean up the mess before our bodies
got cold, and the Highways crowd would be doing business at the same old
stand. Without, I might add, the minor nuisance that people call Steve
Cornell.
What I really wanted was to find Catherine.
And then it came to me that what I really wanted second of all was to
possess a body of Mekstrom Flesh, to be a physical superman....
I
I came up out of the blackness just enough to know that I was no longer
pinned down by a couple of tons of wrecked automobile. I floated on soft
sheets with only a light blanket over me.
I hurt all over like a hundred and sixty pounds of boil. My right arm
was numb and my left thigh was aching. Breathing felt like being stabbed
with rapiers and the skin of my face felt stretched tight. There was a
bandage over my eyes and the place was as quiet as the grave. But I knew
that I was not in any grave because my nose was working just barely well
enough to register the unmistakable pungent odor that only goes with
hospitals.
I tried my sense of perception, but like any delicate and critical
sense, perception was one of the first to go. I could not dig out beyond
a few inches. I could sense the bed and the white sheets and that was
all.
Some brave soul had hauled me out of that crack-up before the fuel tank
went up in the fire. I hope that whoever he was, he'd had enough sense
to haul Catherine out of the mess first. The thought of living without
Catherine was too dark to bear, and so I just let the blackness close
down over me again because it cut out all pain, both physical and
mental.
The next time I awoke there was light and a pleasant male voice saying,
"Steve Cornell. Steve, can you hear me?"