The telepath nodded. He looked at me and smiled sort of thin and
strained. "We're naturally interested in you, Mr. Cornell. This seems to
be the second disappearance. And you know nothing about either."
"I know," I said slowly. The puzzle began to go around and around in my
head again, all the way back to that gleaming road and the crack-up.
"We'll probably be back, Mr. Cornell. You don't mind?"
"Look," I told them rather firmly, "if this puzzle can be unwound, I'll
be one of the happiest men on the planet. If I can do anything to help,
just say the word."
They left after that and so did I. I was still going to pay my visit to
the Harrison farm. Another wild goose chase, but somewhere along this
cockeyed row there was an angle. Honest people who are healthy and
fairly happy with good prospects ahead of them do not just drop out of
sight without a trace.
* * * * *
A couple of hours later I was making a good pace along the highway
again. It was getting familiar to me.
I could not avoid letting my perceptive sense rest on the sign as I
drove past. Not long enough to put me in danger, but long enough to
discover to my surprise that someone had taken the trouble to repair the
broken spoke. Someone must have been a perfectionist. The break was so
slight that it seemed like calling in a mechanic because the ashtray in
the car is full.
Then I noticed other changes that time had caused.
The burned scar was fading in a growth of tall weeds. The limb of the
tree that hung out over the scene, from which block and tackle had hung,
was beginning to lose its smoke-blackened appearance. The block was gone
from the limb.
_Give us a year_, I thought, _and the only remaining scar will be the
one on my mind, and even that will be fading_.
I turned into the drive, wound around the homestead road, and pulled up
in front of the big, rambling house.
It looked bleak. The front lawn was a bit shaggy and there were some
wisps of paper on the front porch. The venetian blinds were down and
slatted shut behind closed windows. Since it was summer by now, the
closed windows and the tight door, neither of which had flyscreens
installed, quickly gave the fact away. The Harrisons were gone.
Another disappearance?
I turned quickly and drove to the nearest town and went to the post
office.
"I'm looking for the Harrison family," I told the man behind the wicket.
"Why, they moved several weeks ago."
"Moved?" I asked with a blank-sounding voice.
The clerk nodded. Then he leaned forward and said in a confidential
whisper, "Heard a rumor that the girl got a touch of that spacemen's
disease."
"Mekstrom's?" I blurted.
The clerk looked at me as if I'd shouted a dirty word. "She was a fine
girl," he said softly. "It's a shame."
I nodded and he went into the back files. I tried to dig alone behind
him, but the files were in a small dead area in the rear of the
building. I swore under my breath although I'd expected to find files in
dead areas. Just as Rhine Institute was opened, the Government combed
the countryside for dead or cloudy areas for their secret and
confidential files. There had been one mad claim-staking rush with the
Government about six feet ahead of the rest of the general public,
business and the underworld.
He came back with a sorrowful look. "They left a concealed address," he
said.
I felt like flashing a twenty at him like a private eye did in the old
tough-books, but I knew it wouldn't work. Rhine also made it impossible
for a public official to take a bribe. So instead, I tried to look
distressed.
"This is extremely important. I'd say it was a matter of life and
death."
"I'm sorry. A concealed forwarding address is still concealed. If you
must get in touch with them, you might drop them a letter to be
forwarded. Then if they care to answer, they'll reply to your home."
"Later," I told him. "I'll probably be back to mail it direct from
here."
He waved at the writing desk. I nodded and left.
I drove back to the ex-Harrison Farm slowly, thinking it over.
Wondering. People did not just go around catching Mekstrom's Disease,
from what little I knew of it. And somehow the idea of Marian Harrison
withering away or becoming a basket case, or maybe taking the painless
way out was a thought that my mind kept avoiding except for occasional
flashes of horror.
I drove in toward the farmhouse again and parked in front of the
verandah. I was not sure of why I was there except that I wanted to
wander through it to see what I could find before I went back to the
post-office to write that card or letter.
The back of the house was locked with an old-fashioned slide bolt that
was turned with what they used to call an "E" key. I shrugged, oiled my
conscience and found a bit of bent wire. Probing a lock like that would
have been easy for a total blank; with esper I lifted the simple keepers
and slid back the bolt almost as swiftly as if I had used a proper key.
This was no case of disappearance. In every one of the fourteen rooms
were the unmistakable signs of a deliberate removal. Discarded stuff was
mixed with the odds and ends of packing case materials, a scattered
collection of temporary nails, a half-finished but never used box filled
with old clothing.
I pawed through this but found nothing, even though I separated it from
the rest to help my esper dig it without interference.
I roamed the house slowly letting my perception wander from point to
point. I tried to time-dig the place but that was futile. I didn't have
enough perception.
I caught only one response. It was in one of the upper bedrooms. But
then as I stopped in the room where Marian had slept, I began again to
doubt my senses. It could have been esper, but it was more likely that
I'd caught the dying traces of perfume.
Then I suddenly realized that the entire premises were clear to me!
An esper map of the world looked sort of like a mottled sky, with bright
places and cloudy patches strewn in disorder across it. A mottled sky,
except that the psi-pattern usually does not change. But this house had
been in a murky area, if not dead. Now it was clear.
I left the house and went to the big combination barn and garage. It was
as unsatisfying as the house had been. Phillip Harrison, or someone, had
had a workshop out there. I found the bench and a small table where
bolt-holes, oil marks, and other traces said that there had been one of
those big combination woodworking machines there, the kind that combines
circular saw, drill, lathe, planer, router, dado, and does everything.
There had been some metal-working stuff there, too, but nothing as
elaborate as the woodshop. Mostly things like hacksaws and an electric
drill, and a circular scar where a blowtorch had been sitting.
I don't know why I kept on standing there esping the abandoned set-up.
Maybe it was because my esper dug the fact that there was something
there that I should know about, but which was so minute or remote that
the impression did not come through. I stood there puzzled at my own
reluctance to leave until something satisfied that almost imperceptible
impression.
Idly I leaned down and picked up a bit of metal from the floor and
fumbled it in my hand nervously. I looked around the place with my eyes
and saw nothing. I gave the whole garage a thorough scanning with my
esper and got zero for my trouble.
Finally I snarled at myself for being an imbecile, and left.
Everyone has done what I did, time and time again. I do not recall
anything of my walk back to the car, lost in a whirl of thoughts, ideas,
plans and questions. I would probably have driven all the way back to my
apartment with my mind in that whirligig, driving by habit and training,
but I was shaken out of it because I could not start my car by poking
that bit of metal in the lock. It did not fit.
I laughed, a bit ashamed of my preoccupation, and flung the bit of metal
into the grass, poked my key in the lock--
And then I was out pawing the grass for that piece of metal.
For the small piece of metal I had found on the floor of the abandoned
workshop was the spoke of that road sign that had been missing when
Catherine and I cracked up!
I drove out along the highway and stopped near one of the standards. I
esped the sign, compared my impression against my eyesight. I made sure.
That bit of metal, a half inch long and a bit under a quarter inch in
diameter, with both ends faintly broken-ragged, was identical in size
and shape to the unbroken spokes in the sign!
Then I noticed something else. The trefoil ornament in the middle did
not look the same as I recalled them. I took Thorndyke's card out of my
pocket and looked at the stereo. I compared the picture against the real
thing before me and I knew that I was right.
The trefoil gizmo was a take-off on the fleur-de-lis or the Boy Scout
Tenderfoot badge, or the design they use to signify North on a compass.
But the lower flare of the leaves was wider than any of the more
familiar emblems; almost as wide as the top. It took a comparison to
tell the difference between one of them right-side-up and another one
upside-down. One assumes for this design that the larger foils are
supposed to be up. If that were so, then the ones along that road out
there in or near Yellowstone were right-side-up, while the ones along my
familiar highway were upside-down.
I goaded myself. #Memory, have these things been turned or were they
always upside-down?#
The last thing I did as I turned off the highway was to stop and let my
esper dig that design once more. I covered the design itself, let my
perception roam along the spokes, and then around the circlet that
supported the spokes that held the trefoil emblem.
Oh, it was not obvious. It was designed in, so to speak. If I were asked
even today for my professional opinion I would have to admit that the
way the circlet snapped into the rest of the ornamental scrollwork was a
matter of good assembly design, and not a design deliberately created so
that the emblem could be turned upside down.
In fact, if it had not been for that tiny, broken spoke I found on the
floor of the Harrison garage, never in a million years would I have
considered these road signs significant.
* * * * *
At the post office I wrote a letter to Phillip Harrison:
_Dear Phil:_
_I was by your old place today and was sorry to find that you had
moved. I'd like to get in touch with you again. If I may ask,
please send me your forwarding address. I'll keep it concealed if
you like, or I'll reply through the post office, concealed
forward._
_As an item of interest, did you know that your house has lost its
deadness? A medium-equipped esper can dig it with ease. Have you
ever heard of the psi-pattern changing before?_
_Ah, and another item, that road sign with the busted spoke has
been replaced. You must be a bum shot, not to hit that curlicue in
the middle. I found the spoke you hit on the floor of your garage,
if you'd like it for a souvenir of one close miss._
_Please write and let me know how things are going. Rumor has it
that Marian contracted Mekstrom's and if you will pardon my
mentioning a delicate subject, I am doing so because I really want
to help if I am able. After all, no matter how lightly you hold it,
I still owe you my life. This is a debt I do not intend to forget._
_Sincerely,_
_Steve Cornell._
V