"No, Steve," she replied solemnly. "I don't think so. You've managed to
accept data which is obviously mingled truth and falsehood, and you've
managed to question the validity of all of it."
I grunted. "How about the crazy man who questions his own sanity, using
this personal question as proof of his sanity since real nuts _know_
they're sane?"
"No nut can think that deep into complication. What I mean is that they
cannot even question their own sanity in the first premise of postulated
argument. But forget that, what I wanted to know is where you intend to
go from here."
I shook my head unhappily. "When I called you I had it all laid out like
a roadmap. I was going to show you proof and use you as an impartial
observer to convince someone else. Then we'd go to the Medical Center
and hand it to them on a platter. Since then I've had a shock that I
can't get over, or plan beyond. Scholar Phelps is a Mekstrom. That means
that the guy knows what gives with Mekstrom's Disease and yet he is
running an outfit that professes to be helpless in the face of this
disease. For all we know Phelps may be the head of the Highways in
Hiding, an organization strictly for profit of some sort at the expense
of the public welfare."
"You're certain that Phelps is a Mekstrom?"
"Not absolutely positive. I had to close my mind because there might be
a telepath on tap. But I can tell you that nobody with normal flesh-type
fingers ever made that solid rap."
"A fingernail?"
I shook my head at her. "That's a click. With an ear at all you'd note
the difference."
"I'll accept it for the moment. But lacking your original plan, what are
you going to do now?"
"I'm not sure beyond showing you the facts. Maybe I should call up that
F.B.I. team that called on me after Thorndyke's disappearance and put it
in their laps."
"Good idea. But why would Scholar Phelps be lying? And beyond your basic
suspicions, what can you prove?"
"Very little. I admit that my evidence is extremely thin. I saw Phillip
Harrison turning head bolts on a tractor engine with a small end wrench.
It should require a crossbar socket and a lot of muscle. Next is the
girl in Ohio who should be a bloody mess from the way she was treated.
Instead she got up and tried to chase me. Then answer me a puzzler: Did
the Harrisons move because Marian caught Mekstrom's, or did they move
because they felt that I was too close to discovering their secret? The
Highway was relocated after that, you'll recall."
"It sounds frightfully complicated, Steve."
"You bet it does," I grunted. "So next I meet a guy who is supposed to
know all the answers; a man dedicated to the public welfare, medicine,
and the ideal of Service. A man sworn to the Hippocratic Oath. Or," I
went on bitterly, "is it the Hypocritic Oath?"
"Steve, please--"
"Please, Hell!" I stormed. "Why is he quietly sitting there in Mekstrom
hide while he is overtly grieving over the painful death of his fellow
man?"
"I wouldn't know."
"Well, I'm tired of being pushed around," I growled.
"Pushed around?" she asked quietly.
With a trace of scorn, I said, "Miss Farrow, I can see two possible
answers. Either I am being pushed around for some deliberate reason, or
I'm too smart, too cagey and too dangerous for them to handle directly.
It takes only about eight weeks for me to reluctantly abandon the second
in favor of the first."
"But what makes you think you are being pushed?" she wanted to know.
"You can't tell me that I am so important that they couldn't erase me as
easily as they did Catherine and Dr. Thorndyke. And now that his name
comes up, let's ask why any doctor who once met a casual patient would
go to the bother of sending a postcard with a message on it that is
certain to cause me unhappiness. He's also the guy who nudged me by
calling my attention to my so-called 'shock hallucination' about Father
Harrison lifting my car while Phillip Harrison raced into the fire to
make the rescue. Add it up," I told her sharply. "Next he is invited to
Medical Center to study Mekstrom's. Only instead of landing there, he
sends me a postcard with one of the Highways in the picture, after which
he disappears."
Miss Farrow nodded thoughtfully. "It is all tied up with your Highways
and your Mekstrom People."
"That isn't all," I said. "How come the Harrisons moved so abruptly?"
"You're posing questions that I can't answer," complained Miss Farrow.
"And I'm not one hundred percent convinced that you are right."
"You are here, and if you take a look at what I'll show you, you'll be
convinced. We'll put it this way, to start: Something cockeyed is going
on. Now, one more thing I can add, and this is the part that confuses
me: Everything that has been done seems to point to me. So far as I can
see they are operating just as though they want me to start a big hassle
that will end up by getting the Highways out of their Hiding."
"Why on earth would they be doing that?" she wanted to know.
"I don't have the foggiest notion. But I do have that feeling and there
is evidence pointing that way. They've let me in on things that normally
they'd be able to conceal from a highly trained telepath. So I intend to
go along with them, because somewhere at the bottom of it all we'll find
the answer."
She nodded agreement.
Now I started up the car, saying, "I'm going to find us one of the
Highways in Hiding, and we'll follow it to one of the way stations. Then
you'll see for yourself that there is something definitely fishy going
on."
"This I'd like to see," she replied quietly. Almost too quietly. I took
a dig at her as I turned the car out through a tight corner of the lot
onto the road. She was sitting there with a noncommittal expression on
her face and I wondered why. She replied to my thought: "Steve, you must
face one thing. Anything you firmly believe will necessarily pass across
your mind as fact. So forgive me if I hold a few small doubts until I
have a chance to survey some of the evidence at first hand."
"Sure," I told her. "The first bit won't be hard."
I drove eagerly across Illinois into Iowa watching for road signs. I
knew that once I convinced someone else, it would be easier to convince
a third, and a fourth, and a fiftieth until the entire world was out on
the warpath. We drove all day, stopping for chow now and then, behaving
like a couple out on a vacation tour. We stopped in a small town along
about midnight and found a hotel without having come upon any of the
hidden highways.
We met at breakfast, talked our ideas over mildly, and took off again.
We crossed into Nebraska about noon and continued to meander until late
in the afternoon when we came upon our first giveaway road sign.
"There," I told her triumphantly.
She nodded. "I see the sign, Steve. That much I knew. Now all you have
to do is to show me the trial-blazes up in that emblem."
"Unless they've changed their method," I told her, "this one leads West,
slightly south of." I stopped the car not many yards from the sign and
went over it with my sense of perception. #You'll note the ease with
which the emblem could be turned upside down,# I interjected. #Note the
similar width of the top and bottom trefoil, so that only a trained and
interested observer can tell the difference.#
I drove along until we saw one on the other side of the road and we
stopped again, giving the sign a thorough going over. #Note that the
signs leading away from the direction are upside down,# I went on. I
didn't say a word, I was using every ounce of energy in running my
perception over the sign and commenting on its various odds and ends.
#Now,# I finished, #we'll drive along this Highway in Hiding until we
come to some intersection or hideout. Then you'll be convinced.#
She was silent.
We took off along that road rather fast and we followed it for miles,
passing sign after sign with its emblem turned up along the right side
of the road and turned upside-down when the sign was on the left.
Eventually we came to a crossing highway, and at that I pointed
triumphantly. "Note the missing spoke!" I said with considerable
enthusiasm. "Now, Miss Farrow, we shall first turn against it for a few
miles and then we shall U-turn and come back along the cross highway
with it."
"I'm beginning to be convinced, Steve."
We turned North against the sign and went forty or fifty miles, just to
be sure. The signs were all against us. Eventually I turned into a gas
station and filled the carte up to the scuppers. As we turned back
South, I asked her, "Any more comment?"