"Look, Steve," said Phillip slowly. "You wouldn't have wanted us not to
help? After all, would you want Catherine to stay with you? So that you
could watch her die at the rate of a sixty-fourth of an inch each hour?"
"Hell," I snarled, "Someone might have let me know."
Phillip shook his head. "We couldn't Steve. You've got to understand our
viewpoint."
"To heck with your viewpoint!" I roared angrily. "Has anybody ever
stopped to consider mine?" I did not give a hoot that they could wind me
around a doorknob and tuck my feet in the keyhole. Sure, I was grateful
for their aid to Catherine. But why didn't someone stop to think of the
poor benighted case who was in the accident ward? The bird that had been
traipsing all over hell's footstool trying to get a line on his lost
sweetheart. I'd been through the grinder; questioned by the F.B.I.,
suspected by the police; and I'd been the guy who'd been asked by a
grieving, elderly couple, "But can't you remember, son?" Them and their
stinking point of view!
"Easy, Steve," warned Phillip Harrison.
"Easy nothing! What possible justification have you for putting me
through my jumps?"
"Look, Steve. We're in a precarious position. We're fighting a battle
against an unscrupulous enemy, an undercover battle, Steve. If we could
get something on Phelps, we'd expose him and his Medical Center like
that. Conversely, if we slip a millimeter, Phelps will clip us so hard
that the sky will ring. He--damn him--has the Government on his side. We
can't afford to look suspicious."
"Couldn't you have taken me in too?"
He shook his head sadly. "No," he said. "There was a bad accident, you
know. The authorities have every right to insist that each and every
automobile on the highway be occupied by a minimum of one driver. They
also believe that for every accident there must be a victim, even though
the damage is no more than a bad case of fright."
I could hardly argue with that. Changing the subject, I asked, "but what
about the others who just drop out of sight?"
"We see to it that plausible letters of explanation are written."
"So who wrote me?" I demanded hotly.
He looked at me pointedly. "If we'd known about Catherine before, she'd
have--disappeared--leaving you a trite letter. But no one could think of
a letter to explain her disappearance from an accident, Steve."
"Oh fine."
"Well, you'd still prefer to find her alive, wouldn't you?"
"Couldn't someone tell me?"
"And have you radiating the fact like a broadcasting station?"
"Why couldn't I have joined her--you--?"
He shook his head in the same way that a man shakes it when he is trying
to explain _why_ two plus two are four and not maybe five or three and a
half. "Steve," he said, "You haven't got Mekstroms' Disease."
"How do I get it?" I demanded hotly.
"Nobody knows," he said unhappily. "If we did, we'd be providing the
rest of the human race with indestructible bodies as fast as we could
spread it and take care of them."
"But couldn't I have been told _something_?" I pleaded. I must have
sounded like a hurt kitten.
Marian put her hand on my arm. "Steve," she said, "You'd have been
smoothed over, maybe brought in to work for us in some dead area. But
then you turned up acting dangerously for all of us."
"Who--me?"
"By the time you came out for your visit, you were dangerous to us."
"What do you mean?"
"Let me find out. Relax, will you Steve? I'd like to read you deep.
Catherine, you come in with me."
"What are we looking for?"
"Traces of post-hypnotic suggestion. It'll be hard to find because there
will be only traces of a plan, all put in so that it looks like natural,
logical reasoning."
Catherine looked doubtful. "When would they have the chance?" she asked.
"Thorndyke. In the hospital."
Catherine nodded and I relaxed. At the beginning I was very reluctant. I
didn't mind Catherine digging into the dark and dusty corners of my
mind, but Marian Harrison bothered me.
"Think of the accident, Steve," she said.
Then I managed to lull my reluctant mind by remembering that she was
trying to help me. I relaxed mentally and physically and regressed back
to the day of the accident. I found it hard even then to go through the
love-play and sweet seriousness that went on between Catherine and me,
knowing that Marian Harrison was a sort of mental spectator. But I
fought down my reticence and went on with it.
I practically re-lived the accident. It was easier now that I'd found
Catherine again. It was like a cleansing bath. I began to enjoy it. So I
went on with my life and adventures right up to the present. Having come
to the end, I stopped.