"That's the trouble," she said with a plaintive cry. "You can't. You've
got to believe me on faith, Steve."
I smiled crookedly. "Marian," I said, "That's just the right angle to
take. Since I cannot read your mind, I must accept the old appeal to the
emotions. I must tell myself that Marian Harrison just simply could not
lie to me for many reasons, among which is that people do not lie to
blind men nor cause the cripple any hurt. Well, phooey. Whatever kind of
gambit is being played here, it is bigger than any of its parts or
pieces. I'm something between a queen and a pawn, Marian; a piece that
can be sacrificed at any time to further the progress of the game.
Slipping me a lie or two to cause me to move in some desired direction
should come as a natural."
"But why would we lie to you?" she asked, and then she bit her lip; I
think that she slipped, that she hadn't intended to urge me into deeper
consideration of the problem lest I succeed in making a sharp analysis.
After all, the way to keep people from figuring things out is to stop
them from thinking about the subject. That's the first rule. Next comes
the process of feeding them false information if the First Law cannot be
invoked.
"Why would you lie to me?" I replied in a sort of sneer. I didn't really
want to sneer but it came naturally. "In an earlier age it might not be
necessary."
"What?" she asked in surprise.
"Might not be necessary," I said. "Let's assume that we are living in
the mid-Fifties, before Rhine. Steve Cornell turns up being a carrier of
a disease that is really a blessing instead of a curse. In such a time,
Marian, either side could sign me up openly as a sort of missionary; I
could go around the country inoculating the right people, those citizens
who have the right kind of mind, attitude, or whatever-factor. Following
me could be a clean-up corps to collect the wights who'd been inoculated
by my contact. Sounds reasonable, doesn't it?" Without waiting for
either protest or that downcast look of agreement, I went on: "But now
we have perception and telepathy all over the place. So Steve Cornell,
the carrier, must be pushed around from pillar to post, meeting people
and inoculating them without ever knowing what he is doing. Because once
he knows what he is doing, his usefulness is ended in this world of
Rhine Institute."
"Steve--" she started, but I interrupted again.
"About all I have to do now is to walk down any main street radiating my
suspicions," I said bitterly. "And it's off to Medical Center for
Steve--unless the Highways catch me first."
Very quietly, Marian said, "We really dislike to use reorientation on
people. It changes them so--"
"But that's what I'm headed for, isn't it?" I demanded flatly.
"I'm sorry, Steve."
Angrily I went on, not caring that I'd finally caught on and by doing so
had sealed my own package. "So after I have my mind ironed out smoothly,
I'll still go on and on from pillar to post providing newly inoculated
Mekstroms for your follow-up squad."
She looked up at me and there were tears in her eyes. "We were all
hoping--" she started.
"Were you?" I asked roughly. "Were you all working to innoculate me at
Homestead, or were you really studying me to find out what made me a
carrier instead of a victim?"
"Both, Steve," she said, and there was a ring of honesty in her tone. I
had to believe her, it made sense.
"Dismal prospect, isn't it?" I asked. "For a guy that's done nothing
wrong."
"We're all sorry."
"Look," I said with a sudden thought, "Why can't I still go on? I could
start a way station of some sort, on some pretext, and go on
innoculating the public as they come past. Then I could go on working
for you and still keep my right mind."
She shook her head. "Scholar Phelps knows," she said. "Above all things
we must keep you out of his hands. He'd use you for his own purpose."
I grunted sourly. "He has already and he will again," I told her. "Not
only that, but Phelps has had plenty of chance to collect me on or off
the hook. So what you fear does not make sense."
"It does now," she told me seriously. "So long as you did not suspect
your own part in the picture, you could do more good for Phelps by
running free. Now you know and Phelps' careful herding of your motions
won't work."
"Don't get it."
"Watch," she said with a shrug. "They'll try. I don't dare experiment,
Steve, or I'd leave you right now. You'd find out very shortly that
you're with me because I got here first."
"And knowing the score makes me also dangerous to your Highways? Likely
to bring 'em out of Hiding?"
"Yes."
"So now that I've dumped over the old apple cart, I can assume that
you're here to take me in."
"What else can I do, Steve?" she said unhappily.
I couldn't answer that. I just sat there looking at her and trying to
remember that her shapely one hundred and eighteen pounds were steel
hard and monster strong and that she could probably carry me under one
arm all the way to Homestead without breathing hard. I couldn't cut and
run; she could outrun me. I couldn't slug her on the jaw and get away;
I'd break my hand. The Bonanza .375 would probably stun her, but I have
not the cold blooded viciousness to pull a gun on a woman and drill her.
I grunted sourly, that weapon had been about as useful to me as a
stuffed bear or an authentic Egyptian Obelisk.
"Well, I'm not going," I said stubbornly.
She looked at me in surprise. "What are you going to do?" she asked me.
I felt a glow of self-confidence. If I could not run loose with guilty
knowledge of my being a Mekstrom Carrier, it was equally impossible for
anybody to kidnap me and carry me across the country. I'd radiate like
mad; I'd complain about the situation at every crossroad, at every
filling station, before every farmer. I'd complain mentally and
bitterly, and sooner or later someone would get suspicious.
"Don't think like an idiot," she told me sharply. "You drove across the
country before, remember? How many people did you convince?"
"I wasn't trying, then--"
"How about the people in the hotel in Denver?" she asked me pointedly.
"What good did you do there?"
#Very little, but--#
"One of the advantages of a telepath is that we can't be taken by
surprise," she informed me. "Because no one can possibly work without
plans of some kind."
"One of the troubles of a telepath," I told her right back, "is that
they get so confounded used to knowing what is going to happen next that
it takes all the pleasant element of surprise out of their lives. That
makes 'em dull and--"
The element of surprise came in through the back window, passed between
us and went _Splat!_ against the wind-shield. There was the sound like
someone chipping ice with a spike followed by the distant bark of a
rifle. A second slug came through the back window about the time that
the first one landed on the floor of the car. The second slug, not
slowed by the shatter-proof glass in the rear, went through the
shatter-proof glass in the front. A third slug passed through the same
tunnel.
These were warning shots. He'd missed us intentionally. He'd proved it
by firing three times through the same hole, from beyond my esper range.
I wound up the machinery and we took off. Marian cried something about
not being foolish, but her words were swept out through the hole in the
rear window, just above the marks on the pavement caused by my tires as
we spun the wheels.