I looked across the nose of our trapped car to Farrow. She was leaning
against the hood, facing her pair. They were just standing there at
ease. One of them was offering a cigarette and the other held a lighter
ready. "Relax," said the one with the smokes. The other one said, "Might
as well, Miss Farrow. Fighting won't get nobody nowhere but where you're
going anyway. Might as well go on your own feet."
Scornfully, Farrow shrugged. "Why should I smoke my own?" she asked
nobody in particular.
Mentally I agreed: #Take 'em for all they're worth, Farrow!# And then I
reached for one, too. Along the side of the van were benches. I sat
down, stretched out on my back and let the smoke trickle up. I finished
my cigarette and then found that the excitement of this chase, having
died so abruptly, left me with only a desire to catch up on sleep.
I dozed off thinking that it wasn't everybody who started off to go to
Homestead, Texas, and ended up in Marion, Indiana.
* * * * *
Scholar Phelps did not have the green carpet out for our arrival, but he
was present when our mobile prison cell opened deep inside of the
Medical Center grounds. So was Thorndyke. Thorndyke and three nurses of
Amazon build escorted Farrow off with the air of captors collecting a
traitor.
Phelps smiled superciliously at me and said, "Well, young sir, you've
given us quite a chase."
"Give me another chance and we'll have another chase," I told him
grumpily.
"Not if we can help it," he boomed cheerfully. "We've big plans for
you."
"Have I got a vote? It's 'Nay!' if I do."
"You're too precipitous," he told me. "It is always an error, Mr.
Cornell, to be opinionated. Have an open mind."
"To what?"
"To everything," he said with an expansive gesture. "The error of all
thinking, these days, is that people do not think. They merely follow
someone else's thinking."
"And I'm to follow yours?"
"I'd prefer that, of course. It would indicate that you were possessed
of a mind of your own; that you weren't merely taking the lazy man's
attitude and following in the footsteps of your father."
"Skip it," I snapped. "Your way isn't--"
"Now," he warned with a wave of a forefinger like a prohibitionist
warning someone not to touch that quart, "One must never form an opinion
on such short notice. Remember, all ideas are not to be rejected just
because they do not happen to agree with your own preconceived notions."
"Look, Phelps," I snapped, deliberately omitting his title which I knew
would bite a little, "I don't like your personal politics and I deplore
your methods. You can't go on playing this way--"
"Young man, you err," he said quietly. He did not even look nettled that
I'd addressed him in impolite (if not rough) terms. "May I point out
that I am far ahead of your game? Thoroughly outnumbered, and in
ignorance of the counter-movement against me until you so vigorously
brought it to my attention; within a year I have fought the
counter-movement to a standstill, caused the dispersement of their main
forces, ruined their far-flung lines of communication, and have so
consolidated my position that I have now made open capture of the main
roving factor. The latter is you, young man. A very disturbing influence
and so very necessary to the conduct of this private war. You prate of
my attitude, Mr. Cornell. You claim that such an attitude must be
defeated. Yet as you stand there mouthing platitudes, we are preparing
to make a frontal assault upon their main base at Homestead. We've waged
our war of attrition; a mere spearhead will break them and scatter them
to the far winds."
"Nice lecture," I grunted. "Who are your writers?"
"Let's not attempt sarcasm," he said crisply. "It sits ill upon you, Mr.
Cornell."
"I'd like to sit on you," I snapped.
"Your humor is less tolerable than your sarcasm."
"Can it!" I snapped. "So you've collected me. I'll still--"
"You'll do very little, Mr. Cornell," he told me. "Your determination to
attack us tooth and nail was an excellent program, and with another type
of person it might have worked. But I happen to know that your will to
live is very great, young man, and that in the final blow, you'd not
have the will to die great enough to carry your assault to its
completion."
"Know a lot, don't you."
"Yes, indeed I do. So now if you're through trying to fence at words,
we'll go to your quarters."
"Lead on," I said in a hollow voice.
With an air of stage-type politeness, he indicated a door. He showed me
out and followed me. He steered me to a big limousine with a chauffeur
and offered me cigarettes from a box on the arm rest as the driver
started the turbine. The car purred with that muted sound of
well-leashed power.
"You could be of inestimable value to us," he said in a conversational
tone. "I am talking this way to you because you can be of much more
value as a willing ally than you would be if unwilling."
"No doubt," I replied dryly.
"I suggest you set aside your preconceived notions and employ a modicum
of practical logic," suggested Scholar Phelps. "Observe your position
from a slightly different reign of vantage. Be convinced that no matter
what you do or say, we intend to make use of you to the best of our
ability. You are not entertaining any doubts of that fact, I'm sure."
I shrugged. Phelps was not asking me these things, the inquisitor was
actually telling me. He went right on telling me:
"Since you will be used no matter what, you might consider the
advisability of being sensible, Mr. Cornell. In blunt words, we are
prepared to meet cooperation with certain benefits which will not be
proffered otherwise."
"In blunter words you are offering to hire me."
Scholar Phelps smiled in a superior manner. "Not that blunt, Mr.
Cornell, not that crude. The term 'hire' implies the performance of
certain tasks in return for stipulated remuneration. No, my intention is
to give you a position in this organization the exact terms of which are
not clearly definable. Look, young man, I've indicated that your willing
cooperation is more valuable to us than otherwise. Join us and you will
enjoy the freedom of our most valued and trusted members; you will take
part in upper level planning; you will enjoy the income and advantages
of top executive personnel." He stopped short and eyed me with a
peculiar expression. "Mr. Cornell, you have the most disconcerting way.
You've actually caused me to talk as if this organization were some sort
of big business instead of a cultural unit."
I eyed him with the first bit of humor I'd found in many days. "You seem
to talk just as though a cultural unit were set above, beyond, and
spiritually divorced from anything so sordid as money, position, and the
human equivalent of the barnyard pecking order," I told him. "So now
let's stop goofing off, and put it into simple terms. You want me to
join you willingly, to do your job for you, to advance your program. In
return for which I shall be permitted to ride in the solid gold
cadillac, quaff rare champagne, and select my own office furniture.
Isn't that about it?"
Scholar Phelps smiled, using a benign expression that indicated that he
was pleased with himself, but which had absolutely nothing to do with
his attitude towards me or any of the rest of the human race.
"Mr. Cornell, I am well aware of the time it may take for a man to
effect a change in his attitude. In fact, I would be very suspicious if
you were to make an abrupt reversal. However, I have outlined my
position and you may have time to think it over. Consider, at the very
least, the fact that while cooperation will bring you pleasure and
non-cooperation will bring you pain, the ultimate result will be that we
will make use of your ability in either case. Now--I will say no more
for the present."
The limousine had stopped in front of a four story brick building that
was only slightly different in general architecture than others in the
Medical Center. I could sense some slight difference, but when I took a
dig at the interior I found to my amazement that this building had been
built deliberately in a dead zone. The dead area stood up in the clarity
like a little blob of black ink at the bottom of a crystal clear
swimming pool, seen just before the ink began to diffuse.
Scholar Phelps saw my look of puzzlement and said, suavely, "We've
reversed the usual method of keeping unwilling guests. Here we know
their frame of mind and attitude; therefore to build the place in a dead
area keeps them from plotting among themselves. I trust that your
residence herein will be only temporary, Mr. Cornell."