To dig anything that fine, I knew that it must be of importance to me.
And then I knew that it had once been so very personally my own
business, for the submerged recollection came bursting up to the top of
my mind. Marian Henderson had been mine once long ago!
Boldly I stepped forward and took the chain between my fingers. I
snapped it, and held the ring. "Will you wear it again, my dear?"
She held up her left hand for me to slip it on. "Steve," she breathed,
"I've never stopped wearing it, not really."
"But I didn't see it until now--"
Jonas Harrison said, "No, Steve, you couldn't see it until you
remembered."
"But look--"
"Blame me," he said in his firm determined voice. "The story begins and
ends with you, Steve. When Marian contracted Mekstrom's Disease, she
herself insisted that you be spared the emotional pain that the rest of
us could not avoid. So I erased her from your mind, Steve, and submerged
any former association. Then when the Highways in Hiding came to take us
in, I left it that way because Marian was still as unattainable to you
as if she were dead. If an apology is needed, I'll only ask that you
forgive my tampering with your mind and personality."
"Apologize?" I exploded. "I'm here, we're here, and you've just provided
me with a way out of this mousetrap!"
"A way out?" he murmured, in that absent way that telepaths have when
they're concentrating on another mind. Fast comprehension dawned in the
sharp brown eyes and he looked even more self-confident and determined.
Marian leaned back in my arms to look into my eyes. "Steve," she cried,
"it's simply got to work!" Gloria Farrow merely said, "He'll have to
have medication, of course," and went briskly to a wall cabinet and
began to fiddle with medical tools. Howard Macklin and Jonas Harrison
went into a deep telepathic conference that was interrupted only when
Jonas Harrison turned to Phillip to say, "You'll have to provide us with
uninterrupted time, somehow."
Marian disengaged herself reluctantly and started to propel me out of
the room. "Go help him, Steve. What we are going to do is not for any
non-telepath to watch."
Outside, Phillip threatened me with the guard's signal-box key. "Mind
telling a non-telepath what the devil you cooked up?"
I smiled. "If your father has the mental power to erase Marian from my
mind, he also has the power to do a fine reorientation job on Scholar
Phelps. Once we get the spiderwebs cleaned out of the top dog, we start
down the pyramid, line by line and echelon by echelon, with each
reoriented recruit adding to our force. Once we get this joint operating
on the level, we can all go to work for the rest of the human race!"
* * * * *
There is little left to tell. The Medical Center and the Highways in
Hiding are one agency dedicated to the conquest of the last and most
puzzling of the diseases and maladies that beset Mankind. We are no
closer to a solution than we ever were, and so I am still a very busy
man.
I have written this account and disclosed our secret because we want no
more victims of Mekstrom's Disease to suffer.
So I will write finish with one earnest plea and one ray of hope:
Please do not follow one of our Highways unless you are already
infected. Since I cannot hope to inoculate the entire human race, and
will not pick or choose certain worthy types for special attention, I
will deal only with those folks who find Mekstrom's Disease among their
immediate family. Such people need never be parted from their loved
ones. The rest of you will have to wait your turn.
But we'll get to it sooner or later. Thirty days ago, Steve, Junior, was
born. He's a healthy little Mekstrom, and like his pappy, Steve Junior
is a carrier, too.
* * * * *
[Transcriber's note: Back cover]