by Anthology
"See?" asked Farrow softly.
"But--?" I blundered uncertainly.
"Steve, your muscles and your nervous system have been stepped up proportionately. You've got to re-learn the coordination between the muscle-stimulus and the feedback information from the work you are doing."
I began to see what she meant. I remembered long years ago at school, when we'd been studying some of the new alloys and there had been a sample of a magnesium-lithium-something alloy that was machined into a smooth cylinder about four inches in diameter and a foot long. It looked like hard steel. People who picked it up for the first time invariably braced their muscles and set both hands on it. But it was so light that their initial effort almost tossed the bar through the ceiling, and even long after we all knew, it was hard not to attack the bar without using the experience of our mind and sense that told us that any bar of metal that big had to be that heavy.
I went to a chair. Farrow said, "Be careful," and I was. But it was no trick at all to take the chair by one leg at the bottom and lift it chin high.
"Now, go take your shower," she told me. "But Steve, please be careful of the plumbing. You can twist off the faucet handles, you know."
I nodded and turned to her, holding out a hand. "Farrow, you're a brick!"
She took my hand. It was not steel hard. It was warm and firm and pleasant. It was--holding hands with a woman.
Farrow stepped back. "One thing you'll have to remember," she said cheerfully, "is only to mix with your own kind from now on. Now go get that shower and shave. I'll be getting breakfast."
Showering was not hard and I remembered not to twist off the water-tap handles. Shaving was easy although I had to change razor blades three times in the process. I broke all the teeth out of the comb because it was never intended to be pulled through a thicket of piano wire.
Getting dressed was something else. I caught my heel in one trouser leg and shredded the cloth. I broke the buckle on my belt. My shoelaces went like parting a length of wet spaghetti. The button on the top of my shirt pinched off and when I gave that final jerk to my necktie it pulled the knot down into something about the size of a pea.
Breakfast was very pleasant, although I bent the fork tines spearing a rasher of bacon and removed the handle of my coffee cup without half trying. After breakfast I discovered that I could not remove a cigarette from the package without pinching the end down flat, and after I succeeded in getting one into my mouth by treating both smoke and match as if they were made of tissue paper, my first drag on the smoke lit a howling furnace-fire on the end that consumed half of the cigarette in the first puff.
"You're going to take some school before you are fit to walk among normal people, Steve," said Gloria with amused interest.
"You're informing me?" I asked with some dismay, eyeing the wreckage left in my wake. Compared to the New Steve Cornell, the famous bull in the china shop was Gentle Ferdinand. I picked up the cigarette package again; it squoze down even though I tried to treat it gentle; I felt like Lenny, pinching the head off of the mouse. I also felt about as much of a bumbling idiot as Lenny, too.
My re-education went on before, through, and after breakfast. I manhandled old books from the attic. I shredded newspapers. I ruined some more lead pencils and finally broke the pencil sharpener to boot. I put an elbow through the middle panel of the kitchen door without even feeling it and then managed to twist off the door knob. Generally operating like a one-man army of vandals, I laid waste to the Farrow home.
Having thus ruined a nice house, Gloria decided to try my strength on her car. I was much too fast and too hard on the brakes, which of course was not too bad because my foot was also too insensitive on the go-pedal. We took off like a rocket being launched and then I tromped on the brakes (Bending the pedal) which brought us down sharp like hitting a haystack. This allowed our heads to catch up with the rest of us; I'm sure that if we'd been normal-bodied human beings we'd have had our spines snapped. Eventually I learned that everything had to be handled as if it were tissue paper, and gradually re-adjusted my reflexes to take proper cognizance of the feedback data according to my new body.
We returned home after a hectic twenty miles of roadwork and I broke the glass as I slammed the car door.
"It's going to take time," I admitted with some reluctance.
"It always does," smiled Farrow as cheerfully as if I hadn't ruined their possessions.
"I don't know how I'm going to face your folks."
Farrow's smile became cryptic. "Maybe they won't notice."
"Now look, Farrow----"
"Steve, don't forget for the moment that you're the only known Mekstrom Carrier."
"In other words your parents are due for the treatment next?"
"Oh, I was most thorough. Both of them are in the final stages right now. I'm sure that anything you did to the joint will only be added to by the time they get to the walking stage. And also anything you did they'll feel well repaid."
"I didn't do anything for them."
"You provided them with Mekstrom bodies," she said simply.
"They took to it willingly?"
"Yes. As soon as they were convinced by watching me and my strength. They knew what it would be like, but they were all for it."
"You've been a very busy girl," I told her.
She just nodded. Then she looked up at me with troubled eyes and asked, "What are you going to do now, Steve?"
"I'm going to haul the whole shebang down like Samson in the Temple."
"A lot of innocent people are going to get hurt if you do that."
"I can't very well find a cave in Antarctica and hide," I replied glumly.
"Think a bit, Steve. Could either side afford to let you walk into New Washington with the living proof of your Mekstrom Body?"
#Didn't stop 'em before,# I thought angrily. #And it seems to me that both sides were sort of urging me to go and do something that would uncover the other side.#
"Not deep enough," said Farrow. "That was only during the early phases. Go back to the day when you didn't know what was going on."
I grunted sourly, "Look, Farrow, tell me. Why must I fumble my way through this as I've fumbled through everything else?"
"Because only by coming to the conclusion in your own way will you be convinced that someone isn't lying to you. Now, think it over, Steve."
It made sense. Even if I came to the wrong conclusion, I'd believe it more than if someone had told me. Farrow nodded, following my thoughts. Then I plunged in:
#First we have a man who is found to be a carrier of Mekstrom's Disease. He doesn't know anything about the disease. Right?# (Farrow nodded slowly.) #So now the Medical Center puts an anchor onto their carrier by sicking an attractive dame on his trail. Um--# At this point I went into a bit of a mental whirly-around trying to find an answer to one of the puzzlers. Farrow just looked at me with a non-leading expression, waiting. I came out of the merry-go-round after six times around the circuit and went on:
#I don't know all the factors. Obviously, Catherine had to lead me fast because we had to marry before she contracted the disease from me. But there's a discrepancy, Farrow. The little blonde receptionist caught it in twenty-four hours--?#
"Steve," said Farrow, "this is one I'll have to explain, since you're not a medical person. The period of incubation depends upon the type of contact. You actually bit the receptionist. That put blood contact into it. You didn't draw any blood from Catherine."
"We were pretty close," I said with a slight reddening of the ears.
"From a medical standpoint, you were not much closer to Catherine than you have been to me, or Dr. Thorndyke. You were closer to Thorndyke and me, say, than you've been to many of the incidental parties along the path of our travels."
"Well, let that angle go for the moment. Anyway, Catherine and I had to marry before the initial traces were evident. Then I'd be in the position of a man whose wife had contracted Mekstrom's Disease on our honeymoon,
whereupon the Medical Center would step in and cure her, and I'd be in the position of being forever grateful and willing to do anything that the Medical Center wanted me to do. And as a poor non-telepath, I'd probably never learn the truth. Right?"
"So far," she said, still in a noncommittal tone.
"So now we crack up along the Highway near the Harrison place. The Highways take her in because they take any victim in no matter what. I also presume from what's gone on that Catherine is a high enough telepath to conceal her thinking and so to become an undercover agent in the midst of the Highways organization. And at this point the long long trail takes a fork, doesn't it? The Medical Center gang did not know about the Highways in Hiding until Catherine and I barrelled into it end over end."
Farrow's face softened, and although she said nothing I knew I was on the right track.
#So at this point,# I went on silently, #Medical Center found themselves in a mild quandary. They could hardly put another woman on my trail because I was already emotionally involved with the missing Catherine--and so they decided to use me in another way. I was shown enough to keep me busy, I was more or less urged to go track down the Highways in Hiding for the Medical Center. After all, as soon as I'd made the initial discovery, Phelps and his outfit shouldn't have needed any more help.#
"A bit more thinking, Steve. You've come up with that answer before."
#Sure. Phelps wanted me to take my tale to the Government. About this secret Highway outfit. But if neither side can afford to have the secret come out, how come--?# I pondered this for a long time and admitted that it made no sense to me. Finally Farrow shook her head and said,
"Steve, I've got to prompt you now and then. But remember that I'm trying to make you think it out yourself. Now consider: You are running an organization that must be kept secret. Then someone learns the secret and starts heading for the Authorities. What is your next move?"
"Okay," I replied. "So I'm stupid. Naturally, I pull in my horns, hide my signs, and make like nothing was going on."
"So stopping the advance of your organization, which is all that Phelps really can expect."
I thought some more. #And the fact that I was carrying a story that would get me popped into the nearest hatch for the incipient paranoid made it all right?#
She nodded.
"And now?" she asked me.
"And now I'm living proof of my story. Is that right?"
"Right. And Steve, do not forget for one moment that the only reason that you're still alive is because you are valuable to both sides alive. Dead, you're only good for a small quantity of Mekstrom Inoculation."
"Don't follow," I grunted. "As you say, I'm no medical person."
"Alive, your hair grows and must be cut. You shave and trim off beard. Your fingernails are pared. Now and then you lose a small bit of hide or a few milliliters of blood. These are things that, when injected under the skin of a normal human, makes them Mekstrom. Dead, your ground up body would not provide much substance."
"Pleasant prospect," I growled. "So what do I do to avert this future?"
"Steve, I don't know. I've done what I can for you. I've effected the cure and I've done it in safety; you're still Steve Cornell."
XXII
"Look," I blurted with a sudden rush of brain to the head, "If I'm so all-fired important to both sides, how come you managed to sequester me for four months?"
"We do have the laws of privacy," said Farrow simply. "Which neither side can afford to flout overtly. Furthermore, since neither side really knew where you were, they've been busily prowling one another's camps and locking up the prowlers from one another's camps, and playing spy and counterspy and counter-counterspy, and generally piling it up pyramid-wise," she finished with a chuckle. "You got away with following that letter to Catherine because uppermost in your mind was the brain of a lover hunting down his missing sweetheart. No one could go looking for Steve Cornell, Mekstrom Carrier, for reasons not intrinsically private."
"For four months?" I asked, still incredulous.
"Well, one of the angles is that both sides knew you were immobilized somewhere, going through this cure. Having you a full Mekstrom is something that both sides want. So they've been willing to have you cured."
"So long as someone does the work, huh?"
"Right," she said seriously.
"Well, then," I said with a grim smile, "the obvious thing for me to do is to slink quietly into New Washington and to seek out some high official in secrecy. I'll put my story and facts into his hands, make him a Mekstrom, have him cured, and then we'll set up an agency to provide the general public with--"
"Steve, you're an engineer. I presume you've studied mathematics. So let's assume that you can--er--bite one person every ten seconds."
"That's six persons per minute; three-sixty per hour; and, ah, eighty-six-forty per day. With one hundred and sixty million Americans at the last census--um. Sixty years without sleep. I see what you mean."
"Not only that, Steve, but it would create a panic, if not a global war. Make an announcement like that, and certain of our not-too-friendly neighbors would demand their shares or else. So now add up your time to take care of about three billion human souls on this Earth, Steve."
"All right. So I'll forget that cockeyed notion. But still, the Government should know--"
"If we could be absolutely certain that every elected official is a sensible, honest man, we could," said Farrow. "The trouble is that we've got enough demagogues, publicity hounds, and rabble-rousers to make the secret impossible to keep."
I couldn't argue against that. Farrow was right. Not only that, but Government found it hard enough to function in this world of Rhine Institute with honest secrets.
"Okay, then," I said. "The only thing to do is to go back to Homestead, Texas, throw my aid to the Highways in Hiding, and see what we can do to provide the Earth with some more sensible method of inoculation. I obviously cannot go around biting people for the rest of my life."
"I guess that's it, Steve."
I looked at her. "I'll have to borrow your car."
"It's yours."
"You'll be all right?"
She nodded. "Eventually I'll be a way station on the Highways, I suppose. Can you make it alone, Steve? Or would you rather wait until my parents are cured? You could still use a telepath, you know."
"Think it's safe for me to wait?"
"It's been four months. Another week or two--?"
"All right. And in the meantime I'll practice getting along with this new body of mine."
We left it there. I roamed the house with Farrow, helping her with her parents. I gradually learned how to control the power of my new muscles; learned how to walk among normal people without causing their attention; and one day succeeded in shaking hands with a storekeeper without giving away my secret.
Eventually Nurse Farrow's parents came out of their treatment and we spent another couple of days with them.
We left them too soon, I'm sure, but they seemed willing that we take off. They'd set up a telephone system for getting supplies so that they'd not have to go into town until they learned how to handle their bodies properly, and Farrow admitted that there was little more that we could do.
So we took off because we all knew that time was running out. Even though both sides had left us alone while I was immobilized, both sides must have a time-table good enough to predict my eventual cure. In fact, as I think about it now, both sides must have been waiting along the outer edges of some theoretical area waiting for me to emerge, since they couldn't come plowing in without giving away their purpose.
So we left in Farrow's car and once more hit the big broad road.
We drove towards Texas until we came upon a Highway, and then turned along it looking for a way station. I wanted to get in touch with the Highways. I wanted close communication with the Harrisons and the rest of them, no matter what. Eventually we came upon a Sign with a missing spoke and turned in.
&n
bsp; The side road wound in and out, leading us back from the Highway towards the conventional dead area. The house was a white structure among a light thicket of trees, and as we came close to it, we met a man busily tilling the soil with a tractor plow.
Farrow stopped her car. I leaned out and started to call, but something stopped me.
"He is no Mekstrom, Steve," said Farrow in a whisper.
"But this is a way station, according to the road sign."
"I know. But it isn't, according to him. He doesn't know any more about Mekstrom's Disease than you did before you met Catherine."
"Then what the devil is wrong?"
"I don't know. He's perceptive, but not too well trained. Name's William Carroll. Let me do the talking, I'll drop leading remarks for you to pick up."
The man came over amiably. "Looking for someone?" he asked cheerfully.
"Why, yes," said Gloria. "We're sort of mildly acquainted with the--Mannheims who used to live here. Sort of friends of friends of theirs, just dropped by to say hello, sort of," she went on, covering up the fact that she'd picked the name of the former occupant out of his mind.
"The Mannheims moved about two months ago," he said. "Sold the place to us--we got a bargain. Don't really know, of course, but the story is that one of them had to move for his health."
"Too bad. Know where they went?"
"No," said Carroll regretfully. "They seem to have a lot of friends. Always stopping by, but I can't help 'em any."
#So they moved so fast that they couldn't even change their Highway Sign?# I thought worriedly.
Farrow nodded at me almost imperceptibly. Then she said to Carroll, "Well, we won't keep you. Too bad the Mannheims moved, without leaving an address."
"Yeah," he said with obvious semi-interest. He eyed his half-plowed field and Farrow started her car.
We started off and he turned to go back to his work. "Anything?" I asked.
"No," she said, but it was a very puzzled voice. "Nothing that I can put a finger on."