Highways in Hiding (1956)

by George O. Smith

  But there was nothing to do but to take the feeder road to the left, because the devil we could see was more dangerous than the devil we couldn’t.

  Farrow whipped into the side road and we tore along with only a slight slowing of our headlong speed. I ranged ahead, worried, suspicious of everything, scanning very carefully and strictly on the watch for any evidence of attempted interception.

  I caught a touch of danger converging up from the South on a series of small roads. This I did not consider dangerous after a fast look at my roadmap because this series of roads did not meet our side road for a long time and only after a lot of turning and twisting. So long as we went Easterly, we were okay from that angle.

  The gang behind, of course, followed us, staying at the very edge of my range.

  “You’ll have to fly, Farrow,” I told her. “If that gang to our South stays there, we’ll not be able to turn down Homestead way.”

  “Steve, I’m holding this crate on the road by main force and awkwardness as it is.”

  But she did step it up a bit, at that. I kept a cautious and suspicious watchout, worrying in the back of my mind that someone among them might turn up with a jetcopter. So long as the sky remained clear—

  As time went on, I perceived that the converging car to the South was losing ground because of the convolutions of their road. Accordingly we turned to the South, making our way around their nose, sort of, and crossing their anticipated course to lead South. We hit U.S. 180 to the West of Breckenridge, Texas and then Farrow really poured on the coal. The idea was to hit Fort Worth and lose them in the city where fun, games, and telepath-perceptive hare-and-hounds would be viewed dimly by the peaceloving citizens. Then we’d slope to the South on U.S. 81, cut over to U.S. 75 somewhere to the South and take 75 like a cannonball until we turned off on the familiar road to Homestead.

  Fort Worth was a haven and a detriment to both sides. Neither of us could afford to run afoul of the law. So we both cut down to sensible speeds and snaked our way through the town, with Farrow and me probing the roads to the South in hope of finding a clear lane.

  There were three cars pacing us, cutting off our retreat Southward. They hazed us forward to the East like a dog nosing a bunch of sheep towards pappy’s barn.

  Then we were out of Forth Worth and on U.S. 180. We whipped into Dallas and tried the same circumfusion as before and we were as neatly barred. So we went out of Dallas on U.S. 67 and as we left the city limits, we poured on the oil again, hoping to get around them so that we could turn back South towards Homestead.

  “Boxed,” I said.

  “Looks like it,” said Farrow unhappily.

  I looked at her. She was showing signs of weariness and I realized that she’d been riding this road for hours. “Let me take it,” I said.

  “We need your perception,” she objected. “You can’t drive and keep a ranging perception, Steve.”

  “A lot of good a ranging perception will do once you drop for lack of sleep and we tie us up in a ditch.”

  “But—”

  “We’re boxed,” I told her. “We’re being hazed. Let’s face it, Farrow. They could have surrounded us and glommed us any time in the past six hours.”

  “Why didn’t they?” she asked.

  “You ask that because you’re tired,” I said with a grim smile. “Any bunch that has enough cars to throw a barrier along the streets of cities like Forth Worth and Dallas have enough manpower to catch us if they want to. So long as we drive where they want us to go, they won’t cramp us down.”

  “I hate to admit it.”

  “So do I. But let’s swap, Farrow. Then you can use your telepathy on them maybe and find out what their game is.”

  She nodded, pulled the car down to a mere ramble and we swapped seats quickly. As I let the crate out again, I took one last, fast dig of the landscape and located the cars that were blocking out the passageways to the South, West, and North, leaving a nice inviting hole to the Easterly-North way. Then I had to haul in my perception and slap it along the road ahead, because I was going to ramble far and fast and see if I could speed out of the trailing horseshoe and cut out around the South horn with enough leeway to double back towards Homestead.

  “Catch any plans from them?” I asked Farrow.

  There was no answer. I looked at her. Gloria Farrow was semi-collapsed in her seat, her eyes closed gently and her breath coming in long, pleasant swells. I’d known she was tired, but I hadn’t expected this absolute ungluing. A damned good kid, Farrow.

  At that last thought, Farrow moved slightly in her sleep and a wisp of a smile crossed her lips briefly. Then she turned a bit and snuggled down in the seat and really hit the slumber-path.

  A car came roaring at me with flashing headlamps and I realized that dusk was coming. I didn’t need the lights, but oncoming drivers did, so I snapped them on. The beams made bright tunnels in the light and we went along and on and on and on, hour after hour. Now and then I caught a perceptive impression the crescent of cars that were corralling us along U.S. 67 and not letting us off the route.

  I hauled out my roadmap and eyed the pages as I drove by perception. U.S. 67 led to St. Louis and from there due North. I had a hunch that by the time we played hide and seek through St. Louis and got ourselves hazed out to their satisfaction, I’d be able to give a strong guess as to our ultimate destination.

  I settled down in my seat and just drove, still hoping to cut fast and far around them on my way to Homestead.

  * * *

  XXIII

  Three times during the night I tried to flip around and cut my way through their cordon, and each time I faced interception. It was evident that we were being driven and so long as we went to their satisfaction they weren’t going to clobber us.

  Nurse Farrow woke up along about dawn, stretched, and remarked that she could use a toothbrush and a tub of hot water and amusedly berated herself for not filling the back seat before we took off. Then she became serious again and asked for the details of the night, which I slipped her as fast as I could.

  We stopped long enough to swap seats, and I stretched out but I couldn’t sleep.

  Finally I said, “Stop at the next dog wagon, Farrow. We’re going to eat, comes anything.”

  “Won’t that be dangerous?”

  “Shucks,” I grunted angrily. “They’ll probably thank us. They’re probably hungry too.”

  “We’ll find out.”

  The smell of a roadside diner is usually a bit on the thick and greasy side, but I was so hungry that morning that it smelled like mother’s kitchen. We went in, ordered coffee and orange juice, and then disappeared into the rest rooms long enough to clean up. That felt so good we ordered the works and watched the guy behind the fryplate handle the bacon, eggs, and home-fries with a deft efficient manner.

  We pitched in fast, hoping to beat the flies to our breakfast. We were so intent that we paid no attention to the car that came into the lot until a man came in, ordered coffee and a roll, and then carried it over to our table.

  “Fine day for a ride, isn’t it?”

  I eyed him; Farrow bristled and got very tense. I said, “I doubt that I know you, friend.”

  “Quite likely. But I know you, Cornell.”

  I took a fast dig; there was no sign of anything lethal except the usual collection of tire irons, screwdrivers, and other tools which, oddly enough, seldom come through as being dangerous because they’re not weapons-by-design.

  “I’m not heeled, Cornell. I’m just here to save us all some trouble.”

  #Telepath?#

  He nodded imperceptibly. Then he said, “We’ll all save time, gasoline, and maybe getting into grief with the cops if you take Route 40 out of St. Louis.”

  “Suppose I don’t like U.S. 40?”

  “Get used to it,” he said with a crooked smile. “Because you’ll take U.S. 40 out of St. Louis whether you like it or not.”

  I returned his crooked smile. I also dug his
hide and he was a Mekstrom, of course. “Friend,” I replied, “Nothing would convince me, after what you’ve said, that U.S. 40 is anything but a cowpath; slippery when wet; and impassible in the Early Spring, Late Summer, and the third Thursday after Michelmas.”

  He stood up. “Cornell, I can see your point. You don’t like U.S. 40. So I’ll help you good people. If you don’t want to drive along such a lousy slab of concrete, just say the word and we’ll arrange for you to take it in style, luxury, and without a trace of pain or strain. I’ll be seein’ you. And a very pleasant trip to you, Miss Farrow.”

  Then the character got up, went to the cashier and paid for our breakfast as well as his own. He took off in his car and I have never seen him since.

  Farrow looked at me, her face white and her whole attitude one of fright. “U.S. 40,” she said in a shaky voice, “runs like a stretched string from St. Louis to Indianapolis.”

  She didn’t have to tell me any more. About sixty miles North of Indianapolis on Indiana State Highway 37 lies the thriving metropolis of Marion, Indiana, the most important facet of which (to Farrow and me) is an establishment called the Medical Research Center.

  Nothing was going to make me drive out of St. Louis along U.S. 40. Period; End of message; No answer required.

  Nothing, because I was very well aware of their need to collect me alive and kicking. If I could not roar out of St. Louis in the direction I selected, I was going to turn my car end for end and have at them. Not in any mild manner, but with deadly intent to do deadly damage. If I’d make a mild pass, they’d undoubtedly corral me by main force and carry me off kicking and screaming. But if I went at them to kill or get killed, they’d have to move aside just to prevent me from killing myself. I didn’t think I’d get to the last final blow of that self-destruction. I’d win through.

  So we left the diner after a breakfast on our enemy’s expense account and took off again.

  I was counting on St. Louis. The center of the old city is one big shapeless blob of a dead area; so nice and cold that St. Louis has reversed the usual city-type blight area growth. Ever since Rhine, the slum sections have been moving out and the new buildings have been moving in. So with the dead area and the brand-new, wide streets and fancy traffic control, St. Louis was the place to go in along one road, get lost in traffic, and come out, roaring along any road desirable. I could not believe that any outfit, hoping to work under cover, could collect enough manpower and cars to block every road, lane, highway and duckrunway that led out of a city as big as St. Louis.

  Again they hazed us by pacing along parallel roads and behind us with the open end of their crescent aimed along U.S. 67. We went like hell; without slowing a bit we sort of swooped up to St. Louis and took a fast dive into that big blob-shaped dead area. We wound up in traffic and tied Boy Scout knots in our course. I was concerned about overhead coverage from a ‘copter even though I’ve been told that the St. Louis dead area extends upward in some places as high as thirteen thousand feet.

  The only thing missing was some device or doodad that would let us use our perception or telepathy in this deadness while they couldn’t. As it was, we were as psi-blind as they were, so we had to go along the streets with our eyes carefully peeled for cars of questionable ownership. We saw some passenger cars with out-of-state licenses and gave them wide clearances. One of them hung on our tail until I committed a very neat coup by running through a stoplight and sandwiching my car between two whopping big fourteen-wheel moving vans. I’d have enjoyed the expression on the driver’s face if I could have seen it. But then we were gone and he was probably cussing.

  I stayed between the vans as we wound ourselves along the road and turned into a side street.

  I stayed between them too long.

  Because the guy in front slammed on his air-brakes and the big van came to a stop with a howl of tires on concrete. The guy behind did not even slow down. He closed in on us like an avalanche. I took a fast look around and fought the wheel of my car to turn aside, but he whaled into my tail and we went sliding forward. I was riding my brakes but the mass of that moving van was so great that my tires just wore flats on the pavement-side.

  We were bearing down on that stopped van and it looked as though we were going to be driving a very tall car with a very short wheelbase in a very short time.

  Then the whole back panel of the front van came tumbling towards me from the top, pivoting on a hinge at the bottom, making a fine ramp. The van behind me nudged us up the ramp and we hurtled forward against a thick, resilient pad that stopped my car without any damage either to the car or to the inhabitants.

  Then the back panel closed up and the van took off.

  Two big birds on each side opened the doors of our car simultaneously and said “Out!”

  The tall guy on my side gave me a cocksure smile and the short guy said, “We’re about to leave St. Louis on U.S. 40, Cornell. I hope you won’t find this journey too rough.”

  I started to take a swing, but the tall one caught my elbow and threw me off balance. The short one reached down and picked up a baseball bat. “Use this, Cornell,” he told me. “Then no one will get hurt.”

  I looked at the pair of them, and then gave up. There are odd characters in this world who actually enjoy physical combat and don’t mind getting hurt if they can hurt the other guy more. These were the type. Taking that baseball bat and busting it over the head of either one would be the same sort of act as kids use when they square off in an alley and exchange light blows which they call a “cardy” just to make the fight legal. All it would get me was a sore jaw and a few cracked ribs.

  So after my determination to take after them with murderous intent, they’d pulled my teeth by scooping me up in this van and disarming me.

  I relaxed.

  The short one nodded, although he looked disappointed that I hadn’t allowed him the fun of a shindy. “You’ll find U.S. 40 less rough than you expected,” he said. “After all, it’s like life; only rough if you make it rough.”

  “Go to hell and stay there,” I snapped. That was about as weak a rejoinder as I’ve ever emitted, but it was all I could get out.

  The tall one said, “Take it easy, Cornell. You can’t win ‘em all.”

  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.”