Highways in Hiding by George O. Smith (free ebook reader for iphone txt) 📕

one proved it; it was not an accident of birth so much as it was proper training, to my way of thinking. Magistrate Hollister hated psi-trained people and was out to make examples of them.

He polished off his lecture by pronouncing sentence: "—and the Law provides punishment by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars, or a sentence of ninety days in jail—or both." He rolled the latter off as though he relished the sound of the words.

I waited impatiently. The itch on my finger increased; I flung a fast dig at it but there was nothing there but Sophomore's Syndrome. Good old nervous association. It was the finger that little Snoodles, the three-month baby supergirl had munched to a faretheewell. Darned good thing the kid didn't have teeth! But I was old Steve, the immune, the carrier, the—

"Well, Mr. Cornell?"

I blinked. "Yes, your honor?"

"Which will it be? I am granting you the leniency of selecting which penalty you prefer."

I could probably rake up a thousand by selling some stock, personal possessions, and draining my already-weakened bank account. The most valuable of my possessions was parked in a ditch with a blowout and probably a bent frame and even so, I only owned about six monthly payments worth of it.

"Your Honor, I will prefer to pay the fine—if you'll grant me time in which to go and collect—"

He rapped his desk with his gavel. "Mr. Cornell," he boomed angrily. "A thief cannot be trusted. Within a matter of minutes you could remove yourself from the jurisdiction of this court unless a binding penalty is placed against your person. You may go on your search for money, but only after posting bond—to the same amount as your fine!"

Lenient—?

"However, unless you are able to pay, I have no recourse but to exact the prison sentence of ninety days. Bailiff—!"

I gave up. It even felt sort of good to give up, especially when the turn is called by someone too big to be argued with. No matter what, I was going to take ninety days off, during which I could sit and think and plan and wonder and chew my fingernails.

The itch in my finger burned again, deep this time, and not at all easy to satisfy by rubbing it against my trousers. I picked at it with the thumbnail and the nail caught something hard.

I looked down at the itching finger and sent my perception into it with as much concentration as I could.

My thumbnail had lifted a tiny circle no larger than the head of a pin. Blood was oozing from beneath the lifted rim, and I nervously picked off the tiny patch of hard, hard flesh and watched the surface blood well out into a tiny droplet. My perception told me the truth: It was Mekstrom's Disease and not a doubt. The Immune had caught it!

The bailiff tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Come along, Cornell!"

And I was going to have ninety days to watch that patch grow at the inexorable rate of one sixty-fourth of an inch per hour!

XVI

The bailiff repeated, "Come along, Cornell." Then he added sourly, "Or I'll have to slip the cuffs on you."

I turned with a helpless shrug. I'd tried to lick 'em and I'd tried to join 'em and I'd failed both. Then, as of this instant when I might have been able to go join 'em, I was headed for the wrong side as soon as I opened my big yap. And if I didn't yelp, I was a dead one anyway. Sooner or later someone in the local jug would latch on to my condition and pack me off to Scholar Phelps' Medical Center.

Once more I was in a situation where all I could do was to play it by ear, wait for a break, and see if I could make something out of it.

But before I could take more than a step or two toward the big door, someone in the back of the courtroom called out:

"Your Honor, I have some vital information in this case."

His Honor looked up across the court with a great amount of irritation showing in his face. His voice rasped, "Indeed?"

I whirled, shocked.

Suavely, Dr. Thorndyke strode down the aisle. He faced the judge and explained who he was and why, then he backed it up with a wallet full of credentials, cards, identification, and so forth. The judge looked the shebang over sourly but finally nodded agreement. Thorndyke smiled self-confidently and then went on, facing me:

"It would be against my duty to permit you to incarcerate this miscreant," he said smoothly. "Because Mr. Cornell has Mekstrom's Disease!"

Everybody faded back and away from me as though he'd announced me to be the carrier of plague. They looked at me with horror and disgust on their faces, a couple of them began to wipe their hands with handkerchiefs; one guy who'd been standing where I'd dropped my little patch of Mekstrom Flesh backed out of that uncharmed circle. Some of the spectators left hurriedly.

His Honor paled. "You're certain?" he demanded of Dr. Thorndyke.

"I'm certain. You'll note the blood on his finger; Cornell recently picked off a patch of Mekstrom Flesh no larger than the head of a pin. It was his first sign." The doctor went on explaining, "Normally this early seizure would be difficult to detect, except from a clinical examination. But since I am telepath and Cornell has perception, his own mind told me he was aware of his sorry condition. One only need read his mind, or to dig at the tiny bit of Mekstrom Flesh that he dropped to your floor."

The judge eyed me nastily. "Maybe I should add a charge of contaminating a courtroom," he muttered. He was running his eyes across the floor from me to wherever I'd been, trying to locate the little patch. I helped him by not looking at it. The rest of the court faded back from me still farther. I could hardly have been less admired if I'd been made of pure cyanide gas.

The judge rapped his gavel sharply. "I parole this prisoner in the custody of Dr. Thorndyke, who as a representative of the Medical Center will remove the prisoner to that place where the proper treatment awaits him."

"Now see here—" I started. But His Honor cut me off.

"You'll go as I say," he snapped. "Unfortunately, the Law does not permit me to enjoy any cruel or unusual punishments, or I'd insist upon your ninety-day sentence and watch you die painfully. I—Bailiff! Remove this menace before I forget my position here and find myself in contempt of the law I have sworn to uphold. I cannot be impartial before a man who contaminates my Court with the world's most dangerous disease!"

I turned to Thorndyke. "All right," I grunted. "You win."

He smiled again; I wanted to wipe that smile away with a set of knuckles but I knew that all I'd get would be a broken hand against Thorndyke's stone-hard flesh. "Now, Mr. Cornell," he said with that clinical smoothness, "let's not get the old standard attitude."

"Nearly everybody who contracts Mekstrom's Disease," he said to the judge, "takes on a persecution complex as soon as he finds out that he has it. Some of them have even accused me of fomenting some big fantastic plot against them. Please, Mr. Cornell," he went on facing me, "we'll give you the best of treatment that Medical Science knows."

"Yeah," I grunted.

His Honor rapped on the gavel once more. "Officer Gruenwald," he snapped, "you will accompany the prisoner and Dr. Thorndyke to the Medical Center and having done that you will return to report to me that you have accomplished your mission."

Then the judge glared around, rapped once more, and cried, "Case Finished. Next Case!"

I felt almost as sorry for the next guy coming in as I felt for myself. His Honor was going to be one tough baby for some days to come. As they escorted me out, a janitor came in and began to swab the floor where I'd been standing. He was using something nicely corrosive that made the icy, judicial eyes water, all of which discomfort was likely to be added to the next law-breaker's sorry lot.

I was in fine company. Thorndyke was a telepath and Officer Gruenwald was perceptive. They went as a team and gave me about as much chance to escape as if I'd been a horned toad sealed in a cornerstone. Gruenwald, of course, treated me as though my breath was deadly, my touch foul, and my presence evil. In Gruenwald's eyes, the only difference between me and Medusa the Gorgon was that looking at me did not turn him to stone. He kept at least one eye on me almost constantly.

I could almost perceive Thorndyke's amusement. With the best of social amenities, he could hardly have spent a full waking day in the company of either a telepath or a perceptive without giving away the fact that he was Mekstrom. But with me to watch over, Officer Gruenwald's mental attention was not to be turned aside to take an impolite dig at his companion. Even if he had, Thorndyke would have been there quickly to turn his attention aside.

I've read the early books that contain predictions of how we are supposed to operate. The old boys seemed to have the quaint notion that a telepath should be able at once to know everything that goes on everywhere, and a perceptive should be aware of everything material about him. There should be no privacy. There was to be no defense against the mental peeping Tom.

It ain't necessarily so. If Gruenwald had taken a dig at Thorndyke's hide, the doctor would have speared the policeman with a cold, indignant eye and called him for it. Of course, there was no good reason for Gruenwald to take a dig at Thorndyke and so he didn't.

So I went along with the status quo and tried to think of some way to break it up.

An hour later I was still thinking, and the bleeding on my finger had stopped. Mekstrom Flesh had covered the raw spot with a thin, stone-hard plate that could not be separated visually from the rest of my skin.

"As a perceptive," observed Dr. Thorndyke in a professional tone, "you'll notice the patch of infection growing on Mr. Cornell's finger. The rate of growth seems normal; I'll have to check it accurately once I get him to the clinic. In fifty or sixty hours, Mr. Cornell's finger will be solid to the first joint. In ninety days his arm will have become as solid as the arm of a marble statue."

I interjected, "And what do we do about it?"

He moved his head a bit and eyed me in the rear view mirror. "I hope we can help you, Cornell," he said in a tone of sympathy that was definitely intended to impress Officer Gruenwald with his medical appreciation of the doctor's debt to humanity. "I sincerely hope so. For in doing so, we will serve the human race. And," he admitted with an entirely human-sounding selfishness, "I may be able to deliver a thesis on the cure that will qualify me for my scholarate."

I took a fast stab: "Doctor, how does my flesh differ from yours?"

Thorndyke parried this attention-getting question: "Mine is of no consequence. Dig your own above and below the line of infection, Cornell. If your sense of perception has been trained fine enough, dig the actual line of infection and watch the molecular structure rearrange. Can you dig that fine, Officer? Cornell, I hate to dwell at length upon your misfortune, but perhaps I can help you face it by bringing the facts to light."

#Like the devil you hate to dwell, Doctor Mekstrom!#

In the rear view mirror, his lips parted in a bland smile and one eyelid dropped in a knowing wink.

I opened my mouth to make another stab in the open but Thorndyke got there first. "Officer Gruenwald," he suggested, "you can help by putting out your perception along the road ahead and seeing how it goes. I'd like to make tracks with this crate."

Gruenwald nodded.

Thorndyke put the goose-pedal down and the car took off with a howl of passing wind. He said with a grin, "It isn't very often that I get a chance to drive like this, but as long as I've an officer with me—"

He was above one forty by the time he let his voice trail off.

I watched the back of their heads for a moment. At this speed, Thorndyke would have both his mind and his hands full and the cop would be digging at the road as far ahead as his perception could dig a clear appreciation of the road and