they'd rather die than live without their
one and only. I swore it too. But when your life's end is shown to you
on a microscope slide, love becomes less important. What should I do?
Just die? Painfully?"

That was handing it to me on a platter. It hurt but I am not
chuckleheaded enough to insist that she come with me to die instead of
leaving me and living. What really hurt was not knowing.

"Steve," said Marian. "You know that we couldn't have told you the
truth."

"Yeah," I agreed disconsolately.

"Let's suppose that Catherine wrote you a letter telling you that she
was alive and safe, but that she'd reconsidered the marriage. You were
to forget her and all that. What happens next?"

Unhappily I told him. "I'd not have believed it."

Phillip nodded. "Next would have been a telepath-esper team. Maybe a
perceptive with a temporal sense who could retrace that letter back to
the point of origin, teamed up with a telepath strong enough to drill a
hole through the dead area that surrounds New Washington. Why, even
before Rhine Institute, it was sheer folly for a runaway to write a
letter. What would it be now?"

I nodded. What he said was true, but it did not ease the hurt.

"Then on the other hand," he went on in a more cheerful vein, "Let's
take another look at us and you, Steve. Tell me, fellow, where are you
now?"

I looked up at him. Phillip was smiling in a knowing-superior sort of
manner. I looked at Marian. She was half-smiling. Catherine looked
satisfied. I got it.

"Yeah. I'm here."

"You're here without having any letters, without leaving any broad trail
of suspicion upon yourself. You've not disappeared, Steve. You've been
a-running up and down the country all on your own decision. Where you go
and what you do is your own business and nobody is going to set up a hue
and cry after you. Sure, it took a lot longer this way. But it was a lot
safer." He grinned wide then as he went on, "And if you'd like to take
some comfort out of it, just remember that you've shown yourself to be
quite capable, filled with dogged determination, and ultimately
successful."

He was right. In fact, if I'd tried the letter-following stunt long
earlier, I'd have been here a lot sooner.

"All right," I said. "So what do we do now?"

"We go on and on and on, Steve, until we're successful."

"Successful?"

He nodded soberly. "Until we can make every man, woman, and child on the
face of this Earth as much physical sup