eople to do us
more harm than good. Darn it, we're not absolutely indestructible,
Steve. We can be killed. We could be wiped out by a mob of angry
citizens who saw in us a threat to their security. Neither we of the
Highways nor Phelps of The Medical Center have enough manpower to be
safe."

"So that I'll accept. The next awkward question comes up: What are we
going to do with me?"

"You've agreed that we cannot move until we know how to inoculate
healthy flesh. We need normal humans, to be our guinea pigs. Will you
help bring to the Earth's People the blessing that is now denied them?"

"If you are successful, Steve," said Marian, "You'll go down in History
along with Otto Mekstrom. You could be the turning point of the human
race, you know."

"And if I fail?"

Phillip Harrison's face took on a hard and determined look. "Steve,
there can be no failure. We shall go on and on until we have success."

That was a fine prospect. Old guinea-pig Cornell, celebrating his
seventieth birthday as the medical experimentation went on and on.

Catherine was leaning forward, her eyes bright. "Steve," she cried,
"You've just _got_ to!"

"Just call me the unwilling hero," I said in a drab voice. "And put it
down that the condemned specimen drank a hearty dinner. I trust that
there is a drink in the house."

There was enough whiskey in the place to provide the new specimen with a
near-total anesthesia. The evening was spent in forced badinage, shallow
laughter, and a pointed avoidance of the main subject. The whiskey was
good; I took it undiluted and succeeded in getting boiled to the
eyebrows before they carted me off to bed.

I did not sleep well despite my anesthesia. There was too much on my
mind and very little of it was the fault of the Harrisons. One of the
things that I had to face was the cold fact that part of Catherine's
lack of communication with me was caused by logic and good sense. Both
History and Fiction are filled with cases where love was set aside
because consummation was impossible for any number of good reasons.

So I slept fitfully, and my dreams were as unhappy as the thoughts I had
during my waking moments. Somehow I realized that I'd have been far
better off if I'd been able to forget Catherine after the accident, if
I'd been able to resist the urge to follow the Highways in Hiding, if
I'd never known that those ornamental road signs were something more
than the desire of some road commissioner to