ou for his own purpose."

I grunted sourly. "He has already and he will again," I told her. "Not
only that, but Phelps has had plenty of chance to collect me on or off
the hook. So what you fear does not make sense."

"It does now," she told me seriously. "So long as you did not suspect
your own part in the picture, you could do more good for Phelps by
running free. Now you know and Phelps' careful herding of your motions
won't work."

"Don't get it."

"Watch," she said with a shrug. "They'll try. I don't dare experiment,
Steve, or I'd leave you right now. You'd find out very shortly that
you're with me because I got here first."

"And knowing the score makes me also dangerous to your Highways? Likely
to bring 'em out of Hiding?"

"Yes."

"So now that I've dumped over the old apple cart, I can assume that
you're here to take me in."

"What else can I do, Steve?" she said unhappily.

I couldn't answer that. I just sat there looking at her and trying to
remember that her shapely one hundred and eighteen pounds were steel
hard and monster strong and that she could probably carry me under one
arm all the way to Homestead without breathing hard. I couldn't cut and
run; she could outrun me. I couldn't slug her on the jaw and get away;
I'd break my hand. The Bonanza .375 would probably stun her, but I have
not the cold blooded viciousness to pull a gun on a woman and drill her.
I grunted sourly, that weapon had been about as useful to me as a
stuffed bear or an authentic Egyptian Obelisk.

"Well, I'm not going," I said stubbornly.

She looked at me in surprise. "What are you going to do?" she asked me.

I felt a glow of self-confidence. If I could not run loose with guilty
knowledge of my being a Mekstrom Carrier, it was equally impossible for
anybody to kidnap me and carry me across the country. I'd radiate like
mad; I'd complain about the situation at every crossroad, at every
filling station, before every farmer. I'd complain mentally and
bitterly, and sooner or later someone would get suspicious.

"Don't think like an idiot," she told me sharply. "You drove across the
country before, remember? How many people did you convince?"

"I wasn't trying, then--"

"How about the people in the hotel in Denver?" she asked me pointedly.
"What good did you do there?"

#Very little, but--#

"One of the advantages of a telepath is that we can't be taken by
surprise," she informed me. "Because no one can possibly wor