my fingertip.

I wondered what kind of tool-grinder they used for a manicure.

At three-thirty, the door to my room opened and in came Scholar Phelps,
complete with his benign smile and his hearty air.

"Well," he boomed over-cheerfully, "we meet again, Mr. Cornell."

"Under trying circumstances," I said.

"Unfortunately so," he nodded. "However, we can't all be fortunate."

"I dislike being a vital statistic."

"So does everybody. Yet, from a philosophical point of view, you have no
more right to live at the expense of someone else than someone else has
a right to live at your expense. It all comes out even in the final
accounting. And, of course, if every man were granted a guaranteed
immortality, we'd have one cluttered-up world."

I had to admit that he was right, but I still could not accept his
statistical attitude. Not while I'm the statistic. He followed my
thought even though he was esper; it wasn't hard to follow anyway.

"All right, I admit that this is no time to sit around discussing
philosophy or metaphysics or anything of that nature. What you are
interested in is you."

"How absolutely correct."

"You know, of course, that you are a carrier."

"So I've come to believe. At least, everybody I seem to have any contact
with either turns up missing or comes down with Mekstrom's--or both."

Scholar Phelps nodded. "You might have gone on for quite some time if it
hadn't been so obvious."

I eyed him. "Just what went on?" I asked casually. "Did you have a
clean-up squad following me all the time, picking up the debris? Or did
you just pick up the ones you wanted? Or did the Highways make you
indulge in a running competition?"

"Too many questions at once. Most of which answers would be best that
you did not know. Best for us, that is. Maybe even for you."

I shrugged. "We seem to be bordering on philosophy again when the
important point is what you intend to do to me."

He looked unhappy. "Mr. Cornell, it is hard to remain unphilosophical in
a case like this. So many avenues of thought have been opened, so many
ideas and angles come to mind. We'll readily admit what you've probably
concluded; that you as a carrier have become the one basic factor that
we have been seeking for some twenty years and more. You are the
dirigible force, the last brick in the building, the final answer. Or,
and I hate to say it, were."

"Were?"

"For all of our knowledge of Mekstrom's we know so very little," h