hem
delicately. Then she poured me a glass of ice water and put it where I
could reach it with my other hand. She left after one long searching
look into my eyes, and I knew that she would be back later to talk to me
alone. This seemed all right with Dr. Thorndyke, the wily telepath who
would be able to dig a reconstruction of our private talk with a little
urging on his part.

After Catherine was gone, Thorndyke smiled down at me with cynical
self-confidence. "There's your lever, Steve," he said.

The dope helped to kill all but the worst waves of searing pain; between
them I managed to grind out, "How did you sell her that bill of goods,
Thorndyke?"

His reply was scornful. "Maybe she likes your hide all in one piece," he
grunted.

He left me with my mind a-whirl with thoughts and pain. The little
manipulator was working my second finger joint up and down rhythmically,
and with each move came pain. It also exercised the old joint, which had
grown so rigid that my muscles hadn't been able to move it for several
hours. That added agony, too.

The dope helped, but it also dimmed my ability to concentrate.

Up to a certain point everything was quite logical and easy to
understand. Catherine was here because they had contacted her through
some channel and said, "Throw in with us and we'll see that your lover
does not die miserably." So much was reasonable, but after that point
the whole thing began to take on a mad puzzle-like quality. Given normal
circumstances, Catherine would have come to me as swiftly as I'd have
gone to her if I'd known how. Not only that, but I'd probably have sworn
eternal fealty to them for their service even though I could not stand
their way of thinking.

But Catherine was smart enough to realize that I, as the only known
carrier of Mekstrom's Disease, was more valuable live than dead.

Why, then, had Catherine come here to place herself in their hands?
Alone, she might have gone off half-cocked in an emotional tizzy. But
the Highways had good advisers who should have pointed out that Steve
Cornell was one man alive who could walk with impunity among friend or
foe. Why, they hadn't even tried to collect me until it became evident
that I was in line for the Old Treatment. Then they had to take me in,
because the Medical Center wanted any information they could get above
and beyond the fact that I was a carrier. If someone from Homestead had
been in that courtroom, I'd now be among friend