hing about the disease. Right?# (Farrow nodded
slowly.) #So now the Medical Center puts an anchor onto their carrier by
sicking an attractive dame on his trail. Um--# At this point I went into
a bit of a mental whirly-around trying to find an answer to one of the
puzzlers. Farrow just looked at me with a non-leading expression,
waiting. I came out of the merry-go-round after six times around the
circuit and went on:

#I don't know all the factors. Obviously, Catherine had to lead me fast
because we had to marry before she contracted the disease from me. But
there's a discrepancy, Farrow. The little blonde receptionist caught it
in twenty-four hours--?#

"Steve," said Farrow, "this is one I'll have to explain, since you're
not a medical person. The period of incubation depends upon the type of
contact. You actually bit the receptionist. That put blood contact into
it. You didn't draw any blood from Catherine."

"We were pretty close," I said with a slight reddening of the ears.

"From a medical standpoint, you were not much closer to Catherine than
you have been to me, or Dr. Thorndyke. You were closer to Thorndyke and
me, say, than you've been to many of the incidental parties along the
path of our travels."

"Well, let that angle go for the moment. Anyway, Catherine and I had to
marry before the initial traces were evident. Then I'd be in the
position of a man whose wife had contracted Mekstrom's Disease on our
honeymoon, whereupon the Medical Center would step in and cure her, and
I'd be in the position of being forever grateful and willing to do
anything that the Medical Center wanted me to do. And as a poor
non-telepath, I'd probably never learn the truth. Right?"

"So far," she said, still in a noncommittal tone.

"So now we crack up along the Highway near the Harrison place. The
Highways take her in because they take any victim in no matter what. I
also presume from what's gone on that Catherine is a high enough
telepath to conceal her thinking and so to become an undercover agent in
the midst of the Highways organization. And at this point the long long
trail takes a fork, doesn't it? The Medical Center gang did not know
about the Highways in Hiding until Catherine and I barrelled into it end
over end."

Farrow's face softened, and although she said nothing I knew I was on
the right track.

#So at this point,# I went on silently, #Medical Center found themselves
in a mild quandary. They could hardly pu