Part 12 (1/2)
I grunted. ”How about the crazy man who questions his own sanity, using this personal question as proof of his sanity since real nuts _know_ they're sane?”
”No nut can think that deep into complication. What I mean is that they cannot even question their own sanity in the first premise of postulated argument. But forget that, what I wanted to know is where you intend to go from here.”
I shook my head unhappily. ”When I called you I had it all laid out like a roadmap. I was going to show you proof and use you as an impartial observer to convince someone else. Then we'd go to the Medical Center and hand it to them on a platter. Since then I've had a shock that I can't get over, or plan beyond. Scholar Phelps is a Mekstrom. That means that the guy knows what gives with Mekstrom's Disease and yet he is running an outfit that professes to be helpless in the face of this disease. For all we know Phelps may be the head of the Highways in Hiding, an organization strictly for profit of some sort at the expense of the public welfare.”
”You're certain that Phelps is a Mekstrom?”
”Not absolutely positive. I had to close my mind because there might be a telepath on tap. But I can tell you that n.o.body with normal flesh-type fingers ever made that solid rap.”
”A fingernail?”
I shook my head at her. ”That's a click. With an ear at all you'd note the difference.”
”I'll accept it for the moment. But lacking your original plan, what are you going to do now?”
”I'm not sure beyond showing you the facts. Maybe I should call up that F.B.I. team that called on me after Thornd.y.k.e's disappearance and put it in their laps.”
”Good idea. But why would Scholar Phelps be lying? And beyond your basic suspicions, what can you prove?”
”Very little. I admit that my evidence is extremely thin. I saw Phillip Harrison turning head bolts on a tractor engine with a small end wrench.
It should require a crossbar socket and a lot of muscle. Next is the girl in Ohio who should be a b.l.o.o.d.y mess from the way she was treated.
Instead she got up and tried to chase me. Then answer me a puzzler: Did the Harrisons move because Marian caught Mekstrom's, or did they move because they felt that I was too close to discovering their secret? The Highway was relocated after that, you'll recall.”
”It sounds frightfully complicated, Steve.”
”You bet it does,” I grunted. ”So next I meet a guy who is supposed to know all the answers; a man dedicated to the public welfare, medicine, and the ideal of Service. A man sworn to the Hippocratic Oath. Or,” I went on bitterly, ”is it the Hypocritic Oath?”
”Steve, please--”
”Please, h.e.l.l!” I stormed. ”Why is he quietly sitting there in Mekstrom hide while he is overtly grieving over the painful death of his fellow man?”
”I wouldn't know.”
”Well, I'm tired of being pushed around,” I growled.
”Pushed around?” she asked quietly.
With a trace of scorn, I said, ”Miss Farrow, I can see two possible answers. Either I am being pushed around for some deliberate reason, or I'm too smart, too cagey and too dangerous for them to handle directly.
It takes only about eight weeks for me to reluctantly abandon the second in favor of the first.”
”But what makes you think you are being pushed?” she wanted to know.
”You can't tell me that I am so important that they couldn't erase me as easily as they did Catherine and Dr. Thornd.y.k.e. And now that his name comes up, let's ask why any doctor who once met a casual patient would go to the bother of sending a postcard with a message on it that is certain to cause me unhappiness. He's also the guy who nudged me by calling my attention to my so-called 'shock hallucination' about Father Harrison lifting my car while Phillip Harrison raced into the fire to make the rescue. Add it up,” I told her sharply. ”Next he is invited to Medical Center to study Mekstrom's. Only instead of landing there, he sends me a postcard with one of the Highways in the picture, after which he disappears.”
Miss Farrow nodded thoughtfully. ”It is all tied up with your Highways and your Mekstrom People.”
”That isn't all,” I said. ”How come the Harrisons moved so abruptly?”
”You're posing questions that I can't answer,” complained Miss Farrow.