Part 34 (1/2)

”Steve--get out of here! While you're safe!”

”Huh?” I blurted. ”What cooks, Farrow?”

”I was a nice patsy,” she said. She sat up and wiped her eyes. ”I was a fool. Steve, if James Thornd.y.k.e had asked me to jump off the roof, I'd have asked him 'what direction?' That's how fat-headed I am.”

”Yes?” Something was beginning to form, now.

”I--led you on, Steve.”

That blinkoed me. The phrase didn't jell. The half a minute she'd spent bawling on my shoulder with my arms around her had been the first physical contact I'd ever had with Nurse Farrow. It didn't seem--

”No, Steve. Not that way. I couldn't see you for Thornd.y.k.e any more than you could see me for Catherine.” Her telepathy had returned, obviously; she was in better control of herself. ”Steve,” she said, ”I led you on; did everything that Thornd.y.k.e told me to. You fell into it like a rock.

Oh--it was going to be a big thing. All I had to do was to haul you deeper into this mess, then I'd disappear strangely. Then we'd be--tog--ether--we'd be--”

She started to come unglued again but stopped the dissolving process just before the wet and gooey stage set in. She seemed to put a set in her shoulders, and then she looked down at me with pity. ”Poor esper,”

she said softly, ”you couldn't really know--”

”Know what?” I asked harshly.

”He fooled me--too,” she said, in what sounded like a complete irrelevancy.

”Look, Farrow, try and make a bit of sense to a poor perceptive who can't read a mind. Keep it running in one direction, please?”

Again, as apparently irrelevant, she said, ”He's a top grade telepath; he knows control--”

”Control--?” I asked blankly.

”You don't know,” she said. ”But a good telepath can think in patterns that prevent lesser telepaths from really digging deep. Thornd.y.k.e is brilliant, of scholar grade, really. He--”

”Let's get back to it, Farrow. What's cooking?”

Sternly she tossed her head. It was an angry motion, one that showed her disdain for her own tears and her own weakness. ”Your own sweet Catherine.”

I eyed her, not coldly but with a growing puzzlement. I tried to formulate my own idea but she went on, briskly, ”That accident of yours was one of the luckiest things that ever happened to you, Steve.”

”How long have I been known to be a Mekstrom Carrier?” I asked bluntly.

”No more than three weeks before you met Catherine Lewis,” she told me as bluntly. ”It took the Medical Center that long to work her into a position to meet you, Steve.”

That put the icing on the cake. If nothing else, it explained why Catherine was here willingly. I didn't really believe it because no one can turn one hundred and eighty degrees without effort, but I couldn't deny the fact that the evidence fits the claim. If what Farrow said were true, my marriage to Catherine would have provided them with the same lever as the little blonde receptionist. The pile-up must have really fouled up their plans.

”It did, Steve,” said Farrow, who had been following my mental ramblings. ”The Highways had to step in and help. This fouled things up for both sides.”

”Both sides?” I asked, completely baffled.

She nodded. ”Until the accident, the Medical Center did not know that the Highways existed. But when Catherine dropped completely out of sight, Thornd.y.k.e did a fine job of probing you. That's when he came upon the scant evidence of the Highway Sign and the mental impression of the elder Harrison lifting the car so that Phillip could get you out. Then he knew, and--”

”Farrow,” I snapped, ”there are a lot of holes in your story. For instance--”