Part 39 (2/2)

She nodded. ”Eventually I'll be a way station on the Highways, I suppose. Can you make it alone, Steve? Or would you rather wait until my parents are cured? You could still use a telepath, you know.”

”Think it's safe for me to wait?”

”It's been four months. Another week or two--?”

”All right. And in the meantime I'll practice getting along with this new body of mine.”

We left it there. I roamed the house with Farrow, helping her with her parents. I gradually learned how to control the power of my new muscles; learned how to walk among normal people without causing their attention; and one day succeeded in shaking hands with a storekeeper without giving away my secret.

Eventually Nurse Farrow's parents came out of their treatment and we spent another couple of days with them.

We left them too soon, I'm sure, but they seemed willing that we take off. They'd set up a telephone system for getting supplies so that they'd not have to go into town until they learned how to handle their bodies properly, and Farrow admitted that there was little more that we could do.

So we took off because we all knew that time was running out. Even though both sides had left us alone while I was immobilized, both sides must have a time-table good enough to predict my eventual cure. In fact, as I think about it now, both sides must have been waiting along the outer edges of some theoretical area waiting for me to emerge, since they couldn't come plowing in without giving away their purpose.

So we left in Farrow's car and once more hit the big broad road.

We drove towards Texas until we came upon a Highway, and then turned along it looking for a way station. I wanted to get in touch with the Highways. I wanted close communication with the Harrisons and the rest of them, no matter what. Eventually we came upon a Sign with a missing spoke and turned in.

The side road wound in and out, leading us back from the Highway towards the conventional dead area. The house was a white structure among a light thicket of trees, and as we came close to it, we met a man busily tilling the soil with a tractor plow.

Farrow stopped her car. I leaned out and started to call, but something stopped me.

”He is no Mekstrom, Steve,” said Farrow in a whisper.

”But this is a way station, according to the road sign.”

”I know. But it isn't, according to him. He doesn't know any more about Mekstrom's Disease than you did before you met Catherine.”

”Then what the devil is wrong?”

”I don't know. He's perceptive, but not too well trained. Name's William Carroll. Let me do the talking, I'll drop leading remarks for you to pick up.”

The man came over amiably. ”Looking for someone?” he asked cheerfully.

”Why, yes,” said Gloria. ”We're sort of mildly acquainted with the--Mannheims who used to live here. Sort of friends of friends of theirs, just dropped by to say h.e.l.lo, sort of,” she went on, covering up the fact that she'd picked the name of the former occupant out of his mind.

”The Mannheims moved about two months ago,” he said. ”Sold the place to us--we got a bargain. Don't really know, of course, but the story is that one of them had to move for his health.”

”Too bad. Know where they went?”

”No,” said Carroll regretfully. ”They seem to have a lot of friends.

Always stopping by, but I can't help 'em any.”

#So they moved so fast that they couldn't even change their Highway Sign?# I thought worriedly.

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