"But I didn"t see it until now--"
Jonas Harrison said, "No, Steve, you couldn"t see it until you remembered."
"But look--"
"Blame me," he said in his firm determined voice. "The story begins and ends with you, Steve. When Marian contracted Mekstrom"s Disease, she herself insisted that you be spared the emotional pain that the rest of us could not avoid. So I erased her from your mind, Steve, and submerged any former a.s.sociation. Then when the Highways in Hiding came to take us in, I left it that way because Marian was still as unattainable to you as if she were dead. If an apology is needed, I"ll only ask that you forgive my tampering with your mind and personality."
"Apologize?" I exploded. "I"m here, we"re here, and you"ve just provided me with a way out of this mousetrap!"
"A way out?" he murmured, in that absent way that telepaths have when they"re concentrating on another mind. Fast comprehension dawned in the sharp brown eyes and he looked even more self-confident and determined.
Marian leaned back in my arms to look into my eyes. "Steve," she cried, "it"s simply got to work!" Gloria Farrow merely said, "He"ll have to have medication, of course," and went briskly to a wall cabinet and began to fiddle with medical tools. Howard Macklin and Jonas Harrison went into a deep telepathic conference that was interrupted only when Jonas Harrison turned to Phillip to say, "You"ll have to provide us with uninterrupted time, somehow."
Marian disengaged herself reluctantly and started to propel me out of the room. "Go help him, Steve. What we are going to do is not for any non-telepath to watch."
Outside, Phillip threatened me with the guard"s signal-box key. "Mind telling a non-telepath what the devil you cooked up?"
I smiled. "If your father has the mental power to erase Marian from my mind, he also has the power to do a fine reorientation job on Scholar Phelps. Once we get the spiderwebs cleaned out of the top dog, we start down the pyramid, line by line and echelon by echelon, with each reoriented recruit adding to our force. Once we get this joint operating on the level, we can all go to work for the rest of the human race!"
There is little left to tell. The Medical Center and the Highways in Hiding are one agency dedicated to the conquest of the last and most puzzling of the diseases and maladies that beset Mankind. We are no closer to a solution than we ever were, and so I am still a very busy man.
I have written this account and disclosed our secret because we want no more victims of Mekstrom"s Disease to suffer.
So I will write finish with one earnest plea and one ray of hope:
Please do not follow one of our Highways unless you are already infected. Since I cannot hope to inoculate the entire human race, and will not pick or choose certain worthy types for special attention, I will deal only with those folks who find Mekstrom"s Disease among their immediate family. Such people need never be parted from their loved ones. The rest of you will have to wait your turn.
But we"ll get to it sooner or later. Thirty days ago, Steve, Junior, was born. He"s a healthy little Mekstrom, and like his pappy, Steve Junior is a carrier, too.
[Transcriber"s note: Back cover]
QUEST IMPOSSIBLE
Someone had stolen an important part of Steve Cornell"s life.
It was bad enough when his fiancee vanished. It was infinitely worse when everyone in the world insisted it couldn"t have happened the way he knew it had.
In a world where ESP and telepathy were normal, it was difficult to keep secrets. But Steve"s search for his missing sweetheart brought him to the threshold of one of the greatest secrets of all time. And it was obvious that somebody would stop at nothing to keep him from uncovering it.
What were the oddly sinister symbols along otherwise ordinary roads?
What was behind the spreading plague called Mekstrom"s Disease? Why were there "blank" spots where telepathy didn"t work? Who was the elusive enemy with powers even beyond those ESP had bestowed on mankind?
And, most important of all ... could Steve find that enemy before they made him vanish too?
A Lancer Book Never Before Complete In Paperback