Highways in Hiding | Page 3

Steve. This will--"
"No! Not until I know--"
"Easy," he repeated. He held the needle up before my eyes. "Steve," he

said, "I don't know whether you have enough esper training to dig the
contents of this needle, but if you haven't, will you please trust me?
This contains a neurohypnotic. It won't put you under. It will leave you
as wide awake as you are now, but it will disconnect your running gear
and keep you from blowing a fuse." Then with swift deftness that
amazed me, the doctor slid the needle into my arm and let me have the
full load.
I was feeling the excitement rise in me because something was wrong,
but I could also feel the stuff going to work. Within half a minute I was
in a chilled-off frame of mind that was capable of recognizing the facts
but not caring much one way or the other.
When he saw the stuff taking hold, Thorndyke asked, "Steve, just who
is Catherine?"
The shock almost cut through the drug. My mind whirled with all the
things that Catherine was to me, and the doctor followed it every bit of
the way.
"Steve, you've been under an accident shock. There was no Catherine
with you. There was no one with you at all. Understand that and accept
it. No one. You were alone. Do you understand?"
I shook my head. I sounded to myself like an actor reading the script of
a play for the first time. I wanted to pound on the table and add the
vigor of physical violence to my hoarse voice, but all I could do was to
reply in a calm voice:
"Catherine was with me. We were--" I let it trail off because Thorndyke
knew very well what we were doing. We were eloping in the new
definition of the word. Rhine Institute and its associated studies had
changed a lot of customs; a couple intending to commit matrimony
today were inclined to take off quietly and disappear from their usual
haunts until they'd managed to get intimately acquainted with one
another. Elopement was a means of finding some personal privacy.
We should have stayed at home and faced the crude jokes that haven't

changed since Pithecanthropus first discovered that sex was funny. But
our mutual desire to find some privacy in this modern fish-bowl had
put me in the hospital and Catherine--where--?
"Steve, listen to me!"
"Yeah?"
"I know you espers. You're sensitive, maybe more so than telepaths.
More imagination--"
This was for the birds in my estimation. Among the customs that Rhine
has changed was the old argument as to whether women or men were
smarter. Now the big argument was whether espers or telepaths could
get along better with the rest of the world.
Thorndyke laughed at my objections and went on: "You're in accident
shock. You piled up your car. You begin to imagine how terrible it
would have been if your Catherine had been with you. Next you
carefully build up in your subconscious mind a whole and complete
story, so well put together that to you it seems to be fact."
But, #--how could anyone have taken a look at the scene of the accident
and not seen traces of woman? My woman.#
"We looked," he said in answer to my unspoken question. "There was
not a trace, Steve."
#Fingerprints?#
"You'd been dating her."
#Naturally!#
Thorndyke nodded quietly. "There were a lot of her prints on the
remains of your car. But no one could begin to put a date on them, or
tell how recent was the latest, due to the fire. Then we made a door to
door canvas of the neighborhood to be sure she hadn't wandered off in
a daze and shock. Not even a footprint. Nary a trace." He shook his

head unhappily. "I suppose you're going to ask about that travelling bag
you claim to have put in the trunk beside your own. There was no trace
of any travelling bag."
"Doctor," I asked pointedly, "if we weren't together, suppose you tell
me first why I had a marriage license in my pocket; second, how come
I made a date with the Reverend Towle in Midtown; and third, why did
I bother to reserve the bridal suite in the Reignoir Hotel in Westlake?
Or was I nuts a long time before this accident. Maybe," I added, "after
making reservations, I had to go out and pile myself up as an excuse for
not turning up with a bride."
"I--all I can say is that there was not a trace of woman in that accident."
"You've been digging in my mind. Did you dig her telephone number?"
He looked at me blankly.
"And you found what, when you tried to call her?"