The bailiff repeated, "Come along, Cornell." Then he added sourly, "Or I'll have to slip the cuffs on you."

I turned with a helpless shrug. I'd tried to lick 'em and I'd tried to join 'em and I'd failed both. Then, as of this instant when I might have been able to go join 'em, I was headed for the wrong side as soon as I opened my big yap. And if I didn't yelp, I was a dead one anyway. Sooner or later someone in the local jug would latch on to my condition and pack me off to Scholar Phelps' Medical Center.

Once more I was in a situation where all I could do was to play it by ear, wait for a break, and see if I could make something out of it.

But before I could take more than a step or two toward the big door, someone in the back of the courtroom called out:

"Your Honor, I have some vital information in this case."

His Honor looked up across the court with a great amount of irritation showing in his face. His voice rasped, "Indeed?"

I whirled, shocked.

Suavely, Dr. Thorndyke strode down the aisle. He faced the judge and explained who he was and why, then he backed it up with a wallet full of credentials, cards, identification, and so forth. The judge looked the shebang over sourly but finally nodded agreement. Thorndyke smiled self-confidently and then went on, facing me:

"It would be against my duty to permit you to incarcerate this miscreant," he said smoothly. "Because Mr. Cornell has Mekstrom's Disease!"

Everybody faded back and away from me as though he'd announced me to be the carrier of plague. They looked at me with horror and disgust on their faces, a couple of them began to wipe their hands with handkerchiefs; one guy who'd been standing where I'd dropped my little patch of Mekstrom Flesh backed out of that uncharmed circle. Some of the spectators left hurriedly.

His Honor paled. "You're certain?" he demanded of Dr. Thorndyke.

"I'm certain. You'll note the blood on his finger; Cornell recently picked off a patch of Mekstrom Flesh no larger than the head of a pin. It was his first sign." The doctor went on explaining, "Normally this early seizure would be difficult to detect, except from a clinical examination. But since I am telepath and Cornell has perception, his own mind told me he was aware of his sorry condition. One only need read his mind, or to dig at the tiny bit of Mekstrom Flesh that he dropped to your floor."

The judge eyed me nastily. "Maybe I should add a charge of contaminating a courtroom," he muttered. He was running his eyes across the floor from me to wherever I'd been, trying to locate the little patch. I helped him by not looking at it. The rest of the court faded back from me still farther. I could hardly have been less admired if I'd been made of pure cyanide gas.

The judge rapped his gavel sharply. "I parole this prisoner in the custody of Dr. Thorndyke, who as a representative of the Medical Center will remove the prisoner to that place where the proper treatment awaits him."

"Now see here—" I started. But His Honor cut me off.

"You'll go as I say," he snapped. "Unfortunately, the Law does not permit me to enjoy any cruel or unusual punishments, or I'd insist upon your ninety-day sentence and watch you die painfully. I—Bailiff! Remove this menace before I forget my position here and find myself in contempt of the law I have sworn to uphold. I cannot be impartial before a man who contaminates my Court with the world's most dangerous disease!"

I turned to Thorndyke. "All right," I grunted. "You win."

He smiled again; I wanted to wipe that smile away with a set of knuckles but I knew that all I'd get would be a broken hand against Thorndyke's stone-hard flesh. "Now, Mr. Cornell," he said with that clinical smoothness, "let's not get the old standard attitude."

"Nearly everybody who contracts Mekstrom's Disease," he said to the judge, "takes on a persecution complex as soon as he finds out that he has it. Some of them have even accused me of fomenting some big fantastic plot against them. Please, Mr. Cornell," he went on facing me, "we'll give you the best of treatment that Medical Science knows."

"Yeah," I grunted.

His Honor rapped on the gavel once more. "Officer Gruenwald," he snapped, "you will accompany the prisoner and Dr. Thorndyke to the Medical Center and having done that you will return to report to me that you have accomplished your mission."

Then the judge glared around, rapped once more, and cried, "Case Finished. Next Case!"

I felt almost as sorry for the next guy coming in as I felt for myself. His Honor was going to be one tough baby for some days to come. As they escorted me out, a janitor came in and began to swab the floor where I'd been standing. He was using something nicely corrosive that made the icy, judicial eyes water, all of which discomfort was likely to be added to the next law-breaker's sorry lot.

---

I was in fine company. Thorndyke was a telepath and Officer Gruenwald was perceptive. They went as a team and gave me about as much chance to escape as if I'd been a horned toad sealed in a cornerstone. Gruenwald, of course, treated me as though my breath was deadly, my touch foul, and my presence evil. In Gruenwald's eyes, the only difference between me and Medusa the Gorgon was that looking at me did not turn him to stone. He kept at least one eye on me almost constantly.

I could almost perceive Thorndyke's amusement. With the best of social amenities, he could hardly have spent a full waking day in the company of either a telepath or a perceptive without giving away the fact that he was Mekstrom. But with me to watch over, Officer Gruenwald's mental attention was not to be turned aside to take an impolite dig at his companion. Even if he had, Thorndyke would have been there quickly to turn his attention aside.

I've read the early books that contain predictions of how we are supposed to operate. The old boys seemed to have the quaint notion that a telepath should be able at once to know everything that goes on everywhere, and a perceptive should be aware of everything material about him. There should be no privacy. There was to be no defense against the mental peeping Tom.

It ain't necessarily so. If Gruenwald had taken a dig at Thorndyke's hide, the doctor would have speared the policeman with a cold, indignant eye and called him for it. Of course, there was no good reason for Gruenwald to take a dig at Thorndyke and so he didn't.

So I went along with the status quo and tried to think of some way to break it up.

An hour later I was still thinking, and the bleeding on my finger had stopped. Mekstrom Flesh had covered the raw spot with a thin, stone-hard plate that could not be separated visually from the rest of my skin.

"As a perceptive," observed Dr. Thorndyke in a professional tone, "you'll notice the patch of infection growing on Mr. Cornell's finger. The rate of growth seems normal; I'll have to check it accurately once I get him to the clinic. In fifty or sixty hours, Mr. Cornell's finger will be solid to the first joint. In ninety days his arm will have become as solid as the arm of a marble statue."

I interjected, "And what do we do about it?"

He moved his head a bit and eyed me in the rear view mirror. "I hope we can help you, Cornell," he said in a tone of sympathy that was definitely intended to impress Officer Gruenwald with his medical appreciation of the doctor's debt to humanity. "I sincerely hope so. For in doing so, we will serve the human race. And," he admitted with an entirely human-sounding selfishness, "I may be able to deliver a thesis on the cure that will qualify me for my scholarate."

I took a fast stab: "Doctor, how does my flesh differ from yours?"

Thorndyke parried this attention-getting question: "Mine is of no consequence. Dig your own above and below the line of infection, Cornell. If your sense of perception has been trained fine enough, dig the actual line of infection and watch the molecular structure rearrange. Can you dig that fine, Officer? Cornell, I hate to dwell at length upon your misfortune, but perhaps I can help you face it by bringing the facts to light."

#Like the devil you hate to dwell, Doctor Mekstrom!#

In the rear view mirror, his lips parted in a bland smile and one eyelid dropped in a knowing wink.

I opened my mouth to make another stab in the open but Thorndyke got there first. "Officer Gruenwald," he suggested, "you can help by putting out your perception along the road ahead and seeing how it goes. I'd like to make tracks with this crate."

Gruenwald nodded.

Thorndyke put the goose-pedal down and the car took off with a howl of passing wind. He said with a grin, "It isn't very often that I get a chance to drive like this, but as long as I've an officer with me—"

He was above one forty by the time he let his voice trail off.

I watched the back of their heads for a moment. At this speed, Thorndyke would have both his mind and his hands full and the cop would be digging at the road as far ahead as his perception could dig a clear appreciation of the road and its hazards. Thorndyke's telepathy would be occupied in taking this perception and using it. That left me free to think.

I cast a dig behind me, as far behind me as my perception would reach. Nothing.

I thought furiously. It resulted in nothing.

I needed either a parachute or a full set of Mekstrom Hide to get out of this car now. With either I might have taken a chance and jumped. But as it was, the only guy who could scramble out of this car was Dr. James Thorndyke.

I caught his dropping eyelid in the rear view mirror again and swore at him under my breath.

Time, and miles, went past. One after the other, very fast. We hissed through towns where the streets had been opened for us and along broad stretches of highway and between cars and trucks running at normal speeds. One thing I must say for Thorndyke: He was almost as good a driver as I.

---

My second arrival at the Medical Center was rather quiet. I went in the service entrance, so to speak, and didn't get a look at the enamelled blonde at the front portal. They whiffed me in at a broad gate that was opened by a flunky and we drove for another mile through the grounds far from the main road. We ended up in front of a small brick building and as we went through the front office into a private place, Thorndyke told a secretary that she should prepare a legal receipt for my person. I did not like being bandied about like a hunk of merchandise, but nobody seemed to care what I thought. It was all very fast and efficient. I'd barely seated myself and lit a cigarette when the nurse came in with the document which Thorndyke signed, she witnessed, and was subsequently handed to Officer Gruenwald.

"Is there any danger of me—er—contracting—" he faltered uncertainly to Dr. Thorndyke.

"You'll notice that—" I started to call attention to Thorndyke's calmness at being in my presence and was going to invite Gruenwald to take a dig at the doctor's hide, but once more the doctor blocked me.

"None of us have ever found any factor of contagion," he said. "And we live among Mekstrom Cases. You'll notice Miss Clifton's lack of concern."

Miss Clifton, the nurse, turned a calm face to the policeman and gave him her hand. Miss Clifton had a face and a figure that was enough to make a man forget anything. She knew her part very well; together, the nurse and the policeman left the office together and I wondered just why a non-Mekstrom would have anything to do with an outfit like this.

Thorndyke smiled and said, "I won't tell you, Steve. What you don't know won't hurt anybody."

"Mind telling me what I'm slated for? The high jump? Going to watch me writhing in pain as my infection climbs toward my vitals? Going to amputate? Or are you going to cut it off inch by inch and watch me suffer?"

"Steve, some things you know already. One, that you are a carrier. There have been no other carriers. We'd like to know what makes you a carrier."

#The laboratory again?# I thought.

He nodded. "Also whether your final contraction of Mekstrom's Disease removes the carrier-factor."

I said hopefully, "I suppose as a Mekstrom I'll eventually be qualified to join you?"

Thorndyke looked blank. "Perhaps," he said flatly.

To my mind, that flat perhaps was the same sort of reply that Mother used to hand me when I wanted something that she did not want to give. I'd been eleven before I got walloped across the bazoo by pointing out to her that we'll see really meant no, because nothing that she said it to ever came to pass.

"Look, Thorndyke, let's take off our shoes and stop dancing," I told him. "I have a pretty good idea of what's been going on. I'd like an honest answer to what's likely to go on from here."

"I can't give you that."

"Who can?"

He said nothing, but he began to look at me as though I weren't quite bright. That made two of us, I was looking at him in the same manner.

My finger itched a bit, saving the situation. I'd been about to forget that Thorndyke was a Mekstrom and take a swing at him.

He laughed at me cynically. "You're in a very poor position to dictate terms," he said sharply.

"All right," I agreed reluctantly. "So I'm a prisoner. I'm also under a sentence of death. Don't think me unreasonable if I object to it."

"The trouble with your thinking is that you expect all things to be black or white and so defined. You ask me, 'am I going to live or die?' and expect me to answer without qualification. I can only tell you that I don't know which. That it all depends."

"Depends upon exactly what?"

He eyed me with a cold stare. "Whether you're worthy of living."

"Who's to decide?"

"We will."

I grunted, wishing that I knew more Latin. I wanted to quote that Latin platitude about who watches the watchers. He watched me narrowly, and I expected him to quote me the phrase after having read my mind. But apparently the implication of the phrase did not appeal to him, and so he remained silent.

I broke the silence by saying, "What right has any man or collection of men to decide whether I, or anyone else, has the right to live or die?"

"It's done all the time," he replied succinctly.

"Yeah?"

"Criminals are—"

"I'm not a criminal; I've violated no man-made law. I've not even violated very many of the Ten Commandments. At least, not the one that is punishable by death."

He was silent for a moment again, then he said, "Steve, you're the victim of loose propaganda."

"Who isn't?" I granted. "The entire human race is lambasted by one form of propaganda or another from the time the infant learns to sit up until the elderly lays down and dies. We're all guilty of loose thinking. My own father, for instance, had to quit school before he could take any advanced schooling, had to fight his way up, had to collect his advanced education by study, application, and hard practice. He always swore that this long period of hardship strengthened his will and his character and gave him the guts to go out and do things that he'd never have thought of if he'd had an easy life. Then the old duck turns right around and swears that he'll never see any son of his take the bumps as he took them."

"That's beside the point, Steve. I know what sort of propaganda you've been listening to. It's the old do-good line; the everything for anybody line; the no man must die alone line."

"Is it bad?"

Dr. Thorndyke shrugged. "You've talked about loose propaganda," he said. "Well, in this welter of loose propaganda, every man had at least the opportunity of choosing which line of guff he intends to adhere to. I'm even willing to admit that there is both right and wrong on both sides. Are you?"

I stifled a sour grin. "I shouldn't, because it is a mistake in any political argument to even let on that the other guy is slightly more than an idiot. But as an engineer, I'll admit it."

"Now that's a help," he said more cheerfully. "You're objecting, of course, to the fact that we are taking the right to pick, choose, and select those people that we think are more likely to be of good advantage to the human race. You've listened to that old line about the hypothetical cataclysm that threatens the human race, and how would you choose the hundred people who are supposed to carry on. Well, have you ever eyed the human race in slightly another manner?"

"I wouldn't know," I told him. "Maybe."

"Have you ever watched the proceedings of one of those big trials where some conkpot has blown the brains out of a half-dozen citizens by pointing a gun and emptying it at a crowd? If you have, you've been appalled by the sob sisters and do-gooders who show that the vicious character was momentarily off his toggle. We mustn't execute a nut, no matter how vicious he is. We've got to protect him, feed him, and house him for the next fifty years. Now, not only is he doing Society absolutely no damned good while he's locked up for fifty years, he's also eating up his share of the standard of living. Then to top this off, so long as this nut is alive, there is the danger that some soft-hearted fathead will succeed in getting him turned loose once more."

"Agreed," I said. "But you're again talking about criminals, which I don't think applies in my case."

"No, of course not," he said quickly. "I used it to prove to you that this is one way of looking at a less concrete case. Carry this soft headed thinking a couple of steps higher. Medical science has made it possible for the human race to dilute its strength. Epileptics are saved to breed epileptics; haemophiliacs are preserved, neurotics are ironed out, weaknesses of all kinds are kept alive to breed their strain of weakness."

"Just what has this to do with me and my future?" I asked.

"Quite a lot. I'm trying to make you agree that there are quite a lot of undeserving characters here on Earth."

"Did I ever deny it?" I asked him pointedly, but he took it as not including present company.

But I could see where Thorndyke was heading. First eliminate the lice on the body politic. Okay, so I am blind and cannot see the sense of incarcerating a murderer that has to be fed, clothed, and housed at my expense for the rest of his natural life. Then for the second step we get rid of weaklings, both physical and mental. I'll call Step Two passably okay, but—? Number Three includes grifters, beggars, bums, and guys out for the soft touch and here I begin to wonder. I've known some entertaining grifters, beggars, and bums; a few of them chose their way of life for their own, just as I became a mechanical engineer.

The trouble with this sort of philosophy is that it starts off with an appeal to justice and logic (I'm quoting myself), but it quickly gets dangerous. Start knocking off the bilge-scum. Then when the lowest strata of society is gone, start on the next. Carry this line of reasoning out to straight Aristotelian Logic and you come up with parties like you and me, who may have been quite acceptable when compared to the whole cross-section of humanity, but who now have no one but his betters to compete with.

I had never reasoned this out before, but as I did right there and then, I decided that Society cannot draw lines nor assume a static pose. Society must move constantly, either in one direction or the other. And while I object to paying taxes to support some rattlehead for the rest of his natural life, I'd rather have it that way than to have someone start a trend of bopping off everybody who has not the ability to absorb the educational level of the scholar. Because, if the trend turned upward instead of downward, that's where the dividing line would end.

Anarchy at one end, is as bad as tyranny at the other—

"I'm sorry you cannot come to a reasonable conclusion," said Dr. Thorndyke. "If you cannot see the logic of—"

I cut him off short. "Look, Doc," I snapped, "If you can't see where your line of thinking ends, you're in bad shape."

He looked superior. "You're sour because you know you haven't got what it takes."

I almost nipped. "You're so damned dumb that you can't see that in any society of supermen, you'd not be qualified to clean out ash trays," I tossed back at him.

He smiled self-confidently. "By the time they start looking at my level—if they ever do—you'll have been gone long ago. Sorry, Cornell. You don't add up."

Well, that was nothing I didn't know already. In his society, I was a nonentity. Yet, somehow, if that's what the human race was coming to under the Thorndyke's and the Phelps', I didn't care to stay around.

"All right," I snapped. "Which way do I go from here? The laboratory, or will you dispense with the preliminaries and let me take the high slide right now before this—" I held up my infected finger, "gets to the painful stages."

With the air and tone of a man inspecting an interesting specimen impaled on a mounting pin, Thorndyke replied:

"Oh—we have use for the likes of you."

---