I was yards away from my door before my panic left me. Then I remembered where and who I was and took a fast look around. There was no one else in the corridor, of course, or I would not have been able to cut and run as I had. But I looked around anyway until my reasoning power told me that I had done little to help my position.

Like the canary, my plans for escape ended once I was outside of my cage. I literally did not know what to do with my new-found freedom. One thing was becoming painfully obvious: I'd be pinned down tight once I put a foot outside of the dead area in which this building was constructed. What I needed was friends, arms, ammunition, and a good, solid plan of escape. I had neither; unless you call my jailed friends such help. And there I could not go; the tell-tales would give me away to the master control center before I could raise my small—and unarmed—army.

So I stood there in the brightly lighted corridor and tried to think. I got nowhere, but I was driven to action again by the unmistakable sound of the elevator at the end of the corridor.

I eyed the various cell doors with suspicion; opening any but an empty room would cause some comment from the occupant, which again would give me away. Nor did I have time to canvass the joint by peeking into the one-way bull's eyes, peering into a semi-gloom to see which room was empty.

So instead of hiding in the corridor, I sloped towards the elevator and the stairwell that surrounded it, hoping that I could make it before the elevator rose to my floor.

I know that my passage must have sounded like a turbojet in full flight, but I made the stairway and took a headlong leap down the first short flight of stairs just as the elevator door rolled open. I hit the wall with a bumping crash that jarred my senses, but I kept my feet and looked back up the stairs.

I caught a flash of motion; a guard sauntering past the top of the well, a cigarette in one hand and a lazy-looking air about him. He was expecting no trouble, and so I gave him none.

I crept up the stairs and poked my head out just at the floor level.

The guard, obviously confident that nothing, but nothing, could ever happen in this welded metal crib, jauntily peered into a couple of the rooms at random, took a long squint at the room I'd recently vacated, and then went on to the end of the hall where he stuck a key in a signal-box. On his way back he paused again to peer into my room, straining to see if he could peer past the little shutter over the bull's eye. Then he shrugged unhappily, and started to return.

I loped down the stairs to the second floor and waited. The elevator came down, stopped, and the guard repeated his desultory search, not stopping to pry into any darkened rooms.

Just above the final, first-floor flight, I stopped and sprawled on the floor with only my head and the nose of my gun over the top step. Below was the guard's desk and standing beside the desk with anger in every line of his ugly face was Scholar Phelps!

The elevator came down, stopped, and the guard walked out, to be nailed by Phelps.

"Your job," snapped the good Scholar coldly, "says you are to walk."

"Well, er—sir—it's—"

"Walk!" stormed Phelps angrily. "You can't cover that stairway in the elevator, you fumbling idiot."

"But, sir—"

"Someone could easily come down while you go up."

"I know that, sir, but—"

"Then why do you disobey?" roared Phelps.

"Well, you see, sir, I know how this place is built and no one has ever made it yet. Who could?" The guard looked mystified.

Phelps had to face that fact. He did not accept it gracefully. "My orders are orders," he said stiffly. "You'll follow them. To the last letter."

"Yes sir. I will."

"See that you do. Now, I'm going up. I'll ride and you walk. Meet me on the fourth and bring the elevator down with you."

"Yessir."

I sloped upstairs like a scared rabbit. Up to the third again where I moved down the corridor and slipped into the much-too-thin niche made by a door. Stolidly the guard came up the stairs, crossed in front of the elevator with his back to me, turned the far corner and went on up to the fourth.

As his feet started up the stairs, I was behind him; by the time he reached the top, I was half way up.

Phelps said, "Now, from this moment on, Waldron, you'll follow every order to the absolute letter. And when I ring, don't make the error of bringing the elevator. Send it. It'll come up and stop without a pilot."

"Yes sir. I'm sorry sir. But you understand, sir, there isn't really much to guard, sir."

"Then guard nothing. But guard it well, because a man in your position is gauged in success by the amount of boredom he creates for himself."

The guard started down and I darted up to poke my head out to see where Phelps was going. As I neared the floor level, I had a shock like someone hurling twenty gallons of ice water in my face. The top floor was the end of the dead area, and I—

—pulled my head down into the murk like a diver taking a plunge.

So I stood there making like a guppy with my head, sounding out the boundary of that deadness, ducking down as soon as the mental murk gave me a faint perception of the wall and ceiling above me. Then I'd move aside and sound it again. Eventually I found a little billowing furrow that rose above the floor level and I crawled out along the floor, still sounding and moving cautiously with my body hidden in the deadness that rose and fell like a cloud of murky mental smoke to my sense of perception.

I would have looked silly to any witness; wallowing along the floor like a porpoise acting furtive in the bright lights.

But then I couldn't go any farther; the deadness sank below the floor level and left me looking along a bare floor that was also bare to my sense of perception.

I shoved my head out of the dead zone and took a fast dig, then dropped back in again and lay there re-constructing what I'd perceived mentally. I did it the second time and the third, each time making a rapid scan of some portion of that fourth floor.

In three fast swings, I collected a couple of empty offices, a very complete hospital set-up operating room, and a place that looked like a consultation theatre.

On my fourth scan, I whipped past Scholar Phelps, who was apparently deep in some personal interest.

I rose at once and strode down the hall and snapped the door open just as Phelps' completely unexpecting mind grasped the perceptive fact that someone was coming down his hallway wearing a great big forty five automatic.

"Freeze!" I snapped.

"Put that weapon down, Mr. Cornell. It, nor its use, will get your freedom."

"Maybe all I want out of life is to see you leave it," I told him.

"You'd not be that foolish, I'm sure," he said.

"I might."

He laughed, with all the self-confidence in the world. "Mr. Cornell, you have too much will to live. You're not the martyr type."

"I might turn out to be the cornered-rat type," I told him seriously. "So play it cagey, Phelps."

"Scholar Phelps, please."

"I wouldn't disgrace the medical profession," I told him. "So—"

"So what do you propose to do about this?"

"I'm getting out."

"Don't be ridiculous. One step out of this building and you'll return within a half minute. How did you get out?"

"I was seduced out. Now—"

"I'd advise you to surrender; to stop this hopeless attempt; to put that weapon down. You cannot escape. There are, in this building, your mental and intellectual superiors whose incarceration bear me witness."

I eyed him coldly and quietly. "I'm not convinced. I'm out. And if you could take a dig below you'd see a dead man and an unconscious woman to bear me witness. I broke your Dr. Thorndyke's neck with a chop of my bare hand, Phelps; I knocked Catherine cold with a fist. This thing might not kill you, but I'm a Mekstrom, too, and so help me I can cool you down but good."

"Violence will get you nothing."

"Try my patience. I'll bet my worthless hide on it." Then I grinned at him. "Oh, it isn't so worthless, is it?"

"One cry from me, Mr. Cornell, and—"

"And you'll not live to see what happens. I've killed once tonight. I didn't like it. But the idea is not as new now as it was then. I'll kill you, Phelps, if for no other reason than merely to keep my word."

With a sneer, Phelps turned to his desk and I stabbed my perception behind the papers and stuff to the call button; then I launched myself across the room like a rocket, swinging my gun hand as I soared. The steel caught him on the side of the head and drove him back from his call button before his finger could press it. Then I let him have a fist in the belly because the pistol swat hadn't much more than dazed him. The fist did it. He crumpled in a heap and fought for breath unconsciously.

I turned to the wall he'd been eyeing with so much attention.

There was row upon row of small kine tubes, each showing the dark interior of a cell. Below each was a row of pilot lights, all dark.

On his desk was a large bank of push buttons, a speaker, and a microphone. And beside the push button set-up was a ledger containing a list of names with their cell numbers.

I found Marian Harrison; pushed her button, and heard her ladylike snore from the speaker. A green lamp winked under one of the kine tubes and I walked over and looked into the darkened cell to see her familiar hair sprawled over a thick pillow.

I went to the desk and snapped on the microphone.

"Marian," I said. "MARIAN! HEY! MARIAN HARRISON!"

In the picture tube there was a stir, then she sat up and looked around in a sort of daze.

"Marian, this is Steve Cornell, but don't—"

"Steve!"

"—cry out," I finished uselessly.

"Where are you?" she asked in a whisper.

"I'm in the con room."

"But how on Earth—?"

"No time to gab. I'll be down in a rush with the key. Get dressed!"

"Yes, Steve."

I took off in a headlong rush with the 'Hotel Register' in one hand. I made the third floor and Marian's cell in slightly more than nothing flat, but she was ready when I came barging into her room. She was out of the cell before it hit the backstop and following me down the hall towards her brother's room.

"What happened?" she asked breathlessly.

"Later," I told her. I opened Phillip Harrison's cell. "You go wake up Fred Macklin and tell him to come here. Then get the Macklin girl—Alice, it says here—and the pair of you wake up others and start sending 'em up stairs. I'll call you on the telltale as soon as I can."

Marian took off with the key and the register and I started to shake Phillip Harrison's shoulder. "Wake up!" I cried. "Wake up, Phillip!"

Phillip made a noise like a baby seal.

"Wake up!"

"Wha—?"

"It's Steve Cornell. Wake up!"

With a rough shake of his head, Phillip groaned and unwound himself out of a tangle of bedclothing. He looked at me through half-closed glassy eyes. Then he straightened and made a perilous course to the washstand where he sopped a towel in cold water and applied it to his face, neck, and shoulders. When he dropped the towel in the sink, his expression was fresher and his eyes were mingled curiosity and amazement.

"What gives?" he asked, starting to dress in a hurry.

"I busted out, slugged Scholar Phelps, and took over the master control room. I need help. We can't keep it long unless we move fast."

"Yeah man. Any moving will be fast," he said sourly. "Got any plans?"

"We've—"

The door opened to let Fred Macklin enter. He carried his shirt and had been dressing on the run. "What goes on?" he asked.

"Look," I said quickly. "If I have to stop and give anybody a rundown, we'll have no time to do what has to be done. There are a couple of sources of danger. One is the guard down at the bottom of the stairway. The other is the possible visitor. You get a couple of other young, ambitious fellows and push that guard post over, but quick."

"Right. And you?"

"I've got to keep our hostage cold," I snapped. "And I'm running the show by virtue of being the guy that managed to bust loose."

In the hallway there was movement, but I left it to head back to Scholar Phelps. I got there in time to hear him groan and make scratching noises on the carpet. I took no chances; I cooled him down with a short jab to the pit of the stomach and doubled him over again.

He was sleeping painfully but soundlessly when Marian came in.

I turned to her. "You're supposed to be waking up—"

"I gave the key and the register to Jo Anne Tweedy," she said. "Jo Anne's the brash young teenager you took a bump with in Ohio. She's competent, Steve. And she's got the Macklin twins to help her. Waking up the camp is a job for the junior division." She eyed the recumbent Phelps distastefully. "What have you in mind for him?"

"He's valuable," I said. "We'll use him to buy our freedom."

The door opened again, interrupting Marian. It was Jonas Harrison. He stood there in the frame of the door and looked at us with a sort of grim smile. I had never met the old patriarch of the Harrison Family before, but he lived up to my every expectation. He stood tall and straight; topped by a wealth of snow white hair, white eyebrows, and the touch of a white moustache. His eyes contrasted with the white; a rich and startling brown.

This was a man to whom I could hand the basic problem of engineering our final escape; Jonas Harrison was capable of plotting an airtight getaway.

His voice was rich and resonant; it had a lift in its tone that sounded as though his self-confidence had never been in danger of a set-back: "Well, son, you seem to have accomplished quite a job this night. What shall we do next?"

"Get the devil out of here," I replied—

—wondering just exactly how I'd known so instantly that this was Jonas Harrison. The rich and resonant voice had flicked a subsurface recollection on a faint, raw spot and now something important was swimming around in the mire of my mind trying to break loose and come clear.

I turned from the sword-sharp brown eyes and looked at Marian. She was almost as I had first seen her: Not much make-up if any at all, her hair free of fancy dressing but neat, her legs were bare and healthy-tanned.

I looked at her, and for a half dozen heartbeats her image faded from my sight, replaced by the well remembered figure of Catherine as I had known her first. It was a dizzy-making montage because my perception senses the real figure of Marian, superimposed on the visual memory-image of Catherine. Then the false sight faded and both perception and eyesight focused upon the true person of Marian Harrison.

Marian stood there, her face softly proud. Her eyes were looking straight into mine, as if she were mentally urging me to fight that hidden memory into full recollection.

Then I both saw and perceived something that I had never noticed before. A fine golden chain hung around her throat, its pendant hidden from sight beneath the edge of her bodice. But my sense of perception dug a modest diamond, and I could even dig the tiny initials engraved in the metal circlet:

To dig anything that fine, I knew that it must be of importance to me. And then I knew that it had once been so very personally my own business, for the submerged recollection came bursting up to the top of my mind. Marian Henderson had been mine once long ago!

Boldly I stepped forward and took the chain between my fingers. I snapped it, and held the ring. "Will you wear it again, my dear?"

She held up her left hand for me to slip it on. "Steve," she breathed, "I've never stopped wearing it, not really."

"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 association. 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 fiancÉe 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