Highways in Hiding Part 46

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. Thornd.y.k.e'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 b.u.t.ton; 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 b.u.t.ton 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.