"Out, Steve," said Farrow, untangling herself from the steering wheel and the two attendants. "Out!"

"What next?" I asked her.

"We've made enough racket to wake the statue of Lincoln. Out and run for it."

"Which way?"

"Follow me!" she snapped, and took off. Even in nurse's shoes with those semi-heels, Farrow made time in a phenomenal way. I lost ground steadily. Luckily it was still early in the afternoon, so I used my perception to keep track of her once she got out of sight. She was following the gently rolling ground, keeping to the lower hollows and gradually heading toward a group of buildings off in the near-distance.

I caught up with her just as we hit a tiny patch of dead area; just inside the area she stopped and we flopped on the ground and panted our lungs full of nice biting cold air. Then she pointed at the collection of buildings and said, "Steve, take a few steps out of this deadness and take a fast dig. Look for cars."

I nodded; in a few steps I could send my esper forward to dig the fact that there were several cars parked in a row near one of the buildings.

I wasted no time in digging any deeper, I just retreated into the dead area and told her what I'd seen.

"Take another dig, Steve. Take a dig for ignition keys. We've got to steal."

"I don't mind stealing." I took another trip into the open section and gandered at ignition locks. I tried to memorize the ones with keys hanging in the locks but failed to remember all of them.

"Okay, Steve. This is where we walk in boldly and walk up to a couple of cars and get in and drive off."

"Yeah, but why--"

"That's the only way we'll ever get out of here," she told me firmly.

I shrugged. Farrow knew more about the Medical Center than I did. If that's the way she figured it, that's the way it had to be. We broke out of the dead area, and as we came into the open, Farrow linked her arm in mine and hugged it.

"Make like a couple of fatuous mushbirds," she chuckled. "We've been out walking and communing with nature and getting acquainted."

"Isn't the fact that you're Mekstrom and I'm human likely to cause some rather pointed comment?"

"It would if we were to stick around to hear it," she said. "And if they try to read our minds, all we have to do is to think nice mushy thoughts. Face it," she said quietly, "it won't be hard."

"Huh?"

"You're a rather nice guy, Steve. You're fast on the uptake, you're generally pleasant. You've got an awful lot of grit, guts and determination, Steve. You're no pinup boy, Steve, but--and this may come as a shock to you--women don't put one-tenth the stock in pulchritude that men do? You--"

"Hey. Whoa," I bubbled. "Slow down, before you--"

She hugged my arm again. "Steve," she said seriously, "I'm not in love with you. It's not possible for a woman to be in love with a man who does not return that love. You don't love me. But you can't help but admit that I am an attractive woman, Steve, and perhaps under other circ.u.mstances you'd take on a large load of that old feeling. I'll admit that the reverse could easily take place. Now, let's forget all the odd angles and start thinking like a pair of people for whom the time, the place, and the opposite s.e.x all turned up opportunely."

I couldn't help thinking of Nurse Farrow as--Nurse Farrow. The name Gloria did not quite come out. I tried to submerge this mental att.i.tude, and so I looked down at her with what I hoped to resemble the expression of a love-struck male. I think it was closer to the expression of a would-be little-theatre actor expressing l.u.s.t, and not quite making the grade. Farrow giggled.

But as I sort of leered down at her, I had to admit upon proper examination of her charm that Nurse Farrow could very easily become Gloria, if as she said, we had the time to let the change occur. Another idea formed in my mind: If Farrow had been kicked in the emotions by Thornd.y.k.e, I'd equally been pushed in the face by Catherine. That made us sort of kindred souls, as they used to call it in the early books of the Twentieth Century.

Gloria Farrow chuckled. "Unlike the old torch-carriers of that day," she said, "we rebound a bit too fast."

Then she let my arm go and took my hand. We went swinging across the field in a sort of happy comradeship; it must have looked as though we were long-term friends. She was a good egg, hurt and beaten down and shoved off by Thornd.y.k.e, but she had a lot of the good old bounce. Of a sudden impulse I wanted to kiss her.

"Go ahead, Steve," she said. "But it'll be for the probable onlookers.

I'm Mekstrom, you know."

So I didn't try. I just put an arm around her briefly and realized that any attempt at affection would be like trying to strike sparks off flint with a hunk of flannel.

We walked hand in hand towards the buildings, strolled up saucily towards two of the parked cars, made the sort of wave that lovers give one another in goodbye when they don't really want to demonstrate their affection before ten thousand people and stepped into two cars and took off.

Gloria Farrow was in the lead.

We went howling down the road, Farrow in the lead car by a hundred feet and me behind her. We went roaring around a curve, over a hill, and I had my perception out to its range, which was far ahead of her car. The main gate came into range, and we bore down upon that wire and steel portal like a pair of madmen.

Gloria Farrow plowed into the gate without letting up. The gate went whirling in pieces, gla.s.s flew and tires howled and bits of metal and plastic sang through the air. Her car weaved aside; I forgot the road ahead and put my perception into her car.

Farrow was fighting the wheel like a racing driver in a spin. Her hands wrenched the wheel with the swift strength of the Mekstrom Flesh she wore, and the wheel bent under her hands. Over and around she went, with a tire blown and the lower rail of the big gate hanging onto the fender like a dry-land sea-anchor. She juggled the wheel and made a snaky path off to one side of the road.

Out of the guardhouse came a uniformed man with a riot gun. He did not have time to raise it. Farrow ironed out her course and aimed the careening car dead center. She mowed the guard down and a half-thousandth of a second later she plowed into the guardhouse. The structure erupted like a box of stove-matches. .h.i.t with a heavy-caliber soft-nosed slug, like a house of cards and an air-jet. There was a roar and a small gout of flame and then out of the flying wreckage on the far side came Farrow and her stolen car. Out of the mess of brimstone and shingles she came, turning end for end in a crazy, metal-crushing twist and spin. She ground to a broken halt before the last of the debris landed, and then everything was silent.

And then for the first and only time in my life I felt the penetrant, forceful impact of an incoming thought; a mental contact from another mind:

#Steve!# it screamed in my mind, #Get out! Get going! It's your move now----#

I put my foot on the faucet and poured on the oil.

XXI

My car leaped forward and I headed along the outside road towards the nearby highway. Through the busted gate I roared, past the downed guard and the smashed guardhouse, past the wreck of Farrow's car.

But Nurse Farrow was not finished with this gambit yet. As I drew even with her, she pried herself out of the messy tangle and came across the field in a dead run--and how that girl could run! As fast as I was going, she caught up; as fast as it all happened I had too little time to slow me down before Nurse Farrow closed the intervening distance from her wreck to my car and had hooked her arm in through one open window.

My car lurched with the impact, but I fought the wheel straight again and Farrow snapped, "Keep going, Steve!"

I kept going; Farrow snaked herself inside and flopped into the seat beside me. "Now," she said, patting the dashboard of our car, "It's up to the both of us now! Don't talk, Steve. Just drive like crazy!"

"Where--?"

She laughed a weak little chuckle. "Anywhere--so long as it's a long, long way from here."

I nodded and settled down to some fancy mile-getting. Farrow relaxed in the seat, opened the glove compartment and took out a first aid kit. It was only then I noticed that she was banged up quite a bit for a Mekstrom. I'd not been too surprised when she emerged from the wreck; I'd become used to the idea of the indestructibility of the Mekstrom. I was a bit surprised at her being banged up; I'd become so used to their damage-proof hide that the idea of minor cuts, scars, mars, and abrasions hadn't occurred to me. Yes, that wreck would have mangled a normal man into an unrecognizable mess of hamburger. Yet I'd expected a Mekstrom to come through it unscathed.

On the other hand, the damage to Farrow's body was really minor. She bled from a long gash on her thigh, from a wound on her right arm, and from a myriad of little cuts on her face, neck, and shoulders.

So as I drove crazy-fast away from the Medical Center Nurse Farrow relaxed in the seat and applied adhesive tape, compresses, and closed the gashes with a batch of little skin clips in lieu of sutures. Then she lit two cigarettes and handed one of them to me. "Okay now, Steve,"

she said easily. "Let's drive a little less crazily."

I pulled the car down to a flat hundred and felt the strain go out of me.