The man who had told him to come along moved closer and took his arm. Don shook it off. The leader stopped any further action by his men with a very slight gesture. "Don Harvey-"
"Huh? Yes?"
"I could give you a number of answers to that. One of them is this-" He displayed a badge in the palm of his hand. "But that might be faked. Or, if I cared to take time, I could satisfy you with stamped pieces of paper, all proper and legalistic and signed with important names." Don noticed that his voice was gentle and cultured.
"But it happens that I am tired and in a hurry and don't want to be bothered playing word games with young punks. So let it stand that there are four of us all armed. So-will you go quietly, or would you rather be slapped around a bit and dragged?"
Don was about to answer with school-game bravado; Dr. Jefferson cut in. "Do as they ask you, Donald!"
He closed his mouth and followed the subordinate on back. The man led him into the bedroom and closed the door. "Sit down," he said pleasantly. Don did not move. His guard came up, placed a palm against his chest and pushed. Don sat down.
The man touched a button at the bed's control panel, causing it to lift to the reading position, then lay down. He appeared to go to sleep, but every time Don looked at him the man's eyes met his. Don strained his ears, trying to hear what was going on in the front room, but he need not have bothered; the room, being a sleeping room, was fully soundproof.
So he sat there and fidgeted, trying to make sense out of preposterous things that had happened to him. He recalled almost with unbelief that it had been only this morning that Lazy and he had started out to climb Peddler's Grave. He wondered what Lazy was doing now and whether the greedy little rascal missed him.
Probably not, he admitted mournfully.
He slid a glance at the guard, while wondering whether or not, if he gathered himself together, drawing his feet as far under him as he could-- '
The guard shook his head. "Don't do it," he advised.
"Don't to what?"
"Don't try to jump me. You might hurry me and then you might get hurt bad." The man appeared to go back to sleep.
Don slumped into apathy. Even if he did manage to jump this one, slug him maybe, there were three more out front. And suppose ~ he got away from them? A strange city, where they had everything organized, everything under control - where would he run to?
Once he had come across the stable cat playing with a mouse. He had watched for a moment, fascinated even though his sympathies were with the mouse, before he had stepped forward and put the poor beastie out of its misery. The cat had never once let the mouse scamper further than pounce range. Now he was the mouse.
"Up you come!"
Don jumped to his feet, startled and having trouble placing himself. "I wish I had your easy conscience," the guard said admiringly. "It's a real gift to be able to catch forty winks any time. Come on; the boss wants you."
Don preceded him back into the living room; there was no one there but the mate of the man who had guarded him. Don turned and said, "Where is Dr. Jefferson?"
"Never mind," his guard replied. "The lieutenant hates to be kept waiting." He started on out the door.
Don hung back. The second guard casually took him by the arm; he felt a stabbing pain clear to his shoulder and went along.
Outside they had a manually-operated car larger than the robot cabs. The second guard slipped into the driver's seat; the other urged Don into the passenger compartment. There he sat down and started to turn-and found that he could not. He was unable even to raise his hands. Any attempt to move, to do anything other than sit and breathe, felt like struggling against the weight of too many blankets. "Take it easy," the guard advised. "You can pull a ligament fighting that field. And it does not do any good."
Don had to prove to himself that the man was right. Whatever the invisible bonds were, the harder he strained against them the tighter they bound him. On the other hand when he relaxed and rested he could not even feel them. "Where are you taking me?" he demanded.
"Don't you know? The city I.B.I. office, of course."
"What for? I haven't done anything!"
"In that case, you won't have to stay long."
The car pulled up inside a large garaging room; the three got out and waited in front of a door; Don had a feeling that they were being looked over. Shortly the door opened; they went inside.
The place had the odor of bureaucracy. They went down a long corridor past endless offices filled with clerks, desks, transtypers, filing machines, whirring card sorters. A lift bounced them to another level; they went on through more corridors and stopped at an office door. "Inside," said the first guard. Don went in; the door slid shut behind him with the guards outside.
"Sit down, Don." It was the leader of the group of four, now in the uniform of security officer and seated at a horseshoe desk.
Don said, "Where is Dr. Jefferson? What did you do with him?"
"Sit down, I said." Don did not move; the lieutenant went on, "Why make it hard for yourself? You know where you are; you know that I could have you restrained in any way that suited me-some of them quite unpleasant. Will you sit down, please, and save us both trouble?"
Don sat down and immediately said, "I want to see a lawyer."
The lieutenant shook his head slowly, looking like a tired and gentle school teacher. "Young fellow, you've been reading too many romantic novels. Now if you had studied the dynamics of history instead, you would realize that the logic of legalism alternates with the logic of force in a pattern dependent on the characteristics of the culture. Each culture evokes its own basic logic. You follow me?"
Don hesitated; the other went on, "No matter. The point is, your request for a lawyer comes about two hundred years too late to be meaningful. The verbalisms lag behind the facts. Nevertheless, you shall have a lawyer or a lollipop, whichever you prefer, after I am through questioning you. If I were you, I'd take the lollipop. More nourishing.
"I won't talk without a lawyer," Don answered firmly.
"No? I'm sorry. Don, in setting up your interview I budgeted eleven minutes for nonsense. You have used up four already - no, five. When the eleven minutes are gone and you find yourself spitting out teeth, remember that I bore you no malice. Now about this matter of whether or not you will talk; there are several ways of making a man talk and each method has its fans who swear by it. Drugs, for example - nitrous oxide, scopolamine, sodium pentothal, not to mention some of the new, more subtle, and relatively non-toxic developments. Even alcohols have been used with great success by intelligence operatives. I don't like drugs; they affect the intellect and clutter up an interview with data of no use to me. You'd be amazed at the amount of rubbish that can collect in the human brain, Don, if you had had to listen to it-as I have.
"And there is hypnosis and its many variations. There is also the artificial stimulation of an unbearable need, as with morphine addiction. Finally there is old-fashioned force-pain. Why, I know an artist - I believe he is in the building now - who can successfully question the most recalcitrant case, in minimum time and using only his bare hands. Then, of course, under that category, is the extremely ancient switch in which the force, or pain, is not applied to the person being examined but to a second person whom he cannot bear to see hurt, such as a wife, or son, or daughter. Offhand, that method would seem difficult to use on you, as your only close relatives are not on this planet." The security officer glanced at his watch and added, "Only thirty seconds of nonsense still available, Don. Shall we start?"
"Huh? Wait a minute! You used up the time; I've hardly said a word."