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.