He looked at his watch. "Come; we are wasting time, and the Inquisitor
is waiting. Miss Horniman, you must be first."
The girl shrank back behind the bitter-eyed young man. The third
prisoner, a resigned-looking, balding man of fifty or so, did not
change his expression.
"Take me first," the man said. "Leave her alone."
Again Kroll shrugged. "The Inquisitor would like Miss Horniman first,
Mr. Leslie. This is the preferred order, and this is the order that
will be."
A guard stepped forward and shoved the sobbing girl up and ahead,
toward the door. The man named Leslie clashed his manacles impotently
together and spat. "Butchers! Torturers!"
"Please, Mr. Leslie," Kroll said gently, a pained expression on his
face. "You make our job even harder than it is."
* * * * *
He followed the girl into the adjoining room, where the Inquisitor was
waiting. The Interrogation Chamber was an immense rectangular room with
concrete floor and bleak white walls, in the center of which stood the
Inquisitor.
"Good morning, Kroll," the Inquisitor said. Its metallic voice rattled
and boomed in the big room. In the depths of the machine, relays
clicked and hummed. Kroll bowed to it, and the Inquisitor responded
with a gesture of a prolonged metal arm. "The first prisoner, Kroll."
"Miss Florence Horniman," Kroll said. "Accused of treason against the
State. Denies charge."
"How do you plead?" the machine asked coldly.
"Not guilty," stammered the girl.
Two huge metal arms extended from the Inquisitor's sides and folded
around her. They drew her across the room to the bosom of the robot.
"Feed in the data, Kroll."
At the signal, Kroll slipped in the tape on the girl. A moment passed
while the Inquisitor digested the data, and then: "The plea of not
guilty is rejected as invalid."
"You can't just do that!" the girl said. "That's my plea!"
"Not valid in view of the evidence," said the Inquisitor. Kroll smiled
distantly. He had seen this scene repeated, over and over, almost
every day for the ten years he had held the post. He wrapped his
blue-and-gold Interrogator's cloak around himself impressively and
stepped forward.
"You are accused of treason against the State," Kroll said sonorously.
"But it is my duty to inform you that your sentence may be mitigated
upon your delivering us certain information--about leaders of your
movement, future plans, location of your party cell, and so forth."