"I'm Walton, director of Popeek. I have an appointment with Security
Head Martinez."
"Wait a moment, Director Walton."
None of the obsequious _sirring_ and _pleasing_ Walton had grown
accustomed to. In its way, the bluntness of address was as refreshing
as the unpolluted air.
Walton's keen ears detected a gentle electronic whirr; he was being
thoroughly scanned. After a moment the metal door before him rose
silently into a hidden slot, and he found himself facing an inner door
of burnished copper.
A screen was set in the inner door.
Martinez' face confronted him.
"Good morning, Director Walton. You're here for our interview?"
"Yes."
The inner door closed. This time, two chunky atomic cannons came
barreling down to face him snout first. Walton flinched involuntarily,
but a smiling Martinez stepped before them and greeted him. "Well, why
are you here?"
"To see a prisoner of yours. My brother, Fred."
Martinez frowned and passed a delicate hand through his rumpled hair.
"Seeing prisoners is positively forbidden, Mr. Walton. Seeing them in
person, that is. I could arrange a closed-circuit video screening for
you."
"Forbidden? But the man's here on my word alone. I--"
"Your powers, Mr. Walton, are still somewhat less than infinite. This
is one rule we never have relaxed, and never will. The prisoners in the
Keep are under constant security surveillance, and your presence in the
cell block would undermine our entire system. Will video do?"
"I guess it'll have to," Walton said. He was not of a mind to argue now.
"Come with me, then," said Martinez.
The little man led him down a dim corridor into a side room, one entire
wall of which was an unlit video screen. "You'll have total privacy
in here," Martinez assured him. He did things to a dial set in the
right-hand wall, and murmured a few words. The screen began to glow.
"You can call me when you're through," Martinez said. He seemed to
glide out of the room, leaving Walton alone with Fred.
The huge screen was like a window directly into Fred's cell. Walton met
his brother's bitter gaze head on.
Fred looked demonic. His eyes were ringed by black shadows; his hair
was uncombed, his heavy-featured face unwashed. He said, "Welcome to my
palatial abode, dearest brother."
"Fred, don't make it hard for me. I came here to try to clarify things.
I didn't _want_ to stick you away here. I _had_ to."
Fred smiled balefully. "You don't need to apologize. It was entirely
my fault. I underestimated you; I didn't realize you had changed. I
thought you were the same old soft-hearted dope I grew up with. You
aren't."
"Possibly." Walton wished he had taken that benzolurethrin after all.
Every nerve in his body seemed to be jumping. He said, "I found out
today that Lamarre's dead."
"So?"
"So there's no possible way for Popeek to obtain the immortality serum
except through you. Fred, I need that serum. I've promised it to the
alien in exchange for colonization rights on Procyon VIII."
"A neat little package deal," Fred said harshly. "_Quid pro quo._ Well,
I hate to spoil it, but I'm not going to tell where the _quo_ lies
hidden. You're not getting that serum out of me."
"I can have you mind blasted," Walton said. "They'll pick your mind
apart and strip it away layer by layer until they find what they want.
There won't be much of _you_ left by then, but we'll have the serum."
"No go. Not even you can swing that deal," Fred said. "You can't get a
mind-pick permit on your lonesome: you need the President's okay. It
takes at least a day to go through channels--half a day, if you pull
rank. And by that time, Roy, I'll be out of here."
"What?"
"You heard me clear enough. _Out._ Seems you're holding me here on
pretty tenuous grounds. Habeas corpus hasn't been suspended yet, Roy,
and Popeek isn't big enough to do it. I've got a writ. I'll be sprung
at 1500 today."
"I'll have you back in by 1530," Walton said angrily. "We're picking up
di Cassio and that whole bunch. That'll be sufficient grounds to quash
your habeas corpus."
"Ah! Maybe so," Fred said. "But I'll be out of here for half an hour.
That's long enough to let the world know how you exercised an illegal
special privilege and spared Philip Prior from Happysleep. Wiggle out
of that one, then."
Walton began to sweat.
Fred had him neatly nailed this time.
Someone in security evidently had let him sneak his plea out of the
Keep. Martinez? Well, it didn't matter. By 1500 Fred would be free,
and the long-suppressed Prior incident would be smeared all over the
telefax system. That would finish Walton; affairs were at too delicate
an impasse for him to risk having to defend himself now. Fred might not
be able to save himself, but he could certainly topple his brother.
There was no possible way to get a mind-pick request through before
1500; President Lanson himself would have to sign the authorization,
and the old dodderer would take his time about it.
Mind picking was out, but there was still one weapon left to the head
of Popeek, if he cared to use it. Walton moistened his lips.
"It sounds very neat," he said. "I'll ask you one more time: will you
yield Lamarre's serum to me for use in my negotiations with the Dirnan?"
"Are you kidding? No!" Fred said positively. "Not to save your life or
mine. I've got you exactly where I want you, Roy. Where I've wanted you
all my life. And you can't wriggle out of it."
"I think you've underestimated me again," Walton said in a quiet voice.
"And for the last time."
He stood up and opened the door of the room. A gray-clad security man
hovered outside.
"Will you tell Mr. Martinez I'm ready to leave?" Walton said.
The jetcopter pilot was dozing when Walton reached the landing stage.
Walton woke him and said, "Let's get back to the Cullen Building, fast."
The trip took about ten minutes. Walton entered his office, signaling
his return but indicating he wanted no calls just yet. Carefully,
thoughtfully, he arranged the various strands of circumstance in his
mind, building them into a symmetrical structure.
Di Cassio and the other conspirators would be rounded up by nightfall,
certainly. But no time element operated there; Walton knew he could
get mind-pick authorizations in a day or so, and go through one after
another of them until the whereabouts of Lamarre's formula turned up.
It was brutal, but necessary.
Fred was a different problem. Unless Walton prevented it, he'd be freed
on his writ within hours--and when he revealed the Prior incident, it
would smash Walton's whole fragile construct to flinders.
He couldn't fight habeas corpus. But the director of Popeek did have
one weapon that legally superseded all others. Fred had gambled on his
brother's softness, and Fred had lost.
Walton reached for his voicewrite and, in a calm, controlled voice,
began to dictate an order for the immediate removal of Frederic Walton
from Security Keep, and for his prompt transference to the Euthanasia
Clinic on grounds of criminal insanity.