Even after that--for which he felt no guilt, only relief--Walton felt oppressive foreboding hanging over him. Martinez phoned, late that day, to inform him that the hundred landowners had been duly corralled and were being held in the lower reaches of Security Keep.
"They're yelling and squalling," Martinez said, "and they'll have plenty of high-power legal authority down here soon enough. You'd better have a case against them."
"I'm obtaining an authorization to mind blast the one named di Cassio. He's the ringleader, I think." Walton paused for a moment, then asked, "Did a Popeek copter arrive to pick up Frederic Walton?"
"Yes," Martinez said. "At 1406. A lawyer showed up here waving a writ, a little while later, but naturally we had no further jurisdiction." The security man's eyes were cold and accusing, but Walton did not flinch.
"1406?" he repeated. "All right, Martinez. Thanks for your cooperation."
He blanked the screen. He was moving coolly, crisply now. In order to get a mind-pick authorization, he would have to see President Lanson personally. Very well; he would see President Lanson.
The shrunken old man in the White House was openly deferential to the Popeek head. Walton stated his case quickly, bluntly. Lanson's watery, mild eyes blinked a few times at the many complexities of the situation. He rocked uneasily up and down.
Finally he said, "This mind picking--it's absolutely necessary?"
"Absolutely. We must know where that serum is hidden."
Lanson sighed heavily. "I'll authorize it," he said. He looked beaten.
Washington to New York was a matter of some few minutes. The precious authorization in his hands, Walton spoke to di Cassio via the screener setup at Security Keep, informed him of what was going to be done with him. Then, despite the fat man's hysterical protests, he turned the authorization over to Martinez with instructions to proceed with the mind pick.
It took fifty-eight minutes. Walton waited in a bare, austere office somewhere in the Keep while the mind-picking technicians peeled away the cortex of di Cassio's mind. By now Walton was past all ambivalence, all self-doubt. He thought of himself as a mere robot fulfilling a preset pattern of action.