"Quadrate Blair, if you'll accompany us please." They stood there, their faces impassive, their tones matter-of-fact as though they had asked him to pass the salt. "Accompany you? I understood that you were going to deliver--" "S-Council, Department of Security, sir. You appreciate our position. We have our orders. The Prelatinate-Attorney suggests an interview immediately, sir. If you will accompany us, please." "You may tell the--the Prelatinate-Attorney that I'm quite busy, but that I shall be glad to make an appointment for him later tomorrow." They stood there. There was a questioning look on Dot's face, and he had no answer for it. Somehow, they'd gotten onto something. Jane. No. Tayne again-- "We are sorry, sir." "I'm afraid I fail to understand. You make it sound actually as though I'm to have no choice in the matter. Who issued your orders?" "Office of the Director, sir. And actually, sir, you have no choice. If you will please accompany us." They stood, immobile, waiting. There were only two of them. But he knew that in minutes there could be two hundred. He went with them. * * * * * He judged the pneumatic elevator tube had descended at least 20 levels below the surface before it came to a softly-whispering halt on a resilient cushion of compressed air. They left the tube, and the same miracle of lighting that kept the city in eternal daylight was gently suffused through the entire length of the wide, silent corridors. They did not walk far. Doug forced his mind into what order he could. If this were some adventure fantasy from the pages of fiction there would somehow be an escape, some thing he could suddenly do and the tables would be turned. But it was not. It was fantastic, but it was as real as the day the first atomic bomb was dropped. The sliding panel admitted them to a round, low-ceilinged room similar in most respects to his own office, even to the intertelecon screen inset in the curving wall to the left of the large metal desk. The man behind the desk was thin-faced and slight, but there was an intelligence behind the high forehead that seemed to put a snap in his wide-spaced eyes as well as in his voice. But it was the eyes that made Doug's nerves feel that they must break like an overdrawn violin string at any moment; the voice was smooth, controlled. The orderlies saluted and were dismissed. The panel slid closed. "Sorry to have to call you down here like this, Doug. But damn it, it's my job, and besides that you've done something this time for which there'd be hell to pay if the PG ever found out and you know it as well as I do." He gestured Doug to a chair. The Prelatinate-Attorney's tone was relaxed, but Doug wondered how it might have sounded to a man of lesser rank than himself. One thing was certain; it was time to go back into the act. "I suppose this all is leading up to threats of the S-Council--"