"So have I," Mark said grinning.
"Thassalian?" the girl was startled. It was the forbidden Martian liquor of the Gods. It could achieve almost miraculous cures when taken in tiny doses; it gave the sensation of ineffable happiness, and when taken to excess, it drove the addict hopelessly insane.
"We still haven't solved the problem of the special permit," Mark reminded them.
"I have one for a party of four, which I haven't used as yet," Doctor Fortun said with a hint of shyness. "You'll have time to read your orders and then I'll pick you both up at International House in my helio-plane. Agreed?"
"Agreed!" Both Mark and Palanth said fervently. They watched the slight figure of the girl as she made her way through the crowds with precision, her purple tunic vivid against the white carpet of fallen snow. "Her mind was well guarded!" Palanth thought aloud.
"It is a mind of power, or I would have contacted it," Mark barely whispered without moving his lips.
"Still, there can be nothing at Havanol that we can't cope with," Palanth shot a powerful telepathetic vibration at the Earthian Spacer. "Have you had the feeling of being under spy-ray, Mark?"
"Yes, for months ... but I've guarded my mind, and as you know, the Council's spy-ray is not quite effective on those beyond controls one, six and fifteen; we're beyond conditioning for penetration by their mental synthesis. At times they're able to obtain partial ideation which they reconstruct and reform into thought-pattern trends—but hell! our thought-trends and individualistic patterns have been known to them all our lives. However, we are being used as tools—indirectly!"
"We have no proof, Earthman! In any event, within certain limits we are still free agents. Their orders may be one thing, what we do ... is another. This cataclysm has shorn the World State of most of its power, on Terra at any rate. Mars and Venus would sweep the resettlements off their planets if the Terran fleet weren't constantly on guard!"