The rumbling veered in his direction at once, and then a Goon's unseen arms were lifting him to his feet. "The President—!" Lennick cried. "He's in danger!"
A moment's hesitance, and the Goon flatly replied, "The President is in no danger. He has been taken to the Brain at his own request, under competent escort."
Lennick, suddenly divining what must be the case, said, "His plate! Someone must have his plate, then, because—"
"You are bleeding," the Goon said dispassionately.
Bob's fingers came up to his face and he winced at the smarting pain their exploration produced at the point where he had struck the building wall. "It's nothing," he said, impatiently. "We've got to—"
"We will take you for hospitalization at once," said the voice of the Goon in the blackness.
"Hospitalization?" Bob said, irritably. "Don't you guys understand? The President—" And then it sank in. "No!" he shrieked. "You can't! I'm on your side!"
Other sets of heavy wheels rolled nearer, and inflexible metal fingers closed over his arms. The Goons began to roll ponderously off, with Bob firmly in their grasp. He was still shrieking when the mouth of the incinerator chute enveloped him.
Lloyd and Andra were awaiting the lift at Sub-Level one, guided in the blackness by the Goon who had led them to the control chamber, when Bodger and the others arrived. Stanton, only semi-conscious, was being held upright in the arms of the prop-Goon, lest a real Goon pick him up for "treatment" because of his bruises, one on the back of his head where Frank had connected, the other glowing a steadily darker purple on his jaw where Bodger's knockout punch had landed earlier. Lloyd, sensing the tenancy of the lift even in the blackness, drew back apprehensively, and then his father's voice was speaking to him in assurance.