The scholar smiled. "Sorry we had to strap you down," he said, "but I'm not nearly as strong as you are, and I didn't have any desire to be jumped before I got a chance to talk to you."
Turnbull relaxed. There was no immediate danger here.
"Know where you are?" Rawlings asked.
"Centaurus City," Turnbull said calmly. "It's a three-day trip, so obviously you couldn't have made it in the five hours after I sent you the message. You had me kidnaped and brought here."
The old man frowned slightly. "I suppose, technically, it was kidnaping, but we had to get you out of circulation before you said anything that might ... ah ... give the whole show away."
Turnbull smiled slightly. "Aren't you afraid that the police will trace this to you?"
"Oh, I'm sure they would eventually," said Rawlings, "but you'll be free to make any explanations long before that time."
"I see," Turnbull said flatly. "Mind operation. Is that what you did to Scholar Duckworth?"
The expression on Scholar Rawling's face was so utterly different from what Turnbull had expected that he found himself suddenly correcting his thinking in a kaleidoscopic readjustment of his mind.
"What did you think you were on to, Dr. Turnbull?" the old man asked slowly.