Roysland looked at the dark, blurred reflection of his face in the black plastic of his desk for a moment, then grinned. "All right, buster," he said to the face in the desk, "you're stuck for a while, anyway. Time to call in some help."
He touched a switch plate on his desk panel and said: "Call a meeting of the Special Weapons Staff at my home at twenty-nine hundred hours."
He touched another plate and said: "As soon as the report from the general director comes in, have it transferred to my home."
And another: "Send all data to date on the enemy's latest weapon to my home. Code it Mindjammer."
Then he got up, shut off his desk, and went out. An early meal was on the agenda, it seemed.
Blackpool's Restaurant was, as usual, well populated, but not over-crowded. Roysland managed to find a table in the rear, where he sat down and ordered a tall glass of fruit juice. He liked Blackpool's; its old-fashioned, almost primitive atmosphere was impressive without being phony. The waiters—remote-control humanoids guided by the vast robot brain in the basement—were dressed in the fluffy, bright, fluorescent clothing of a style that had been worn two centuries before, when Blackpool's had been built. The uniforms had never changed.
Roysland consulted the menu, told the waiter what he wanted, and went back to his fruit juice.
"Roysland? Mind if I pull in?"
Roysland looked up at the short, round-faced, smiling man standing by the table. "Not at all Osteban; sit down." Roysland didn't particularly want to talk to him then, but it wouldn't do to offend the Galactic News Service. Roysland waved the man to a seat and asked him if he wanted a drink.
Osteban eyed his host's drink. "What are you drinking? Want to let me taste it?" He took the glass, sipped at it, and made a wry face. "F'revvinsake! Mind if I have something with life in it?"