"No go. Not even you can swing that deal," Fred said. "You can't get a mind-pick permit on your lonesome: you need the President's okay. It takes at least a day to go through channels—half a day, if you pull rank. And by that time, Roy, I'll be out of here."
"What?"
"You heard me clear enough. Out. Seems you're holding me here on pretty tenuous grounds. Habeas corpus hasn't been suspended yet, Roy, and Popeek isn't big enough to do it. I've got a writ. I'll be sprung at 1500 today."
"I'll have you back in by 1530," Walton said angrily. "We're picking up di Cassio and that whole bunch. That'll be sufficient grounds to quash your habeas corpus."
"Ah! Maybe so," Fred said. "But I'll be out of here for half an hour. That's long enough to let the world know how you exercised an illegal special privilege and spared Philip Prior from Happysleep. Wiggle out of that one, then."
Walton began to sweat.
Fred had him neatly nailed this time.
Someone in security evidently had let him sneak his plea out of the Keep. Martinez? Well, it didn't matter. By 1500 Fred would be free, and the long-suppressed Prior incident would be smeared all over the telefax system. That would finish Walton; affairs were at too delicate an impasse for him to risk having to defend himself now. Fred might not be able to save himself, but he could certainly topple his brother.
There was no possible way to get a mind-pick request through before 1500; President Lanson himself would have to sign the authorization, and the old dodderer would take his time about it.
Mind picking was out, but there was still one weapon left to the head of Popeek, if he cared to use it. Walton moistened his lips.