"No, I mean your voice reproduced artificially. Your radio voice?"
"No, I never heard it."
"Well, you're about to."
While the personnel advisor busied himself setting up the radio equipment, Ellaby had a few seconds in which to think. He could still make a clean breast of the whole thing. They had chosen him—Mulden, the Sinclair woman and the others in High Falls—for his modality. Very well, he could use that modality to get out from under. He didn't understand. He didn't know what they were leading him to, slowly, over a period of ten years. He didn't want to assassinate the Dictator. What in the world would he want to do that for? He would gladly name all the names he knew if the personnel advisor would only let him forget the whole mad experience and return to High Falls. He could attend Adjustment Academy if they thought he needed it. Anything. Anything....
"Please slip these earphones over your head, over your ears. There. Is the microphone close enough to your lips? I think so."
metal band running over the top of Ellaby's cranium held the earphones in place. Another metal band curved around the side of his cheek and chin, leading to a small microphone before his lips.
"Place your hands on the arms of your chair, please."
Ellaby did as he was told. Click! Click! A pair of manacles sprang up from the chair arms trapping Ellaby's wrists. Ellaby looked at the personnel tester in unpokered alarm. "What did you do that for?" he asked timidly.