“Look at you. You know all about what makes the universe tick and I’m lost completely except that I know that a star is something that twinkles and a light-year is something that’s long. And yet you’ll swallow gibberish-psychology that a freshman student of mentics would laugh his head off at. Don’t you think, Cimon, it’s time we worried less about professional opinion and more about over-all co-ordination?”
The color washed slowly out of Cimon’s face. It turned waxy-pale. His lips trembled. He whispered, “You used professional status as a cloak to make a fool of me.”
“That’s about it,” said Sheffield.
“I have never, never —” Cimon gasped and tried a new start. “I have never witnessed anything as cowardly and unethical.”
“I was trying to make a point.”
“Oh, you made it. You made it.” Cimon was slowly recovering; his voice approaching normality. “You want me to take that boy of yours with us.”
“That’s right.”
“No. No. Definitely no. It was no before you came in here and it’s no a million times over now.”
“What’s your reason? I mean, before I came in.”