"Yes, yes! That's the spirit we need to impart! It's entirely on our shoulders now. The Third Fleet must take up the sword alone." His temper had been quite restored. "But." He raised a stern finger. "One thing at a time, and not missing a single detail. That's how we've got to do it."
"The business of the day, sir?"
"Yes, we'll discuss it over breakfast." A rare honor. "Have you eaten yet today?" And Calder went off to do his master's bidding.
Leif Janson, meanwhile, dressed himself in a state of anxiety such as he had seldom experienced. He had no grounds for this feeling; he had been summoned at odd hours by high personages before. But remembering his blunder the day before, so innocent, and yet looked upon with such gravity, he felt in his gut that a dark cloud hung over him, and wondered only at the severity of the coming storm.
He had never liked Hayes, liked him still less for their meeting; but this could not alter the fact, much as it galled him, that he was terrified of the man. STUPID, he admonished himself. THIS ISN'T NAZI GERMANY. He tried to shave, cut himself, realized that this would look bad, placed a skin pad over the area, forgetting to wipe away the blood first, ripped it off, toweled his face and did it again. By now his agitation was so acute that he began to get angry. But his experience in government service told him that if he gave in to his instincts (fought back), not only would things not get better, they could get considerably worse.
And so, passing through the corridor and up through an elevator tube, he entered after two lefts and a right, the hallway that led to SubCon 20. He checked his watch. Two minutes early. He stopped, knowing by reputation Hayes' fanaticism concerning time. Needing something to occupy his mind, he mused for perhaps the thousandth time that everything in the military was capital letters and even numbers: black and white. He paced a little, and looking up, saw to his dismay that the hall camera followed his every movement. He checked his watch. Thirty seconds to go. TO HELL WITH THIS, he thought. He entered the chamber.
Hayes looked up from the table as he saluted, nodded placidly, and finished his breakfast without haste. Calder, standing against the adjacent wall, gazed at him with the blank, somewhat hostile expression of an off-duty drill sergeant. Hayes placed the tray in the wall-slot, brushed stray crumbs from the table with his uniform sleeve, and without rising, addressed him.
"Major Leif Janson, I believe. Well, Major. Since yesterday I've checked your record, and I believe you can be trusted."
"Thank you, sir." He wondered why this vote of confidence did not comfort him. "I'm sorry for my blunder, sir. It was inexcusable."
Hayes' words belied his expression. "A momentary lapse, nothing more." He placed a strange emphasis on 'lapse.' "You've been trained for high-speed craft, is that correct?"