"And the rest of you might try looking over your own districts. You don't have to wait for a directive, and every one of you can find some improvement that could be made. If it's a district line matter, submit some plan for mutual agreement to my office." He rose and went to the door.
Morely waited, watching George Harwood. The leader of District One gathered his papers, looked down the table for an instant, then went out. Morely followed him at a discreet distance.
As Harwood neared the door to the regional director's office, Morely caught up with him.
"Oh, Harwood," he said loudly. "Caught one of your people in a flagrant case of reckless flying this morning. Why don't you bear down a little on those fellows of yours? This one seemed to think he was winning a heli meet."
He held out the folder he had confiscated. "Here's his identification. I had the guards hold him for you. Second-class citizen. Must've had a lot of spare time, to get the luxury credits and purchase authorization for that ship of his."
Harwood looked at him, a faint expression of annoyance crossing his face. Then, he glanced at the open door nearby, and comprehension grew on his face. He took the folder, nodded wordlessly, and walked rapidly past Morely, who turned to watch him.
As Harwood swung through the door to an elevator, Morely smiled appreciatively. That had been a smart trick, he thought. Have to remember that one. No argument to disturb the Old Man. Not even positive proof that Morely hadn't been talking to empty space. But there was an answer to that, too, if one was alert. He walked through the doorway into the director's office.
The regional director looked up.
"Oh, Morely. You wanted to see me?"
"Yes, sir." Morely stood at rigid attention. "I just thought of all those useless highways around the countryside. Of course, a few of them have been camouflaged and converted to temporary and emergency heli parking lots, but there's still a lot of waste concrete about that could be removed. It would improve the camouflage of the groups. It could be divided into community projects for spare time work, sir."