"Sit down, Carl!"
"Sure...."
"I'm quite sane. Worried?"
"Hell yes I'm worried."
"Take it easy. They thought a man called Litvinov was deranged once—around 1913 I think it was, when he predicted World War One, and the fall of the House of Czars."
"But you can't be serious about this—this kid business. Why my God if I think you've been—overworking, let's say, what d'you think the reaction of the man in the street'll be?"
"That, Carl, hasn't mattered for quite some time. You know it, and I know it. He's already swallowed UMT itself, don't forget."
"But—hell, the Blair Committee isn't the only bunch of politicians around here. And they—"
"I told you, Carl, my committee is strong. I picked it that way. Others can yell all they want. But no amount of yelling—even by the most widely-heard commentators and widely-published columnists—has ever really accomplished much when a particularly strong political faction has decided how things are going to be. It's the things that make you sick that have always made the front pages, remember?"