Somewhere, somehow, to bring Wrightwood to his knees, Hagen had to do something on his own, of his own, for his own, that would command the respect and envy of his foster father; preferably something that would advance Steve while clipping Wrightwood where it hurt the most: his business and his empire.
Steve was still fuming about his foster father's suggestion when he returned to Base One. He sat over his desk, writing the reports of his inspections, and constantly repeated the original question: Was he being overly hard on Wrightwood because he disliked him?
Once or twice the urge to lighten a report came, then once or twice the desire to make one more damning came; and the result of this was to leave Steve in a quandary.
He wanted to be fair.
But no man can be honestly fair when his emotions are involved; he gave up, filled in the report statements in a mechanical manner, transcribing them from his notes as though he had no opinion other than the notes, and when he finished that, he felt at least that he had not been inclined to color the data.
Finishing the paper work, Steve headed for the mess hall and met Lois on the way. "Coffee?" he asked.
She nodded, looking at him carefully. "What's wrong, Steve?"
"Inspection is not a pleasant job."
"What happened?"