When Sam Sokolski had flicked off, Larry stared at the vacant phone screen for a long moment, assimilating what the other had told him. He was astonished that an organization such as the Movement could have spread to the extent it evidently had through the country's intellectual circles, through the scientifically and technically trained, without his department being keenly aware of it.
One result, he decided glumly, of labeling everything contrary to the status quo as weird and dismissing it with contempt. Admittedly, that would have been his own reaction only a week ago.
Suppose that he'd been at a cocktail party, and had drifted up to a group who were arguing about social-label judgments and the need to develop a movement to change society's use of them. The discussion would have gone in one ear, out the other, and he would have muttered inwardly, “Weirds,” and have drifted on to get himself another vodka martini.
Larry snorted and dialed the Department of Records. He'd never heard of Frank Nostrand before, so he got Information.
The bright young thing who answered seemed to have a harried expression untypical of Records employees. Larry said to her, “I'd like the brief on a Mr. Frank Nostrand who is evidently an expert on rockets. The only other thing I know about him is that he recently got in the news as the result of a controversy with Senator McCord.”
“Just a moment, sir,” the bright young thing said.
She touched buttons and reached into a delivery chute. When her eyes came up to meet his again, they were more than ever harried. They were absolutely confused.
“Mr. Franklin Howard Nostrand,” she said, “currently employed by Madison Air as a rocket research technician.”