He had been wrong, he thought with fierce satisfaction. Red tape wasn't the way. Red tape wasn't synonymous with the precautionary, careful thinking that Joe should have done.
Joe leaned over and picked up a two-inch bar of steel that had been carelessly dropped on the field. In the steel hands of the armor suit he slowly twisted it until it sheared in two. He dropped the pieces on the ground. He advanced on O'Conners. The inspector looked from side to side at Joe's companions uneasily. "What are you doing -?"
Joe reached out swiftly and clamped him between the two steel arms. The inspector squealed and wriggled loose. Joe let him drop to the dusty ground.
For a moment, O'Conners looked from one to the other of the faceless men. "You'll pay for this! I'll sue -"
They advanced again. The disheveled man turned and ran in panic across the field.
Yes, he'd pay, Joe thought tiredly. But it was worth it to see that red tape artist scrambling in the dust. He shuddered when he thought back to that moment when he'd almost believed that O'Conners' way was right.
That young Barnes had died because of carelessness in dealing with the strangers was bitter knowledge. But regulations piled on regulations were not the cure for carelessness.
The red tape promoters added law to law and pretended it was wisdom. They demanded obedience to regulation merely for the sake of regulation, and they had long ceased to think outside the scope of their sacred rules.
But they betrayed themselves when their laws did not cover the situation at hand. There had been the Trojan incident of Malabar Seven. There had been the death of the nine Cordomarians. And there was the death of Barnes.