Boarder's face grew frantic. "Don't do that! You got my note? Do exactly as I said. Those are orders!"
"But we can't carry on an experiment with a bunch of fanatics yapping at our heels."
"I don't care how you do it. You've got to give them what they want. Either that or fold up the experiment. The latest semi-weekly poll shows they effectively control eighty million votes. You know what that means. One word to the Congressional scientific committee and all of us would be out on our ear."
"We could shut the thing up and call it off. The protoplasm would just quietly die and then what would these birds have to worship?"
"Destruction of government property can carry the death penalty," said Boarder ominously. "Besides, you're too much of the scientist to do that. You want to see the thing through just as much as the rest of us do. If I had the slightest fear that you'd destroy it, I'd yank you out of there before you knew where you were—but I haven't any such fears."
"Yes, you're right, but these—" Underwood made a grimace as if he were trying to swallow an oyster with fur on.
"I know. We've got to put up with it. The scientist who survives in this day and age is the one who adjusts to his environment." Boarder grinned sourly.
"I went out to space to escape the environment. Now I'm right back in it, only worse than ever."
"Well, look, Underwood, why can't you just build a sort of balcony with a ramp running across the lab so that these Disciples of the Great One can look down into the bath? You could feed them in at one end of the building and run them out the other. That way it wouldn't upset you. After all, it's only going to last six months."