"You think Clearwater College could make better use of some of our funds than, say, MIT?"
"I wouldn't be surprised. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the boys at MIT or Cal Tech or a lot of other places couldn't come up with a real development in the way of a fermodacular filter for reducing internucleated cross currents. But the real breakthroughs—you've closed your doors and locked them out."
"Who have we locked out? We've screened and fine combed the resources of the entire country. We know exactly where the top research is being conducted in every laboratory in the nation."
Fenwick shook his head slowly and smiled. "You've forgotten the boys working in their basements and in their back yard garages. You've forgotten the guys that persuade the wife to put up with a busted-down automatic washer for another month so they can buy another hundred bucks worth of electronic parts. You've remembered the guys who have Ph. D.'s for writing 890-page dissertations on the Change of Color in the Nubian Daisy after Twilight, but you've forgotten guys like George Durrant, who can make the atoms of a crystal turn handsprings for him."
Baker leaned back in his chair and smiled. He almost wished he hadn't wasted the effort of trying to show Fenwick. But, then, he had tried. And he would always have regretted it if he hadn't.
"You're referring now to the crackpot fringe?" he said.
"I suppose so," said Fenwick. "I've heard it called that before."
"One of the things, above all else, which the Index was designed to accomplish," said Baker, "was the screening out of all elements that might be ever so remotely associated with the crackpot fringe. And believe me, you'll never know how strong it is in this country! Every two-bit tinkerer wants a handout to develop his world-shaking gadget that will suppress the fizz after the cap is removed from a pop bottle, or adapt any apartment-size bathtub for raising tropical fish."
"You ever heard of the flotation process?" said Fenwick abruptly.
Baker frowned at the sudden shift of thought. "Of course—"