Baker continued to regard Wily across the desk for a long moment. Wily was one of them, he thought. One of the most heavily infected of all. Surround yourself with Authority. Fold it about you like a shell. Never step beyond the boundaries set by Authority. This was George H. Wily, President of Great Eastern University. This was a man stricken by the Great Gray Plague.
"I need a report," said Baker. "For our new program of screening I need a report of past performance under our grants. The last two years would be sufficient, I think, from Great Eastern."
Wily was disturbed. He frowned and hesitated. "I'm sure we could supply such a report," he said finally. "There's never been any question—"
"No question at all," said Baker. "I just need to tally up the achievements made under recent grants. I shall also require some new information for the Index. I'll send forms as soon as they're ready."
"We'll be more than glad to co-operate," said Wily. "It's just that concrete achievement in a research program is sometimes hard to pin point, you know. So many intangibles."
"I know," said Baker.
When Wily was gone, Baker continued sitting at his desk for a long time. He wished fervently that he could talk with Sam Atkins for just five minutes now. And he hoped Sam hadn't gotten too blistered by his mentors when he returned home after fluffing the inquiry he was sent out on.
There was no chance, of course, that Baker would ever be able to talk with Sam again. That one fortuitous encounter would have to do for a lifetime. But Sam's great cryptic statement was slowly beginning to make sense: When you cease to be fearful of Authority, you become Authority.
Neither Baker or Wily, or any of the members of Wily's lock-step staff were Authority. Rather, they all gave obeisance to the intangible Authority of Science, and stood together as self-appointed vicars of that Authority, demanding penance for the slightest blasphemy against it. And each one stood in living terror of such censure.
The same ghost haunted the halls of Government. The smallest civil servant, in his meanest incivility, could invoke the same reverence for that unseen mantle of Authority that rested, however falsely, on his thin shoulders.