"I'll do my best," McLeod said.
Walton stared at the empty seat where McLeod had been, and tried to picture a green Dirnan sitting there, goggling at him with its three eyes.
He was beginning to feel like a juggler. Popeek activity proceeded on so many fronts at once that it quite dazzled him. And every hour there were new challenges to meet, new decisions to make.
At the moment, there were too many eggs and not enough baskets. Walton realized he was making the same mistake FitzMaugham had, that of carrying too much of the Popeek workings inside his skull. If anything happened to him, the operation would be fatally paralyzed, and it would be some time before the gears were meshing again.
He resolved to keep a journal, to record each day a full and mercilessly honest account of each of the many maneuvers in which he was engaged. He would begin with his private conflict with Fred and the interests Fred represented, follow through with the Lamarre-immortality episode, and include a detailed report on the problems of the subsidiary projects, New Earth and Lang's terraforming group.
That gave him another idea. Reaching for his voicewrite, he dictated a concise confidential memorandum instructing Assistant Administrator Eglin to outfit an investigatory mission immediately; purpose, to go to Venus and make contact with Lang. The terraforming group was nearly two weeks overdue in its scheduled report. He could not ignore them any longer.
The everlasting annunciator chimed, and Walton switched on the screen. It was Sellors, and from the look of abject terror on the man's face, Walton knew that something sticky had just transpired.
"What is it, Sellors? Any luck in tracing Lamarre?"
"None, sir," the security chief said. "But there's been another development, Mr. Walton. A most serious one. Most serious."