He didn't know who that man would be. He expected they would offer the job to him, provided he did competent work during the interim; but, wearily, he saw he would have to turn the offer down.
It was not only that his nerves couldn't handle the grinding daily tension of the job; he saw now what Fred might be up to, and it stung.
What if his brother were to hold off exposing him until the moment the UN proffered its appointment ... and then took that moment to reveal that the head of Popeek, far from being an iron-minded Herschelite, had actually been guilty of an irregularity that transgressed against one of Popeek's own operations? He'd be finished. He'd be laughed out of public life for good—and probably prosecuted in the bargain—if Fred exposed him.
And Fred was perfectly capable of doing just that.
Walton saw himself spinning dizzily between conflicting alternatives. Keep the job and face his brother's exposé? Or resign, and vanish into anonymity. Neither choice seemed too appealing.
Shrugging, he dragged himself out of his chair, determined to shroud his conflict behind the mask of work. He typed a request to Files, requisitioning data on the faster-than-light project.
Moments later, the torrent began—rising from somewhere in the depths of the giant computer, rumbling upward through the conveyor system, moving onward toward the twenty-ninth floor and the office of Interim Director Walton.
[VII]
The next morning there was a crowd gathered before the Cullen Building when Walton arrived.