Fenwick leaned back and extended his arms on the desk. "I said your
whole damned Index is nothing but a bunch of pseudo-intellectual
garbage."
* * * * *
Baker felt the color rising in his face, but he forced himself to remain
calm. After a moment of silence he said. "Your emotional feelings are
understandable, but you must remember that the Index permits us to
administer accurately the National Science Development Act. Without the
scientific assurance of the Index there would be no way of determining
where these precious funds could best be utilized."
"You'd be better off putting the money on the ponies," said Fenwick.
"Sometimes they win. As it stands, you've set it up for a sure loss. You
haven't got a chance in the world."
"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.