Pehrson was a man in whom allegiance was easily swayed. His loyalty was only for the top man of any hierarchy, and he suddenly began to regard Baker with an amazed incredulity. It seemed akin to witchcraft to be able to pull out works of near genius from the dross material Baker had been supporting with his grants. Pehrson wasn't quite sure how it had been done although he had been present throughout the whole process. He only knew that Baker had developed a kind of prescience that was nothing short of miraculous, and from now on he was strictly a Baker man.
Baker was happy with this outcome. The problem of Pehrson had been a bothersome one. Civil Service regulations forbade his displacement. Baker had been undecided how to deal with him. With Pehrson's acceptance of the new methods, the entire staff swung behind Baker, and the previous grumblings and complaints finally ceased. He stood on top in his own office, at least, Baker reflected.
George H. Wily was not happy, however. He waited two full days after receiving the announcement of NBSD's grant for the coming year. He consulted with his Board of Regents and then took a night plane down to Washington to see Baker.
He was coldly formal as he entered Baker's office. Baker shook his hand warmly and invited him to sit down.
"I was hoping you'd drop in again when you came to town," said Baker. "I was sorry we had to ask you for so much new information, but I appreciate your prompt response."
Wily's eyes were frosty. "Is that why you gave us only two hundred thousand?" he asked.
Baker spread his hands. "I explained when you were here last that we were getting a flood of applications. We have been forced to distribute the money much more broadly than in other years. There is only so much to go around, you know."
"There is just as much as you've ever had," snapped Wily. "I've checked on your overall appropriation. And there is no increase in qualified applicants. There is a decrease, if anything.
"I've done a little checking on the grants you've made, Baker. I'd like to see you defend your appropriation for that miserable little school called Clearwater College. I made a detailed study of their staff. They haven't a single qualified man. Not one with a background any better than that of your elevator operator!"
Baker looked up at the ceiling. "I remember an elevator man who became quite a first rate scientist."
Wily glared, waiting for explanation, then snorted. "Oh, him—"
"Yes, him," said Baker.
"That doesn't explain your wasting of Government funds on such an institution as Clearwater. It doesn't explain your grants to—"
"Let me show you what does explain my grants," said Baker. "I have what I call the Index—with a capital I, you know—"
"I don't care anything about your explanations or your Index!" Wily exclaimed. "I'm here to serve notice that I represent the nation's interest as well as that of Great Eastern. And I am not going to stand by silently while you mismanage these sacred funds the way you have chosen to do in recent months. I don't know what's happened to you, Baker. You were never guilty of such mistakes before. But unless you can assure me that the full normal grant can be restored to Great Eastern, I'm going to see that your office is turned inside out by the Senate Committee on Scientific Development, and that you, personally, are thrown out."
Wily glared and breathed heavily after his speech. He sat waiting for Baker's answer.
Baker gave it when Wily had stopped panting and turned to drumming his fingers on the desk. "Unless your record of achievement is better this year than it has been in recent years, Great Eastern may not get any allotment at all next year," he said quietly.
Wily shaded toward deep red, verging on purple, as he rose. "You'll regret this, Baker! This office belongs to American Science. I refuse to see it desecrated by your gross mismanagement! Good day!"
Baker smiled grimly as Wily stormed out. Then he picked up the phone and asked Doris to get Fenwick at Clearwater. When Fenwick finally came on, Baker said, "Wily was just here. I expected he would be the one. This is going to be it. Send me everything you've got for release. We're going to find out how right Sam Atkins was!"
He called the other maverick schools he'd given grants, and the penny ante commercial organizations he'd set on their feet. He gave them the same message.
It wasn't going to be easy or pleasant, he reflected. The biggest guns of Scientific Authority would be trained on him before this was over.
Drew Pearson had the word even before it reached Baker. Baker read it at breakfast a week after Wily's visit. The columnist said, "The next big spending agency to come under the fire of Congressional Investigation is none other than the high-echelon National Bureau of Scientific Development. Dr. William Baker, head of the Agency, has been accused of indiscriminate spending policies wholly unrelated to the national interest. The accusers are a group of elite universities and top manufacturing organizations that have benefited greatly from Baker's handouts in years past. This year, Baker is accused of giving upwards of five million dollars to crackpot groups and individuals who have no standing in the scientific community whatever.
"If these charges are true, it is difficult to see what Dr. Baker is up to. For many years he has had an enviable record as a tight-fisted, hard-headed administrator of these important funds. Congress intends to find out what's going on. The watchdog committee of Senator Landrus is expected to call an investigation early next week."
Baker was notified that same afternoon.
Senator Landrus was a big, florid man, who moved about a committee hearing chamber with the ponderous smoothness of a luxury liner. He was never visited by a single doubt about the rightness of his chosen course—no matter how erratic it might appear to an onlooker. His faith in his established legislative procedures and in the established tenets of Science was complete. Since he wore the shield of both camps, his confidence in the path of Senator Robert Landrus was also unmarred by questions.
Baker had faced him many times, but always as an ally. Now, recognizing him as the enemy, Baker felt some small qualms, not because he feared Landrus, but because so much was at stake in this hearing. So much depended on his ability to guide the whims and uncertainties of this mammoth vessel of Authority.
There was an unusual amount of press interest in what might have seemed a routine and unspectacular hearing. No one could recall a previous occasion when the recipients had challenged a Government handout agency regarding the size of the handouts. While Landrus made his opening statement several of the reporters fiddled with the idea of a headline that said something about biting the hand that feeds. It wouldn't quite come off.
Wily was invited to make his statement next, which he did with icy reserve, never once looking in Baker's direction. He was followed by two other university presidents and a string of laboratory directors. The essence of their remarks was that Russia was going to beat the pants off American researchers, and it was all Baker's fault.
This recital took up all of the morning and half the afternoon of the first day. A dozen or so corporation executives were next on the docket with complaints that their vast facilities were being hamstrung by Baker's sudden switch of R&D funds to less qualified agents. Baker observed that the ones complaining were some of those who had never spent a nickel on genuine research until the Government began buying it. He knew that Landrus had not observed this fact. It would have to be called to the senator's attention.