The Project Gutenberg EBook of Meeting of the Board, by Alan Edward Nourse

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Title: Meeting of the Board

Author: Alan Edward Nourse

Release Date: October 3, 2007 [EBook #22867]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from _The Counterfeit Man More Science
Fiction Stories by Alan E. Nourse_ published in 1963. Extensive
research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on
this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical
errors have been corrected without note.

Meeting
of the
Board

It was going to be a bad day. As he pushed his way nervously through the
crowds toward the Exit Strip, Walter Towne turned the dismal prospect
over and over in his mind. The potential gloominess of this particular
day had descended upon him the instant the morning buzzer had gone off,
making it even more tempting than usual just to roll over and forget
about it all. Twenty minutes later, the water-douse came to drag him,
drenched and gurgling, back to the cruel cold world. He had wolfed down
his morning Koffee-Kup with one eye on the clock and one eye on his
growing sense of impending crisis. And now, to make things just a trifle
worse, he was going to be late again.

He struggled doggedly across the rumbling Exit strip toward the plant
entrance. After all, he told himself, why should he be so upset? He
_was_ Vice President-in-Charge-of-Production of the Robling Titanium
Corporation. What could they do to him, really? He had rehearsed _his_
part many times, squaring his thin shoulders, looking the union boss
straight in the eye and saying, "Now, see here, Torkleson--" But he
knew, when the showdown came, that he wouldn't say any such thing. And
this was the morning that the showdown would come.

Oh, not because of the _lateness_. Of course Bailey, the shop steward,
would take his usual delight in bringing that up. But this seemed hardly
worthy of concern this mornin