had grown more relaxed in Lancaster's presence. "It was inevitable, I
suppose, that scientific research should become corporate," said the
Chinese. "So much equipment was needed, and so many specialties had to
be coordinated, that the solitary genius with only a few assistants
hadn't a chance. Nevertheless, it's a pity. It's destroyed initiative in
many promising young men. The top man is no longer a scientist at
all--he's an administrator with some technical background. The lower
ranks do have to exercise ingenuity, yes, but only along the lines they
are ordered to follow. If some interesting sideline crops up, they can't
investigate it. All they can do is submit a memorandum to the chief, and
most likely if anything is done it will be carried out by someone else."

"What would you do about it?" shrugged Lancaster. "You just admitted
that the old-time genius in a garret can't compete."

"No--but the small team of creative specialists, each with an excellent
understanding of the others' fields, and each working in a loose,
free-willed cooperation with the rest, can. Indeed, the results will be
much better. It was tried once, you may know. The early cybernetics men,
back in the last century, worked that way."

"I wish we could co-opt some biologists and psychologists into this,"
murmured Rakkan. His English was good, though indescribably accented by
his vocal apparatus. "The cellular and neural implications of
dielectricity look--promising. Maybe later."

"Well," said Lancaster defensively, "a large Project can be made more
secure--less chance of leakage."

Hwang said nothing, but he cocked an eyebrow at an almost treasonable
angle.

* * * * *

In going through Sophoulis' equations, Lancaster found what he believed
was the flaw that was blocking progress. The man had used a simplified
quantum mechanics without correction for relativistic effects. That made
for neater mathematics but overlooked certain space-time aspects of the
psi function. The error was excusable, for Sophoulis had not been
familiar with the Belloni matrix, a mathematical tool that brought order
into what was otherwise incomprehensible chaos. Belloni's work was still
classified information, being too useful, in the design of new alloys,
for general consumption. Lancaster went happily to work correcting the
equations. But when he was finished, he realized that he had no business
showing his results without proper c