Chapter 18: What He Wants

Nolan looked at the sheet in the lawyer's hand, and then at Harold.

"No," he said.

Harold waited for the rest of the answer.

"You'd like it explained," Nolan said. "All right."

He turned so the lens had his face, and the crowd, and the dome behind him with the lanterns lit.

"For ten years I was told I was lucky to be here.

I believed it. I took the small desk, the unsigned credit and a very good hire's salary.

I'll keep the work I did. I won't sign anything that says I didn't."

"Mr. Ridley," the lawyer said.

"I'll tell you what I want from the Institute. Two things."

He held up one finger.

"The Deep Field authorship line gets corrected.

The filter is credited to me, by name, in every release and every paper.

Dr. Crewe stays on as coauthor of the observations he actually made, and nothing else."

He held up the second.

"The Northwestern Branch gets funded.

Not by a consortium that could pull out. By the Institute, out of the budget that paid for a roof that didn't need sealing.

Forty people work here in a dome Joan painted herself. They find things. Fund them."

A cheer started at the back of the field, a thin one, and spread.

The families clapped.

The retired couple from Bend clapped, and the boy with the laser pointer whooped, not knowing why.

Joan looked at the ground, and her shoulders moved once.

Harold did not clap.

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