on all these years with his Criteria, and if they
supported him they got named, and if they didn't, they didn't get
named. Not quite as crude as that, of course, but that's what it
boiled down to, let me tell you! But now, if they reject Dan's
petition and the people give him the election over their heads,
they're _really_ in a spot. Out on the ice on their rosy red--

How's that? Can't be too long now. I see Tyndall has just come in,
Bible and all. See if he's got any tomatoes in his pockets. Ol' Moses
really gets you going--ever listen to him talk? Well, it's just as
well. Damn, but it's hot in here--

In the rear chamber, Dan mopped his brow, popped a pill under his
tongue, dragged savagely on the long black cigar. "You with me, son?"

Carl nodded.

"You know what it means."

"Of course. There's your buzzer. Better get in there." Carl went back
to Jean and the others around the 80-inch screen, set deep in the
wall. Dan put his cigar down, gently, as though he planned to be back
to smoke it again before it went out, and walked through the tall oak
doors.

* * * * *

The hubbub caught, rose up for a few moments, then dropped away. Dan
took his seat, grinned across at Libby, leaned his head over to drop
an aside into Parker's ear. Rinehart staring at the ceiling as the
charges are read off in a droning voice--

_--Whereas the criteria for selection of candidates for sub-total
prosthesis, first written by the Honorable Walter Rinehart of the
Great State of Alaska, have been found to be inadequate, outdated, and
utterly inappropriate to the use of sub-total prosthesis that is now
possible--_

_--And whereas that same Honorable Walter Rinehart has repeatedly used
the criteria, not in the just, honorable, and humble way in which such
criteria must be regarded, but rather as a tool and weapon for his own
furtherance and for that of his friends and associates--_

Dan waited, patiently. Was Rinehart's face whiter than it had been?
Was the Hall quieter now? Maybe not--but wait for the petition--

_--The Senate of the United States of North America is formally
petitioned that the Honorable Walter Rinehart should be displaced from
his seat as Chairman in the Criterion Committee, and that his seat as
Chairman of that committee should be resumed by the Honorable Daniel
Fowler, author of this petition, who has hereby pledged himself before
God to seek through this Committee in any and eve