"Time for a coffee," Oscar announced, rising and fetching some. "Let’s run a reality check, guys. Forget all this blue-sky stuff—what’s the agenda? Our agenda here is to gently embarrass the powers that be, and get them to cut some operational slack for federal researchers. At the end of the day, Congress will fund this place at about half last year’s fiscal levels. But in return, we’ll get more direct power into the hands of the lab people. So we’ll create a workable deal. We’ll keep the lab in business, but without all the pork and the graft. That’s a perfectly decent accomplishment. It’s something we could all be very proud of."