"Well, hats off," David said, still not fully believing it. "You giving up your practice to go into research?" he asked Walt. Hisuncle nodded. David drained his cup of eggnog.

"David," Walt said quietly, "we want to hire you."

He looked up quickly. "Why? I'm not into medical research."

"I know what your specialty is," Walt said, still very quietly. "We want you for a consultant, and later on to head a department of research."

"But I haven't even finished my thesis yet," David said, and he felt as if he had stumbled into a pot party.

"You'll do another year of donkey work for Selnick and eventually you'll write the thesis, a bit here, a dab there. You could write it in a month, couldn't you, if you had time?" David nodded reluctantly. "I know," Walt said, smiling faintly. "You think you're being asked to give up a lifetime career for a pipe dream." There was no trace of a smile when he added, "But, David, we believe that lifetime won't be more than two to four years at the very most."

Chapter 2

David looked from his uncle to his father, to the other uncles and cousins in the room, and finally to his grandfather. He shook his head helplessly. "That's crazy. What are you talking about?"

Grandfather Sumner let out his breath explosively. He was a large man with a massive chest and great bulging biceps. His hands were big enough to carry a basketball in each. But it was his head that was his most striking feature. It was the head of a giant, and although he had farmed for many years, and later overseen the others who did it for him, he had found time to read more extensively than anyone else that David knew. There was no book, except the contemporary best sellers, that anyone could mention that he wasn't aware of, or hadn't read. And he remembered what he read. His library was better than most public libraries.

Now he leaned forward and said, "You listen to me, David. You listen hard. I'm telling you what the goddamn government doesn't dare admit yet. We're on the first downslope of a slide that is going to plummet this economy, and that of every other nation on earth, to a depth that they never dreamed of.