8 Doubt The August sun was blazing overhead as I made my way back to the path that paralleled Kate's Creek. Although I had grown up in St. Louis and had lived for years on the East Coast, I had spent enough time in milder climates to become perma- nently uncomfortable with the humidity that accompanied Connecticut's summer heat. I was grateful to slip beneath the trees as I turned in the direction of Building 8. For the exposure I was feeling on the inside, however, there was no cover. I was on completely unfamiliar ground. Nothing I had experienced in my career had prepared me for my meeting with Bud. But although I was feeling quite unsure of myself and was far less convinced that I was on the top of the Zagrum advancement heap than I had been just a few hours before, I also had never felt better about what I was doing. I knew there was something I had to do during this break--I just hoped that Joyce Mulman was around to allow me to do it. "Sheryl, could you tell me where Joyce Mulman's desk is?" I asked my secretary as I walked past her and into my office. As I turned from putting my notebook on the table, I noticed that Sheryl was standing at my door, a worried look on her face. "What's wrong?" she asked slowly. "Has Joyce done some- thing again?" Sheryl's words implied concern for me, but her manner betrayed her concern for Joyce, as if she wanted to warn Joyce of an impending storm if she had the chance. And I was sur- prised by the assumption, implicit in her question, that if I 50