His lank gray hair fell on his shoulders. His face, lit only by the little colored sanctuary lights on the low table in the middle of the austerely empty room, was lined and emaciated. He listened in silence, expressionless, as his assistant, Eric Felt, reported to him on the foundation’s guest lecturer. “He’s got a lot of blond hair,” said Eric Felt. “He brushes it out of his eyes and smiles. He’s always smiling. He’s the kind of scientist who appears on television. A celebrity. A popularizer. Is there a role for God in physics? That kind of stuff. Jokes. Paradoxes. Pseudo-profundity. Pretty much the sort of fraud that you’d expect Nikki Hook to pick.” Eric Felt was not just Christian’s assistant. He was his companion and his confidant. His ally in the fight to prevent Nikki from dismantling everything that Christian had fought for since he had taken over from Dieter: proper European intellectual standards, the seriousness that he had always silently embodied. Since Christian never spoke these days, it was Eric Felt who had to express to the world the concern he knew Christian felt.
