Now the ironmen had always believed in the principle that what made them special was their raw brainpower, not their acquired knowledge. Anybody could study a subject, learn the details, develop expertise. The way they usually talked about it was that their brainpower was indivisible and transferable. It didn't matter what project you worked on so long as it challenged your mind. A true ironman could prove himself equally as adept at designing a digital satellite router as network software. Hank had instilled this doctrine specifically to prevent the ironmen from worrying about falling behind - if you've got the treasured commodity, you can always catch up. But the whole hubbub around the 686 project undermined this. Quite abruptly, the project you were on mattered, and dearly. Under these new rules, a little fear of falling behind was hard to keep from blooming into an all-out paranoia.